New National Fourth Reader

The Project Guten­berg eBook, New Na­tion­al Fourth Read­er, by Charles J. Barnes and J. Mar­shall Hawkes

This eBook is for the use of any­one any­where at no cost and with al­most no re­stric­tions what­so­ev­er. You may copy it, give it away or re-​use it un­der the terms of the Project Guten­berg Li­cense in­clud­ed with this eBook or on­line at www.guten­berg.net

Ti­tle: New Na­tion­al Fourth Read­er

Au­thor: Charles J. Barnes and J. Mar­shall Hawkes

Re­lease Date: May 14, 2005 [eBook #15825]

Lan­guage: En­glish

Char­ac­ter set en­cod­ing: ISO-646-US (US-​ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTEN­BERG EBOOK NEW NA­TION­AL FOURTH READ­ER***

E-​text pre­pared by Juli­et Suther­land, David Gundry, and the Project Guten­berg On­line Dis­tribut­ed Proof­read­ing Team

Note: Project Guten­berg al­so has an HTML ver­sion of this file which in­cludes the orig­inal il­lus­tra­tions. See 15825-h.htm or 15825-h.zip: (http://www.guten­berg.net/dirs/1/5/8/2/15825/15825-h/15825-h.htm) or (http://www.guten­berg.net/dirs/1/5/8/2/15825/15825-h.zip)

Tran­scriber's Notes

Where ref­er­ence is made to page num­bers, there is an an­no­ta­tion show­ing a foot­note num­ber and the rel­ative in­for­ma­tion is ap­pend­ed at the end of each les­son or sec­tion.

Pro­nun­ci­ation marks have been ig­nored. How­ev­er, ac­cent­ed syl­la­bles pre­cede the sin­gle apos­tro­phe, which al­so serves as a break. Oth­er­wise breaks are shown by spaces.

Barnes' New Na­tion­al Read­ers

NEW NA­TION­AL FOURTH READ­ER

by

CHARLES J. BARNES and J. MAR­SHALL HAWKES

1884

[Il­lus­tra­tion: De­struc­tion of Pom­peii by Vesu­vius.]

PREF­ACE

It is thought that the fol­low­ing spe­cial fea­tures of this book will com­mend them­selves to Teach­ers and School Of­fi­cers.

_The read­ing mat­ter of the book is more of a de­scrip­tive than con­ver­sa­tion­al style_, as it is pre­sumed that the pupil, af­ter hav­ing fin­ished the pre­vi­ous books of the se­ries, will have formed the habit of easy in­to­na­tion and dis­tinct ar­tic­ula­tion.

_The in­ter­est­ing char­ac­ter of the se­lec­tions_, so un­like the read­ing books of for­mer times.

_The large amount of in­for­ma­tion_ which has been com­bined with in­ci­dents of an in­ter­est­ing na­ture, to in­sure the pupil's earnest and thought­ful at­ten­tion.

_The length of the se­lec­tions for read­ing_,--the at­ten­tion of pupils be­ing held more read­ily by long se­lec­tions than by short ones, though of equal in­ter­est.

_The gra­da­tion of the lessons_, which has been sys­tem­at­ical­ly main­tained by keep­ing a care­ful record of all new words as fast as they ap­peared, and us­ing on­ly such pieces as con­tained a lim­it­ed num­ber.

_The sim­plic­ity of the lessons_, which be­comes ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary in the schools of to-​day, ow­ing to the short school life of the pupil, his im­ma­ture age, and in­abil­ity to com­pre­hend pieces of a meta­phys­ical or high­ly po­et­ical na­ture.

_The ease with which pupils may pass from the Third Read­er of this se­ries to this book_, there­by avoid­ing the ne­ces­si­ty of sup­ple­men­tary read­ing be­fore com­menc­ing the Fourth Read­er, or of us­ing a book of an­oth­er se­ries much low­er in grade.

_Lan­guage Lessons_, of a na­ture to se­cure in­tel­li­gent ob­ser­va­tion, and lead the pupil to habits of thought and re­flec­tion. Noth­ing be­ing done for the learn­er that he could do for him­self.

_Di­rec­tions for Read­ing_, which ac­com­pa­ny the lessons--spe­cif­ic in their treat­ment and not of that gen­er­al char­ac­ter which young teach­ers and pupils are un­able to ap­ply.

_All new words of spe­cial dif­fi­cul­ty, at the heads of the lessons_, hav­ing their syl­lab­ica­tion, ac­cent, and pro­nun­ci­ation in­di­cat­ed ac­cord­ing to Web­ster. Oth­er new words are placed in a vo­cab­ulary at the close of the book.

_The type of this book, like that of the pre­vi­ous books of the se­ries, is much larg­er than that gen­er­al­ly used_, for a sin­gle rea­son. Par­ents, ev­ery-​where, are com­plain­ing that the eye-​sight of their chil­dren is be­ing ru­ined by read­ing from small, con­densed type. It is con­fi­dent­ly ex­pect­ed that this large, clear style will ob­vi­ate such un­for­tu­nate re­sults.

_The il­lus­tra­tions have been pre­pared re­gard­less of ex­pense_, and will com­mend them­selves to ev­ery per­son of taste and re­fine­ment.

