Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880

and some saw-fishes, aided by a force of "thrashers" (fox-sharks). The sea was dyed in blood from the stabs inflicted by the saw-fishes under the water, while the thrashers, watching their opportunity, struck at the unwieldy monster as often as it rose to breathe.

The sword-fish is also furnished with a powerful weapon in the shape of a bony snout about four or five feet long, not serrated like the saw-fish, but of a much firmer consistency--in fact, the hardest material known.

THE STORY OF OBED, ORAH, AND THE SMOKING-CAP.

BY MRS. A. M. DIAZ.

[Illustration]

A cozy room, a wood fire, bright andirons, and a waiting company. The Family Story-Teller promised the children he would come, and the whole circle, young, older, oldest, are expecting a good time; for the Family Story-Teller can tell stories by the hour on any subject that may be given him, from a flat-iron to a whale-ship. He once told about a flat-iron--and nothing can be flatter than a flat-iron--a story half an