



Produced by Annie R. McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE
AN ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY.]

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VOL. II.--NO. 73. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR
CENTS.

Tuesday, March 22, 1881. Copyright, 1881, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50
per Year, in Advance.

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[Illustration: THE LUCK OF THE HORSESHOE.--DRAWN BY W. R. YEAGER.]

TOMMY TUCKER'S HORSESHOE.

BY MRS. FRANK McCARTHY.


Tommy Tucker lives on a "farm" in the city of New York, near the Central
Park. Some people make fun of Tommy's way of living, and call his place
the "sunken lots," and say his family are squatters; but it makes very
little difference to Tommy what remarks were made about his home or his
people, so long as they were happy. And they were happy for a very long
time, so happy that they didn't know what it was to be miserable, and it
makes a wonderful difference to be able to tell one from the other. Up
to the beginning of this winter they had the longest run of luck on
record in any family in that neighborhood. A long while since, a horse
had been turned out to die in a lot near the Tucker's. It wasn't such a
very old horse, but it was dreadfully sick, and something was the
matter with its windpipe, so that Mr. Tucker heard it wheezing away
while he was at work on the farm. He had a very kind heart, and always
did what he could for poor dumb creatures, as well as those that could
tell what was the matter with them; and what with kind treatment and a
wonderful skill Mr. Tucker had with animals, that horse came around so
that you'd hardly know it from a spirited charger of Mr. Croesus--a
gentle