CON­TENTS

LESSONS IN PROSE.

1.--“I'M GO­ING TO” (Part I) _Char­lotte Daly_.

2.--“I'M GO­ING TO” (Part II) _Char­lotte Daly_.

3.--THE BEAN AND THE STONE

5.--AN AD­VEN­TURE WITH DUSKY WOLVES (I) _Mayne Reid_.

6.--AN AD­VEN­TURE WITH DUSKY WOLVES (II) _Mayne Reid_.

7.--THE SAILOR CAT _David Ker_.

9.--THE LI­ON

10.--AD­VEN­TURE WITH A LI­ON _Liv­ing­stone_.

11.--THE NO­BLEST DEED OF ALL

13.--THE STO­RY OF IN­DI­AN SPRING (I) _Aunt Mary_.

14.--THE STO­RY OF IN­DI­AN SPRING (II)

15.--AN AD­VEN­TURE WITH A SHARK

17.--A FUN­NY HORSE­SHOE “_Chris­tian Union_.”

18.--THE GI­RAFFE

19.--THE TRAD­ER'S TRICK

21.--ALI, THE CAMEL DRIV­ER (I)

22.--ALI, THE CAMEL DRIV­ER (II)

23.--A QUEER PEO­PLE

25.--WA­TER

26.--THE HID­DEN TREA­SURE (I)

27.--THE HID­DEN TREA­SURE (II)

28.--THE HID­DEN TREA­SURE (III)

30.--AIR _J. Bern­ers_ (Adapt­ed).

31.--A TIME­LY RES­CUE

33.--TRUE COUR­TESY (I)

34.--TRUE COUR­TESY (II)

35.--WHY AN AP­PLE FALLS

37.--THE JAGUAR

38.--HOL­LAND (I) _Mary Mapes Dodge_.

39.--HOL­LAND (II) _Mary Mapes Dodge_.

41.--SOME­THING ABOUT PLANTS

42.--FOR­EST ON FIRE (I) _Audubon_.

43.--FOR­EST ON FIRE (II) _Audubon_.

45.--A GHOST STO­RY (I) _Louisa M. Al­cott_.

46.--A GHOST STO­RY (II) _Louisa M. Al­cott_.

47.--A GHOST STO­RY (III) _Louisa M. Al­cott_.

49.--THE RHINOCEROS

50.--PRES­ENCE OF MIND

51.--HAL­BERT AND HIS DOG

53.--THE CATER­PIL­LAR AND BUT­TER­FLY

54.--WILD HORS­ES OF SOUTH AMER­ICA

55.--AN EM­PER­OR'S KIND­NESS

57.--STO­RY OF THE SIOUX WAR (I)

58.--STO­RY OF THE SIOUX WAR (II)

59.--VOL­CA­NOES

61.--ANEC­DOTE OF WASH­ING­TON (I)

62.--ANEC­DOTE OF WASH­ING­TON (II)

63.--THE OS­TRICH

65.--AN IN­CI­DENT OF THE REV­OLU­TION

66.--TROP­ICAL FRUITS

67.--STO­RY OF DE­TROIT

69.--MAK­ING MAPLE SUG­AR (I) _Charles Dud­ley Warn­er_.

70.--MAK­ING MAPLE SUG­AR (II) _Charles Dud­ley Warn­er_.

72.--NAT­URAL WON­DERS OF AMER­ICA (I)

73.--NAT­URAL WON­DERS OF AMER­ICA (II)

74.--AFRICAN ANTS _Du Chail­lu_.

76.--EGYPT AND ITS RU­INS (I)

77.--EGYPT AND ITS RU­INS (II)

LESSONS IN VERSE.

4.--TO-​MOR­ROW _Mrs. M.R. John­son_.

8.--RES­CUED _Celia Thax­ter_.

12.--MAR­JORIE'S AL­MANAC _T.B. Aldrich_.

16.--A LEG­END OF THE NORTH­LAND _Phoebe Cary_.

20.--A HAP­PY PAIR _Flo­rence Per­cy_.

24.--ILL-​NA­TURED BRIER _Mrs. An­na Bache_.

29.--LOOK­ING FOR THE FAIRIES _Ju­lia Ba­con_.

32.--BIRDS IN SUM­MER _Mary Howitt_.

36.--THE MILLER OF THE DEE _Charles Mack­ay_.

40.--THE WIND IN A FROL­IC _William Howitt_.

44.--COM­MON GIFTS

48.--WHAT THE CHIM­NEY SANG _Bret Harte_.

52.--THE LIGHT-​HOUSE

56.--UNIT­ED AT LAST

60.--THE BROOK _Al­fred Ten­nyson_.

64.--TO-​DAY AND TO-​MOR­ROW _Charles Mack­ay_.

68.--THE FISH­ER­MAN _John G. Whit­ti­er_.

71.--OLD IRON­SIDES _Oliv­er Wen­dell Holmes_.

75.--THE LEAP OF ROUSHAN BEG _Hen­ry W. Longfel­low_.

DEF­INI­TIONS

GE­OGRAPH­ICAL AND PROP­ER NAMES

AC­KNOWL­EDG­MENTS.

