“A Heading for February.” By Will Byrnes, age 10. (Silver Badge.)
Dear St. Nicholas: I have been a member of your League for five years and am very much interested in the drawing competitions. I cannot begin to tell you what a help the League has been to me, for I know that my work has improved greatly since I first received my membership badge. I often wonder if you can really know what a gold or silver badge means to those of your members who for several years have struggled hard for it. I shall never forget how I felt when I received my silver badge. But I shall not rest contented here; I mean to win the first prize. I compete nearly every month, and, though I do not reach the goal I have. set for myself, I will not be discouraged—I will not stop trying until I win the gold badge. I am writing to ask you if, sometime in the near future, we may have a drawing competition for which we may choose our own subjects. I should enjoy it very much, dear St. Nicholas, and I feel sure that some of the other members would also. Hoping that you will grant my request, I am,
Your enthusiastic League member,
Dear St. Nicholas: Seeing your notice in the April number, requesting the names of past members who have graduated as paid workers, I take pleasure in sending you my name as one of these.
I have done every kind of work for seven different firms, including Raphael Tuck, for whom I regularly make picture post-cards.
I am now nineteen years of age.
I have come over here to study at the Art Akademie for some time.
Perhaps later on I may have the pleasure of submitting some of my work to you.
Sending you hearty good wishes for the League and its promoters, I remain,
Yours faithfully,
PS. I only wish the League were better known in Great Britain. It gave me an upward impetus, for which I am thankful to you. Would it be worth your while to insert an advertisement in such a magazine as “The Captain”? This would reach the right class of readers in England, I met very few people indeed who knew anything about St. Nicholas at all. W. B. H.
Dear St. Nicholas: I send you to-day my poem on “Pleasure.” I dearly love to write for you. I have learned so much by doing so, and if I can no longer win prizes I shall continue to write.
Your faithful member,
Dear St. Nicholas: I can’t tell you how pleased I was to find that I had won a silver badge in the last competition. I have often tried, and been on the honor roll, but I hardly thought I would ever join the ranks of prize-winners. It seems so strange to see one’s own little effusion in print.
The badge, I think, is very, very pretty, and I am extremely proud of it. I want to thank you for your kindness in giving it to me. You don’t know what an encouragement it is.
It seems to me that every one I know has heard about it even my teachers. It shows how many friends St. Nicholas has.
I very seldom compete during winter, when I am busy at school, but perhaps next summer I shall try again.
Thanking you again for your lovely prize, I am,
Your very sincere friend,
“A Study from Nature.”—A Japanese House in California, Mikado’s Birthday. By Dulcebella Barbour, age 12. (Silver Badge.)
Dear St. Nicholas: I want to write and tell you how much I enjoy your article on “How to Study Pictures,”? which came out in the November number../../Number 1. I am very much interested in it, as I have been seeing a great many of them over here. I have seen, here in Florence, the ones by Cimabue, Giotto, Memling, and Albrecht Dürer. In Memling’s I especially looked at the small landscapes mentioned, and what I thought quite strange was how very realistic the rug in it looked. I also examined the details mentioned in the other pictures, which helped me a great deal in my studies of them. I am looking forward with much pleasure to the next numbers.
Your sincere reader,
Other valued letters have been received from Donald Jackson, Dorothy Wimick, Helen George, Evelyn G. Patch, Gladys L. Carroll, Margaret Spahr, Zena Parker, M. McKeon, Dorathy S. Bradford, Mary E. Pidgeon, Florence C. O'Rourke, Katharine Marble Sherwood, Josephine E. Swain, Natalie Wurts, Meg Greenless, William A. R. Russum, Dorothy Arnold, Jeanette P. Hunt, Marjorie Macgregor, Dorothy Weiman, Mary Gorgas, and Eleanor Wyman.
The Roll of Honor.
No. 1. A list of those whose work would have been published had space permitted.
No.. 2. A list of those whose work entitles them to honorable mention and encouragement.
VERSE 1.
- Roscoe H. Vining
- Alleme Langford
- Catharine H. Straker
- Grace Leslie Johnston
- J. Horton Daniels, Jr,
- Dorothea Thompson
- Emily Rose Burt
- Ruth P. Getchell
- Mary Elizabeth Mair
- Eleanor Moody
- Ann Drew
- Doris Neel
- Elsie Moore
