opening through which I can escape in time of need. The rattlesnake and the owl share my humble home, and we live in peace together.”

The owl nodded his wise head, and the snake shook his rattles in approval of this address which included themselves, and made it unnecessary for them to add their voices to the speechmaking.

A little green lizard roused himself from his warm place in the sun and added his squeaky voice to the general conference:

“I know nothing about dogs and men. My brothers and I live here upon the sandhills where insects are plenty and enemies are few. We spend hours in basking in the delightfully hot sun, and if any noise alarms us dart to our hiding places beneath the roots of the bushes or under some rotten log or tree. We are of several colors, gray, green, yellow or brown, and when we lie still upon the sand or on logs or under leaves it is hard for any beast or bird or man to see us. We may have few blessings, as the world goes, but we at least have nothing of which to complain.”

The prairie chickens were next called upon for an account of themselves, and answered:

“We are the sole representatives of the great coveys of birds of our kind that used to make their homes upon these prairies. Their drumming could be heard within the thickets, and the swift whirring of their brown wings as they beat the air in their diagonal flight. Life was a pleasure to prairie chickens in those good old days before we were born.

“Now it is different. Men learned to consider our flesh a delicacy and hunted us down. They even grudged us the grain that we gathered from their broad wheat and corn fields and treated us as common robbers. Now only a few of us are left, and we dare not call our lives our own. We have learned to be very shy and to hide in the most solitary places. Still, life is not all trouble. The winters in Kansas are short and usually mild, there are plenty of good warm thickets and hedges, and there is always plenty for birds to eat, unless the snow is uncommonly heavy. So we manage to be happy and take each day as it comes.”

The quails trooped forward as the prairie-chickens ceased speaking.

“We are the farmer’s friends,” said they, “and therefore the farmer is friendly to us. We eat the bugs and worms that would destroy his crop. We take a little of his grain now and then, but we more than repay the damage by our warfare upon the bugs.

“We have been so fortunate as to find a farmer who appreciates us, and will allow no one to shoot us. So our year has been peaceful, and we have been bountifully fed.”

An ungainly toad hopped forward as the quails ceased speaking:

“I do not look much like a quail, and can neither fly nor run nor sing; but I also am the farmer’s friend, and am always ready to seize my opportunities when they come in the shape of flies and bugs. I may not be beautiful, to some unappreciative eyes, but I am at least useful.”

The birds having selected the chattering jay to speak for them, he raised his voice as follows:

“My friends desire me to say that our lives are lived above most of the things that annoy the rest of you. Floods and dogs and fences do not trouble us: still, we have dangers enough of our own. There are snakes that climb to our nests and destroy our young. There are prowling cats, and pouncing hawks, and boys with bean-shooters, and men with guns, all of whom are lying in wait for our lives. We are so common and so numerous that men fail to appreciate what we do for them. We make their groves bright by our brilliant plumage, and gay with our cheerful songs. We eat millions of caterpillars and bugs and worms. To be sure, we eat some of the grain and peck the ripest fruit, but then that should be looked upon as our just reward for our labors in men’s behalf. Some of us will soon be taking our flight to southern climes, but many of us will remain here in the friendly shelter of the thickets until spring comes again.”

What more the blue jay might have said was cut short by a great crackling of the bushes, which startled all the birds and smaller animals, and caused even the mountain lion to raise his head and sniff suspiciously.

Their alarm was quieted by the appearance of an old white horse who looked around upon the assembly and asked:

“What is all this? How does it come that coyotes and rabbits, birds and lizards and insects and lions”—very respectfully—“are associating in peace together?”

The object of the meeting was explained to him, and he was asked to add his word to the Thanksgiving service.

“What have I to be thankful for? Look at my bones almost sticking through my skin, my knees strained and my eyes almost blinded by pulling too heavy loads, my wind broken by hard driving, my skin scarred by cruel blows. Life has been all hard work, with scanty food and little rest. What have I to be thankful for? I do not know, unless it is that my cruel master died last night, and can never beat and curse and starve me any more. This is scanty pasture here among the sandhills, but it is better than a full manger, and curses and abuse therewith. Often the best thing that can happen to a horse is to have his master die. And so I am duly thankful.”

As all had now been represented, the jackrabbit said:

“My friends, the reports have now all been made. We have heard many pleasant things, and many things which make us sad. I think, however, that each one has found some cause for thanksgiving, even though his life is hard and filled with danger. All of us have learned that there are troubles and difficulties in the lives of others, many of which do not afflict us, and for this we should be duly thankful. From lions to lizards is a long step in the animal world, but there is a chain of common experience all the way through, binding us together.

“Let us remember through all the year to come, that there is no life without trial and privation, without hope and blessing, without cause for thanksgiving. Let us sympathize more with one another, think less of our own trials, and look oftener at the bright spots that come into our lives.

“The Thanksgiving Assembly for the year Nineteen Hundred and One is now adjourned.”

Mary McCrae Culter.