The pub­lish­ers de­sire to thank Messrs. Houghton, Mif­flin & Co., the Cen­tu­ry Co., Roberts Broth­ers, and Charles Scrib­ner's Sons, for per­mis­sion to use and adapt some of their valu­able copy­right mat­ter.

SUG­GES­TIONS

To Teach­ers

The fol­low­ing sug­ges­tions are sub­mit­ted for the ben­efit of young teach­ers.

In or­der that pupils may learn how to de­fine words at the heads of the lessons, let the teach­er read the sen­tences con­tain­ing such words and have pupils copy them up­on slate or pa­per.

Then in­di­cate what words are to be de­fined, and in­sist up­on the prop­er syl­lab­ica­tion, ac­cent, mark­ing of let­ters, etc.

In this way the pupil learns the mean­ing of the word as it is used, and not an ab­stract def­ini­tion that may be mean­ing­less.

Have pupils study their read­ing lessons care­ful­ly be­fore com­ing to recita­tion.

The po­si­tion of pupils while read­ing should be erect, easy, and grace­ful.

Give spe­cial at­ten­tion to the sub­ject of ar­tic­ula­tion, and in­sist up­on a clear and dis­tinct enun­ci­ation.

In or­der to de­vel­op a clear tone of voice, let pupils prac­tice, in con­cert, up­on some of the open vow­el sounds, us­ing such words as _arm, all, old_.

In this ex­er­cise, the force of ut­ter­ance should be gen­tle at first, and the words re­peat­ed a num­ber of times; then the force should be in­creased by de­grees, un­til “call­ing tones” are used.

En­cour­age a nat­ural use of the voice, with such mod­ula­tions as may be prop­er for a cor­rect ren­der­ing of the thoughts which are read.

It should, be re­mem­bered that the de­vel­op­ment of a good tone of voice is the re­sult of care­ful and con­stant prac­tice.

Con­cert read­ing is rec­om­mend­ed as a use­ful ex­er­cise, inas­much as any feel­ing of re­straint or timid­ity dis­ap­pears while read­ing with oth­ers.

Ques­tion in­di­vid­ual pupils up­on the man­ner in which lessons should be read. In this way they will learn to think for them­selves.

Do not in­ter­rupt a pupil while read­ing un­til a thought or sen­tence is com­plet­ed, since such a course tends to make read­ing me­chan­ical and de­prive it of ex­pres­sion.

Er­rors in time, force of ut­ter­ance, em­pha­sis, and in­flec­tion should be care­ful­ly cor­rect­ed, and then the pas­sage read over again.

The “Di­rec­tions for Read­ing” through­out the book are in­tend­ed to be sug­ges­tive rather than ex­haus­tive, and can be added to as oc­ca­sion re­quires.

The “Lan­guage Lessons” in this book, should not be ne­glect­ed. They con­tain on­ly such mat­ter as is nec­es­sary to meet the re­quire­ments of pupils.

Words and ex­pres­sions not read­ily un­der­stood, must be made in­tel­li­gi­ble to pupils. This has been done in part by def­ini­tions, and in part by in­ter­pret­ing some of the dif­fi­cult phras­es.

Af­ter the habit of ac­quir­ing the usu­al mean­ing has been formed, the orig­inal mean­ing of those words which are made up of stems mod­ified by pre­fix­es or af­fix­es should be shown.

The re­al mean­ing of such words can be un­der­stood far bet­ter by a study of their for­ma­tion, than by ab­stract def­ini­tions. It will be found, al­so, that pupils read­ily be­come in­ter­est­ed in this kind of work.

As the ca­pa­bil­ities of class­es of the same grade will dif­fer, it may some­times oc­cur that a greater amount of lan­guage work can be done ef­fec­tive­ly than is laid down in this book. When this hap­pens, more time can be de­vot­ed to such spe­cial kinds of work as the needs of the class­es sug­gest.

Con­stant drill up­on the anal­ysis of lessons, var­ied at times by the anal­ysis of short sto­ries tak­en from oth­er sources and read to the class, will de­vel­op the rea­son­ing fac­ul­ties of pupils and ren­der the writ­ing of orig­inal com­po­si­tions a com­par­ative­ly easy ex­er­cise.

En­cour­age the habit of self-​re­liance on the part of pupils. Orig­inal in­ves­ti­ga­tion, even if fol­lowed at first by some­what crude re­sults, is in the end more sat­is­fac­to­ry than any oth­er course.

The Def­ini­tions (pages 373-382) and the List of Prop­er Names (pages 383 and 384) may be used in the prepa­ra­tion of the lessons.[01]

When ex­er­cis­es are writ­ten, par­tic­ular care should be re­quired in re­gard to pen­man­ship, cor­rect spelling, punc­tu­ation, and neat­ness.

[01] “The Def­ini­tions” are found at the end of the text, how­ev­er “the List of Prop­er Names” has not been in­clud­ed in this pro­duc­tion.

PHON­IC CHART.

