or not.

he goes to the sergeant, who notes if he is on time Then he puts on his uniform and reports to the manager, who ascertains whether or not his hands are clean and his hair is neatly brushed. If he passes this examination successfully, he takes a seat ready for duty. The boys respond to calls in the order of their numbers early in the morning; afterward they take their turns.

A faithful boy in the employ of this company is never discharged merely because business is dull, the resignations of boys who tire of their duties or leave for other causes, and the dismissal of boys who are unsatisfactory, rapidly decreasing the force when additions are not made. It has required no little skill so to arrange the service that inefficient messengers may be detected among so many; but this has been accomplished by an admirable system of records, and discipline is enforced by means of fines and extra hours, which soon lessen the wages, or prolong the period of daily service, of those boys who prove remiss.

Such is an outline of the duties of the telegraphmessengers. To boys who are compelled to support themselves, or to assist in the support of a family, this employment offers many advantages. The work is healthy, because of the constant exercise which the boys are required to take; and it is noticed that boys who, when hired, are puny and

delicate, often become rugged and gain in flesh in a few months. The pay is larger than boys obtain in many other kinds of employment, and they are under a sort of discipline which makes them methodical and tends to correct many bad habits. They are not, it is true, learning any trade which they may follow through life; but those messengers who choose to study telegraphy are said to make especially good operators. The present manager of the messenger service in the Western Union building was formerly a messenger boy, as were once the superintendents of the Western Union offices in two of our large cities.

Useful as is the telegraph, we should not forget that it is the boys who connect its wires with our offices and our homes. Electricity will transmit our messages across a continent or beneath an ocean, but the aid of the boys must be called in to bridge the gap that remains between the instrument and the final destination. The telephone and the phonograph, which already have done what seems to be almost miraculous work, may in time be made the means of conveying a message directly from the telegraph instrument to the person to whom it is addressed. But, until this is accomplished, we must acknowledge our dependence on the messenger-boys and fairly recognize them as persons of business.

"KEEPS coming right down, don't it, Bill?" Bill could not deny it, and did not wish to admit it; therefore, he said nothing.

What was coming down was the snow. It had been falling, thicker and faster, since a little after daylight, and now it was nearly dark. Stumps of trees and gate-posts were capped with great white masses of it; here and there a path, cleared up to the back door of a farm-house, showed on either hand a high bank of it fluted with broom or shovel. The boy, whose observation about its coming down I have just recorded, was Master Winfield Scott Burnham. He was a slender boy, with a pale face, dark eyes, and brown hair, and he sat pressing his face against the pane of a car window, looking with rather a rueful countenance upon the fast-falling snow. The young gentleman sitting opposite him, whom he had made bold to address as Bill, was his big brother, a junior in college,

who had long been Win's hero; and he was worthy to be the hero of any small boy, for he was not only strong and swift and expert in all kinds of muscular sports, but he was too much of a man ever to treat small boys, even though they might be his own brothers, roughly or contemptuously.

Just across the aisle, on the other side of the car, sat Win's eldest sister, Grace, who was a sophomore at "Smith" College; and fronting her on the reversed seat was Win's younger brother, Philip Sheridan.

The reason why these Burnhams happened to be traveling together was this: The Christmas vacation had come, and William and Grace were on their way to their home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The two small boys, whose school at home had closed a week earlier than the colleges, had been visiting their cousins in Hartford for a few days; and it was arranged that William should

come over from Amherst and join Grace at Northampton, and that the two should wait at Springfield for the little boys, who were to be put on the northern train at Hartford by their uncle. But the trains on all the roads had been greatly delayed by the snow, and it was four o'clock before the noon express, with the Burnhams on board, left Springfield for the West. The darkness was closing in, and the wind was rising, and William had already expressed some fear of a snow-blockade upon the mountain. This remark had made Win rather sober, and he had been watching the snow and listening to the wind with an anxious face.

"How long shall we be going to Pittsfield?" he asked his brother.

"There's no telling," answered Will. "We ought to get there in two hours, but at this rate it will be four at the shortest."

"That will make it eight o'clock," sighed Win. "I'm afraid the Christmas tree will all be unloaded before that time."

"Yes, my boy; I'm sorry, but you might as well make up your mind to that."

Win started across the car. This disappointment was too big for one. He must share it with Phil.

"Hold on, General!" said William, in a low tone. "What's the good of telling him? Let him be easy in his mind as long as he can." Win sat down in silence. Phil was telling his sister great stories of the Hartford visit, and his gleeful tones resounded through the car. Grace was laughing at his big talk, and they seemed to be making a merry time of it. But the train had just stopped at Westfield, and there was difficulty in starting. The wind howled ominously, and great gusts of snow came flying down from the roof of the passenger house against the windows of the car. Presently, the two engines that were drawing the train backed up a little to get a good start, and then plunged into the snow.

"Chh! Ch-h! ch-ch! Ch-hh-h-h!" The wheels were slipping upon the track, and the train suddenly came to a halt.

Back again they went, a little further, for another start; and this time the two engines, like "two hearts that beat as one," cleared the course, and the train went slowly on up the grade. Grace and Phil had stopped talking, and they now came across and joined their brothers.

"Sit still and wait till we were shoveled out, I suppose. You see, we could n't go on afoot very well."

Going to be snowed up! That's tip-top!" cried Phil. The boy's love of adventure had crowded out all thoughts of the festival to which they were hastening. "I read in the paper about a train that was snowed up three or four days on the Pacific road, and the passengers had jolly times; the station was n't very far off, and they got enough to eat and drink, and they had all sorts of shows on the train."

"But I'd rather see the show at the Christmas tree to-night," said Win, "than any show we 'll see on this old train. Would n't you, Bill?"

