Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.
| published weekly. | NEW YORK, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1896. | five cents a copy. |
| vol. xviii.—no. 895. | two dollars a year. |
JOHN HENRY.
BY MARY E. WILKINS.
Two days before Christmas John Henry sat on the top rail of the fencewhich separated the seven-acre lot from the oat-field. There were fiverails in the fence, on account of two cows addicted to jumping beingkept in the seven-acre lot, and consequently John Henry was perched atquite a dizzy height from the ground. His mother would have beenexceedingly nervous had she seen him there. He was her only child; histwo older brothers had died in infancy; he had himself been verydelicate, and it had been hard work to rear him. The neighbors said thatMartha Anne Lewis had brought up John Henry wrapped in cotton-wool undera glass shade, and that she believed him to be both sugar and salt asfar as sun and rain were concerned. "Never lets him go out in the hotsun without an umbrella," said they, "and never lets him out at all on arainy day—always keeps him a