VOW­ELS.

a as in lake a “ ” at a “ ” far a “ ” all a “ ” care a “ ” ask a as in what e “ ” be e “ ” let i “ ” ice i “ ” in o “ ” so o as in box u “ ” use u “ ” up u “ ” fur oo “ ” too oo “ ” look

DIPH­THONGS.

oi, oy (un­marked), as in oil, boy ou, ow “ ” " out, now

CON­SO­NANTS

b as in bad d “ ” do f “ ” fox g “ ” go h “ ” he j “ ” just k “ ” kite l “ ” let m as in me n “ ” no p “ ” put r “ ” rat s “ ” so t “ ” too v “ ” very w “ ” we y as in yes z “ ” froze ng “ ” sing ch “ ” chick sh “ ” she th “ ” think th “ ” the wh(hw)," what

EQUIV­ALENTS.

VOW­ELS.

a like o as in what e “ a ” “ where e ” a “ ” they e “ u ” “ her i ” u “ ” girl i “ e ” “ po­lice o, u like oo as in to, rule o ” u “ ” come o “ a ” “ for u, o ” oo “ ” put, could y “ i ” “ by y ” i “ ” kit'ty

CON­SO­NANTS.

c like s as in race c “ k ” “ cat g ” j “ ” cage n like ng as in think s “ z ” “ has x ” ks, or gz " box, ex­ist

FOURTH READ­ER

LES­SON I

spokes'man, _one who speaks for oth­ers_.

cho'rus, _a num­ber of speak­ers or singers_.

apt, _like­ly; ready_.

folks, _peo­ple; fam­ily_.

mis'er a ble, _very un­hap­py; very poor_.

lone'some, _with­out friends; lone­ly_.

score, _twen­ty_.

wretch'ed, _un­hap­py; very sad_.

* * * * *

“I'M GO­ING TO.”

PART I.

Once up­on a time, there was a lit­tle boy, whose name was John­ny. “John­ny,” said his mam­ma, one day, “will you bring me an arm­ful of wood?”

“Yes,” said John­ny, “I'm go­ing to”; but just then he heard Car­lo, the dog, bark­ing at a chip­munk over in the mead­ow, so he ran off as fast as he could go.

Now this was not the first time that John­ny had said to his mam­ma, “Yes, I'm go­ing to.” He nev­er thought of that wood again un­til about din­ner-​time, when he be­gan to feel hun­gry.

When he got back, he found that din­ner was over, and pa­pa and mam­ma had gone to ride. He found a piece of bread and but­ter, and sat down on a Large rock, with his back against the stump of a tree, to eat it.

When it was all gone, John­ny be­gan to think what he should do next. He closed his eyes as peo­ple are apt to do when they think.

Present­ly he heard a score of voic­es about him. One was say­ing, “Wait a bit”; an­oth­er, “Pret­ty soon”; an­oth­er, “In a minute”; an­oth­er, “By and by”; and still an­oth­er, loud­er than the rest, kept scream­ing as loud as it could, “Go­ing to, go­ing to, go­ing to,” till John­ny thought they were crazy.

“Who in the world are you?” said he, in great sur­prise, “and what are you mak­ing such a noise about?”

“We are telling our names,” said they; “didn't you ask us to tell our names?”

“No,” said John­ny, “I didn't.”

“O what a sto­ry!” cried they all in a breath.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

“Let's shake him for it,” said one.

“No, let us car­ry him to the king,” said an­oth­er.

So they be­gan to spin about him like so many spi­ders; for each one of them car­ried a long web, and when that gets wound around a boy or a girl, it is a very dif­fi­cult thing to get rid of.

In a few min­utes they had him all wound up--hands and feet, nose and eyes, all tied up tight. Then they took him among them, and flew away with him, miles and miles, over the hills, and up to a big cave in the moun­tain. There he heard ev­er so many more voic­es, and it was nois­ier than ev­er.

“Where am I?” he said, as soon as he could speak.

“O you're safe at home,” an­swered Wait-​a-​bit, for he seemed to be the spokesman; “and they have been ex­pect­ing you for some time.”

“This isn't my home,” said John­ny, feel­ing very mis­er­able and be­gin­ning to cry.

“O yes, it is,” said a cho­rus of voic­es. “This is just where such folks as you be­long. There are many of your fel­lows here, and you won't be lone­some a bit.”

They had be­gun to un­wind the web from his eyes now, so he opened them and looked about him. O what a wretched place it was!

Against the sides of the cave, stood long rows of boys and girls, with very sor­ry faces, all of them say­ing over as fast as they could speak, “Go­ing to, go­ing to!” “Wait a bit, wait a bit!” “Pret­ty soon, pret­ty soon!” “In a minute, in a minute!” study­ing the names just as hard as if they were lessons.

There were De­lays, and Tardys, and Put-​offs, with ev­er so many more; and in a cor­ner by them­selves, and look­ing more un­hap­py than all the rest, were the poor lit­tle fel­lows whose names were “Too late.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Pupils should read loud enough for all the class to hear them.

The words form­ing a _quo­ta­tion_ should usu­al­ly be spo­ken in a loud­er tone than the oth­er words in the les­son, as--

_“John­ny,”_ said his mam­ma, one day, _“will you bring me an arm­ful of wood?”_

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Di­vide in­to syl­la­bles, ac­cent, and mark the sounds of the let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _Car­lo, arm­ful, moun­tain, un­wind_.