"Perhaps so," answered Bill. It was evident that he had reasons of his own for not wishing to be absent from the festival.

Meantime, the train was ploughing along. Now and then it came to a halt in a cut which the snow had filled, but a small party of shovelers that had come on board at Westfield usually succeeded, after a short delay, in clearing the track. progress was very slow. A full hour and a half was consumed between Springfield and Russell, and it was almost seven o'clock when the train stopped at Chester.

Still, the

The boys were pretty hungry by this time, and the prospect of spending the night in a snow-bank was much less attractive, even to Phil, than it had been two hours before. At Chester, where there was a long halt, the passengers-of whom there were not many-nearly all got out and refreshed themselves. A couple of sandwiches, a piece of custard pie, a big, round doughnut and a glass of good milk, considerably increased Phil's courage and greatly comforted Win, so that they returned to the car ready to encounter with equal mind the perils of the night.

The snow had ceased to fall, but the wind was still blowing. Two or three more shovelers came on board, and, thus reinforced, the train pushed on. But it was slow work; the grade was getting heavier and the drifts were deeper every`mile. But Middlefield was passed and Becket was left behind, and at nine o'clock the train was slowly toiling up toward the summit at Washington, when, suddenly, it came to a halt, and a long blast was blown by the whistles of both engines. Shortly, a brakeman came through the train, and, taking one of the red lanterns from the rear of the last car, hurried down

"Where is he going with that lantern ?" asked

"He is going back a little way," said Will. "The lantern is a signal to keep other trains from running into us. That means that we are to stay

here for some time. I'll go out and see what's up."

Presently, he returned with a sober face, and looking very cold.

“Well, what is it?” they all asked.

"O, nothing; there's a freight-train in the cut just ahead of us with two of its cars off the track, and the cut's about half full of snow. If our Christmas goose is n't cooked already, there'll be plenty of time to have it cooked before we get out of this."

"Is it that deep cut just below the Washington station?" asked Grace.

"The same," " answered Will; "and it's as likely a place to spend Christmas in as you could find anywhere in Western Massachusetts."

"Can't they dig out the snow?" cried Win. "Oh yes," said the big brother, "but it's not an easy thing to do; it's got to be done with shovels, and it will take a long time.”

"How long?" asked Grace, ruefully.

"Nobody knows. But we shall be obliged to wait for more shovelers and wreckers to come up from Springfield, and I should n't wonder at all if we staid here twenty-four hours."

"Can't you telegraph to father?"

"I'm sorry to say I can not. I asked about that, but the station man says the lines are down. No; there's nothing to do but bunk down for the night as well as we can, and wait till deliverance comes. We're in a regular fix and no mistake, and we 've just got to make the best of it," replied Will.

Just then the rear door of the car opened and a figure appeared that had not been seen hitherto upon the train. It was that of a stalwart man, perhaps fifty-five years old, with long white hair and beard, ruddy cheeks and bright gray eyes. He wore a gray fur cap and a long gray overcoat, and looked enough like Somebody that we are all thinking of about Christmas time, to have been that Somebody's twin brother.

"Good evenin', friends!" he said, in a very jolly tone, as he shut the car-door behind him. "Pleased to receive a call from so many on ye. Merry Christmas to ye all! 'Taint often that I kin welcome such a big Christmas party as this to my place!"

"What place is this?" inquired a gray-haired lady, who sat just in front of the Burnhams.

"Washin❜ton 's what they call it," said the jolly farmer. "Pop'lar name enough; but the place don't seem to be over pop'lar jest now, with some on ye." And he laughed a big jolly laugh.

"Is it, like our capital,- -a 'city of magnificent distances'?" inquired the man in the ulster.

"I reckon it is. It's consid'able of a distance

from everywhere else on airth. But it's nigher to heaven 'n any other place hereabouts."

"What is raised on this hill?" inquired the traveling salesman.

"Wind, mostly. Is that article in your line?" The laugh was on the salesman, but he enjoyed it as well as any of them. A bit of a girl about three years old, tugging a flaxen-haired doll under one arm, here came sidling down the aisle of the

car.

"Ith oo Thanty Kauth?" she said, lifting her great, solemn black eyes to the farmer's face. The laugh was on him now; and he joined in it uproariously.

"Not jest exackly, my little gal," he said, as he lifted her up in his arms; "but you've come purty nigh it. Sandy Ross is what they call me.”

"Has oo dot a thleigh and a waindeer?" persisted the little maiden.

"No; but I've got a first-rate wood-sled,—pair o' bobs, with a wood rack on't,—'n' ez siick a span o' Canadian ponies ez ever ye see!"

The farmer stroked the dark hair of the little girl with his great hard hand, and she snuggled down on his shoulder as if he had been her grandfather.

The Burnhams had been joining in the merriment, though they had taken no part in the conversation. But when the little girl climbed down from the arms of Sandy Ross, Will arose and beckoned him to a vacant seat.

"How far from here do you live, Mr. Ross?" "Right up the bank thar. That's my house,

with a light 'n the winder."

It was a comfortable-looking white farm-house, with a sloping roof in the rear and a big chimney in the middle.

"Now, Mr. Ross, I live in Pittsfield, and I want mightily to get there before noon to-morrow. I

"I believe you," said a traveling salesman in a seal-skin cap; "and the sooner you bid us good riddance the better we shall like it."

"And you need n't mind about wishing us many happy returns either," said a black-whiskered man in a plaid ulster; "if we ever get away from here, you won't see us again soon!"

morrow night. Could you take my sister, and those two little chaps and me, and carry us all home early to-morrow morning on your wood-sled, providing it is n't too cold to undertake the journey?"

"Le's see. Wall, yes; I calc'late I could. I was a-thinkin' 'bout goin' over to Pittsfield t'morrer with a little jag o' wood, 'n' I reckon live crit