What two words can be used for each of the fol­low­ing: _I'm, didn't, let's, you're, isn't, won't?_

What oth­er words could be used in­stead of _got_ (page 16, line 4)?[02]

Prop­er names should be­gin with cap­ital let­ters: as, _John­ny, Car­lo_.

Give three oth­er words used as prop­er names in this les­son.

[02] para­graph 4 of this les­son

* * * * *

LES­SON II.

de spair', _loss of hope_.

pro cras' ti na tor, _one who puts off do­ing any thing_.

res o lu'tions, _promis­es made to one's self; re­solves_.

yon'der, _there; in that place_.

mon'strous, _of great size_.

gi'ant, _an un­re­al per­son, sup­posed to be of great size_.

hor'rid, _caus­ing great fear or alarm_.

ex pect'ed, _thought; looked for_.

* * * * *

“I'M GO­ING TO.”

PART II.

“O dear, dear! Where am I?” said John­ny in de­spair. “Please let me out! I want my mam­ma!”

“No, you don't,” said Wait-​a-​bit. “You don't care much about her, and this is re­al­ly where you be­long. This is the king­dom of Pro­cras­ti­na­tion, and yon­der comes the king.”

“The king­dom of what?” said John­ny, who had nev­er heard such a long word in his life be­fore.

But just then he heard a heavy foot-​fall, and a great voice that sound­ed like a roar, say­ing, “Has he come? Did you get him?”

“Yes, here he is,” said Wait-​a-​bit, “and he'd just been say­ing it a lit­tle while be­fore we picked him up.”

John­ny looked up and saw a mon­strous gi­ant, with a bright green body and red legs, and a yel­low head and two hor­rid coal-​black eyes.

“Let me have him,” said the gi­ant. So he took him up just as if he had been a rag-​ba­by, and looked him all over, turn­ing him from side to side, and from head to feet.

O but John­ny was fright­ened, and ex­pect­ed ev­ery mo­ment to be swal­lowed!

“Let's see,” said the gi­ant; "he al­ways says 'Pret­ty soon.' No, that isn't it. What is it, my fine fel­low, that you al­ways say to your mam­ma when she asks you to do any thing for her?

“It isn't 'Pret­ty soon,' nor 'In a minute.' What is it? They all mean about the same thing, to be sure, and bring ev­ery body to me in the end; but I must know ex­act­ly, or I can't put you in the right place.”

John­ny hung his head, and did not want to tell; but an ex­tra hard poke of the gi­ant's big fin­ger made him open his mouth and say with shame, that he al­ways said, “I'm go­ing to.”

“O that's it!” said the gi­ant. “Well, then, you stand there.”

So he un­wound a bit of the web from his fin­gers--just enough so that he could hold the Pro­cras­ti­na­tor's Primer--and stood him at the end of a long row of chil­dren, who were say­ing over and over again, just as fast as they could speak, “Go­ing to, go­ing to, go­ing to, go­ing to,” just that, and noth­ing else in the world.

John­ny was tired and hun­gry by this time, and longed to see his mam­ma, think­ing that, if he could on­ly get back: to her, he would al­ways mind the very mo­ment she told him to do any thing.

He made a great many good res­olu­tions while he stood there. At last the gi­ant called him to come and say his les­son.

“You shall have a short one to-​day,” said he, “and need say it on­ly a thou­sand times, be­cause it is your first day here. To-​mor­row, you must say it a mil­lion.”

John­ny tried to step for­ward, but the web was still about his feet, so he fell with, a bang to the floor.

Just then he opened his eyes to find that he had rolled from the rock to the grass, and that mam­ma was call­ing him in a loud voice to come to sup­per, and this time he didn't say, “I'm go­ing to.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--The words in quo­ta­tion marks should be read in the same man­ner as in Les­son I.

Read words in dark type in the fol­low­ing sen­tences with more force than the oth­er words:

“Has he _come?_ Did you _get_ him?”

Words that are read more forcibly than oth­er words in a sen­tence are called _em­phat­ic words_.

Which are the _em­phat­ic words_ in the fol­low­ing sen­tences?

“You shall have a short one to-​day.”

“I must know ex­act­ly.”

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Di­vide in­to syl­la­bles, ac­cent, and mark the sounds of the let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _ex­tra, primer, mo­ment, coal-​black_.

* * * * *

LES­SON III.

re­mark'able, _wor­thy of no­tice; un­usu­al_.

moist'ure, _wet­ness; that which makes wet_.

ab­sorbed', _sucked up; drunk up_.

with'er, _lose fresh­ness_.

starched, _stiff­ened, as starch_.

germ, _that from which the plant grows; bud_.

hand'some, _pleas­ing in ap­pear­ance; very pret­ty_.

clasped, _sur­round­ed; in­closed_.

* * * * *

THE BEAN AND THE STONE.

“I think I ought to be do­ing some­thing in the world!” said a lit­tle voice out in the gar­den.

“Pray, what can you do?” asked an­oth­er and some­what stronger voice.

“I think I can grow,” an­swered the lit­tle voice.

If you had seen the own­er of the lit­tle voice, per­haps you would not have thought him any thing re­mark­able.

It is true he had on a clean white coat, so smooth and shin­ing that it looked as if it had been new­ly starched and ironed, and in­side of this, he hugged two stout pack­ages.

The coat had on­ly one fas­ten­ing; but that fas­ten­ing ex­tend­ed down the back, and was a cu­ri­ous thing to see.

It looked just as if the coat had been cut with a knife, and had af­ter­ward grown to­geth­er again. It was like a scar on your hand; and a scar it is called.

“Yes, I ought to be grow­ing,” said the lit­tle voice, “for I am a bean, and in the spring a bean ought to grow.”

Now you know how the coat came by its scar, for the scar was the spot which showed where the bean had been bro­ken from the pod.

“What do you mean by grow­ing?” said the oth­er voice, which came from a large red stone.

“Why,” said the bean, "don't you know what grow­ing means? I thought ev­ery thing knew how to grow. You see, when I grow, my root goes down in­to the soil to get mois­ture, and my stem goes up in­to the light to find heat. Heat and mois­ture are my food and drink.

"By and by, I shall be a full-​grown plant, and that is won­der­ful! In the ground, my roots will trav­el far and wide.

“In the air, how hap­py my stem will be! I shall learn a great deal, and see beau­ti­ful things ev­ery day. O how I long for that time to come!”

“What you say is very strange,” said the red stone. “Here I have been in this same place for many years, and I have not grown at all. I have no root; I have no stem; or, if I have, they nev­er move up­ward nor down­ward, as you say. Are you sure you are not mis­tak­en?”

“Why, of course I'm not mis­tak­en,” cried the bean. “I feel with­in my­self that I can grow; and I have ab­sorbed so much mois­ture that I must soon be­gin.”

Just then the bean's coat split from end to end, and for one or two min­utes nei­ther the stone nor the bean spoke. The stone was as­ton­ished, and the bean was a lit­tle fright­ened. How­ev­er, he soon re­cov­ered his courage.

“There!” said he, show­ing the two pack­ages he had been car­ry­ing; "these are my seed-​leaves. In them is the food on which I in­tend to live when I be­gin grow­ing.

“When my stem is strong enough to do with­out them, they will with­er away. My coat is all worn-​out, too. I shall not need it any longer. Look in­side the seed-​leaves, and you will see the germ. Part of it is root, and part of it is stem. Do you see?”

“I see two lit­tle white lumps,” replied the stone; “but I can not un­der­stand how they will ev­er be a root and a stem.”

“I do be­lieve you are a poor, dull min­er­al, af­ter all,” said the bean; "and if so, of course you can not un­der­stand what plea­sure a veg­etable has in grow­ing.

“I wouldn't be a min­er­al for the world! I would not lie still and do noth­ing, year af­ter year. I would rather spread my branch­es in the sun­shine, and drink in the sweet spring air through my leaves.”

“What you say must be all non­sense,” said the stone. “I can't un­der­stand it.”

But the bean grew on with­out mind­ing him. The roots pushed down in­to the soil and drank up the mois­ture from the ground. Then this mois­ture went in­to the stem, and the stem climbed brave­ly up in­to the light.

“How hap­py I am!” cried the bean.

It ran over the red stone, and clasped it with long green branch­es, cov­ered with white bean flow­ers.

“O in­deed!” said the stone. “Is this what you call grow­ing? I thought you were on­ly in fun. How hand­some you are!”

“May I hang my pods on you, so that they can ripen in the sun?” said the bean.

“Cer­tain­ly, friend,” said the stone.

He was very po­lite, now that he saw the bean was a full-​grown vine.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Read in a con­ver­sa­tion­al tone of voice, as in Lessons I and II.

What word is em­phat­ic in the third para­graph?

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the words, _bro­ken, pack­ages, courage, po­lite_.

Tell in your own words how the bean grew.

* * * * *

LES­SON IV.

elf, _a very small per­son; an un­re­al be­ing_.

vex, _make an­gry; trou­ble_.

pon'dered, _thought about with care_.

streak, _line; long mark_.

* * * * *

TO-​MOR­ROW.

A bright lit­tle boy with laugh­ing face, Whose ev­ery mo­tion was full of grace, Who knew no trou­ble and feared no care, Was the light of our house­hold--the youngest there.

He was too young--this lit­tle elf-- With trou­ble­some ques­tions to vex him­self; But for many days a thought would rise, And bring a shade to the danc­ing eyes.

He went to one whom he thought more wise Than any oth­er be­neath the skies: “Moth­er,”--O word that makes the home!-- “Tell me, when will to-​mor­row come?”

“It is al­most night,” the moth­er said, “And time for my boy to be in bed; When you wake up and it's day again, It will be to-​mor­row, my dar­ling, then.”

The lit­tle boy slept through all the night, But woke with the first red streak of light; He pressed a kiss on his moth­er's brow, And whis­pered, “Is it to-​mor­row now?”

“No, lit­tle Ed­die, this is to-​day; To-​mor­row is al­ways one night away.” He pon­dered awhile, but joys came fast, And this vex­ing ques­tion quick­ly passed.

But it came again with the shades of night: “Will it be to-​mor­row when it is light?” From years to come, he seemed care to bor­row, He tried so hard to catch to-​mor­row.

“You can not catch it, my lit­tle Ted; En­joy to-​day,” the moth­er said; “Some wait for to-​mor­row through many a year-- It al­ways is com­ing, but nev­er is here.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--In read­ing po­et­ry, pupils should no­tice the em­phat­ic words, and give them prop­er force.

Ex­am­ple.

“_Moth­er_,”--O word that makes the home!--

“_Tell_ me, when will _to-​mor­row_ come?”

The two dash­es in the first line of the pre­ced­ing ex­am­ple are used in­stead of a paren­the­sis, and have the same val­ue.

When there is no pause at the end of a line (see first line, third stan­za), it should be close­ly joined in read­ing to the line which fol­lows it, thus mak­ing the two lines read as one.

* * * * *

LES­SON V.

ap'pe tite, _wish for food_.

a muse'ment, _play; en­joy­ment_.

gaunt, _lean; hun­gry look­ing_.

spe'cies, _kind_.

oc curred', _took place; hap­pened_.

en cour'age ment, _hope giv­en by an­oth­er's words or ac­tions_.

di rec'tion, _way; course_.

dusk'y, _very dark; al­most black_.

sin'gu lar, _un­usu­al; strange_.

* * * * *

AN AD­VEN­TURE WITH DUSKY WOLVES.

PART I.

"Dur­ing the sum­mer and win­ter, we had sev­er­al ad­ven­tures in the trap­ping and killing of wild an­imals. One of them was of such a sin­gu­lar and dan­ger­ous kind, that you may feel in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing it.

"It oc­curred in the dead of win­ter, when there was snow up­on the ground. The lake was frozen over, and the ice was as smooth as glass. We spent much of our time in skat­ing about over its sur­face, as the ex­er­cise gave us health and a good ap­petite.

"Even Cud­jo, our col­ored ser­vant, had tak­en a fan­cy for this amuse­ment, and was a very good skater. Frank was fonder of it than the rest of us, and was, in fact, the best skater among us.

"One day, how­ev­er, nei­ther Cud­jo nor I had gone out, but on­ly Frank and Har­ry. The rest of us were busy at some car­pen­ter work with­in doors.

"We could hear the mer­ry laugh of the boys, and the ring of their skates as they glid­ed over the smooth ice. All at once, a cry reached our ears, which we knew meant the pres­ence of some dan­ger.

"'O Robert!' cried my wife, 'they have bro­ken through the ice!'

"We all dropped what we held in our hands, and rushed to the door. I seized a rope as I ran, while Cud­jo took his long spear, think­ing it might be of use to us. This was the work of a mo­ment, and the next we were out­side the house.

"What was our as­ton­ish­ment to see both the boys, away at the far­thest end of the lake, but skat­ing to­ward us as fast as they could!

"At the same time, our eyes rest­ed up­on a ter­ri­ble sight. Close be­hind them up­on the ice, and fol­low­ing at full gal­lop, was a pack of wolves!

"They were not the small prairie wolves, which ei­ther of the boys might have chased with a stick, but of a species known as the 'Great Dusky Wolf' of the Rocky Moun­tains.

"There were six of them in all. Each of them was twice the size of the prairie wolf, and their long, dark bod­ies, gaunt with hunger, and crest­ed from head to tail with a high, bristling mane, gave them a most fear­ful ap­pear­ance.

"They ran with their ears set back and their jaws apart, so that we could see their red tongues and white teeth.

"We did not stop a mo­ment, but rushed to­ward the lake. I threw down the rope, and seized hold of a large rail as I ran, while Cud­jo hur­ried for­ward armed with a spear. My wife, with pres­ence of mind, turned back in­to the house for my ri­fle.

"I saw that Har­ry was fore­most, and that the fierce wolves were fast clos­ing up­on Frank. This was strange, for we knew that Frank was by far the bet­ter skater. We all called out to him, ut­ter­ing loud shouts of en­cour­age­ment. Both were bear­ing them­selves man­ful­ly, but Frank was most in dan­ger.

“The wolves were up­on his heels! 'O they will kill him!' I cried, ex­pect­ing the next mo­ment to see him thrown down up­on the ice. What was my joy at see­ing him sud­den­ly wheel and dart off in a new di­rec­tion.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--This les­son should be read with spir­it, and in a full, clear tone of voice.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--_Pres­ence of mind_ is the pow­er to act quick­ly when sud­den dan­ger threat­ens.

_Up­on his heels_ means very close to.

_Dead of win­ter_ is the mid­dle of win­ter, as that is sup­posed to be the qui­etest or most life­less time.

Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _fan­cy, gal­lop, prairie, bristling, ri­fle_.

* * * * *

LES­SON VI.

e lud'ed, _got away from; avoid­ed_.

ex cit'ing, _caus­ing deep in­ter­est_.

marks'man, _one who shoots well_.

re treat'ing, _go­ing away from_.

en a'bled, _helped; made able_.

sim'i lar, _like; near­ly the same_.

pur suit', _fol­low­ing af­ter_.

nim'bly, _with a quick mo­tion_.

com menced', _be­gan_.

* * * * *

AN AD­VEN­TURE WITH DUSKY WOLVES.

PART II.

"The wolves, thus nim­bly elud­ed, now kept on af­ter Har­ry, who, in turn, be­came the ob­ject of our anx­iety.

"In a mo­ment they were close up­on him; but he, al­ready warned by his broth­er, wheeled in a sim­ilar man­ner, while the fierce brutes, swept along by the force of their run­ning, were car­ried a long dis­tance up­on the ice be­fore they could turn them­selves.

"Their long, bushy tails, how­ev­er, soon en­abled them to turn about and fol­low in the new di­rec­tion, and they gal­loped af­ter Har­ry, who was now the near­est to them.

"Frank, in the mean­time, had again turned, and came sweep­ing past be­hind them, at the same time shout­ing loud­ly, as if to tempt them away from their pur­suit of Har­ry.

"They heed­ed him not, and again he changed his di­rec­tion, and, as though he was about to skate in­to their midst, fol­lowed the wolves.

"This time he skat­ed up close be­hind them, just at the mo­ment when Har­ry had turned again, and thus made his sec­ond es­cape.

"At this mo­ment, we heard Frank call­ing out to his broth­er to make for the shore, while, in­stead of re­treat­ing him­self, he stopped un­til Har­ry had passed, and then dashed off, fol­lowed close­ly by the whole pack.

"An­oth­er slight turn brought him near­ly in our di­rec­tion; but there was a large hole bro­ken through the ice close by the shore, and we saw that, un­less he turned again, he would skate in­to it.

"We thought he was watch­ing the wolves too in­tent­ly to see it, and we shout­ed to warn him. Not so; he knew bet­ter than we what he was about.

"When he had reached with­in a few feet of the hole, he wheeled sharply to the left, and came dash­ing up to the point where we stood to re­ceive him.

"The wolves, too in­tent up­on their chase to see any thing else, went sweep­ing past the point where he had turned, and the next mo­ment plunged through the bro­ken ice in­to the wa­ter.

"Then Cud­jo and I ran for­ward, shout­ing loud­ly, and, with the heavy rail and the long spear, com­menced deal­ing death among them.

"It was but a short, though ex­cit­ing scene. Five of them were speared and drowned, while the sixth crawled out up­on the ice and was rapid­ly mak­ing off, fright­ened enough at his cold duck­ing.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

"At that mo­ment I heard the crack of a ri­fle and saw the wolf tum­ble over.

"On turn­ing round I saw Har­ry with, my ri­fle, which my wife had brought down and hand­ed to him, as a bet­ter marks­man than her­self.

"The wolf, on­ly wound­ed, was kick­ing fu­ri­ous­ly about on the ice; but Cud­jo now ran out, and, af­ter a short strug­gle, fin­ished the busi­ness with his spear.

"This was, in­deed, a day of great ex­cite­ment in our for­est home. Frank, who was the hero of the day, al­though he said noth­ing, was no doubt not a lit­tle proud of his skat­ing feat.

“And well he might be, as, but for his skill, poor Har­ry would no doubt have fall­en a prey to the fierce wolves.”

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils use oth­er words to ex­press the mean­ing of what is giv­en be­low in dark type.

Again he _changed his di­rec­tion_.

He then _dashed off_.

He wheeled _sharply_ to the left.

Cud­jo and I com­menced _deal­ing death among them_.

Cud­jo _fin­ished the busi­ness_ with his spear.

Har­ry would have _fall­en a prey to_ the fierce wolves.

Tell the sto­ry in your own words, us­ing the points in the fol­low­ing

Anal­ysis.--1. Frank and Har­ry go to skate. 2. The alarm. 3. The wolves. 4. The pur­suit. 5. The es­cape. 6. Death of the wolves.

* * * * *

LES­SON VII.

craft, _ship; a boat of any kind_.

mew'ing, _cry­ing, like a cat_.

a dopt'ed, _re­ceived as one's own_.

ad mir'er, _one who likes an­oth­er_.

voy'age, _jour­ney by wa­ter_.

dain'ty, _nice in form or taste_.

a loft', _on high; in the air_.

wind'ward, _the point from which the wind blows_.

star'board, _the right-​hand side of a ship_.

bruised, _in­jured, hurt_.

* * * * *

OUR SAILOR CAT.

She was a sailor cat, in­deed, and it was a sailor who first brought her on board.

Our steam­er was ly­ing at her pier in the North Riv­er, at New York, tak­ing in car­go.

One of our men, who had been ashore, came back with a lit­tle gray-​and-​white kit­ten in his arms. She was very poor and thin, and her lit­tle fur­ry coat was sad­ly soiled with dirt and grease.

But she had not lost all her fun, for she was mak­ing play with her tiny fore-​paws at the ends of the sailor's red beard, to hon­est Jack's great de­light.

“Where did you pick that up, Jack?” asked the third of­fi­cer.

“Well, your hon­or,” said Jack Har­mon, touch­ing his cap with a grin, "seems to me she must have left her ship and gone to look for an­oth­er, for I found her tramp­ing along the pier there, and mew­ing as if she was call­ing out for some­body to show her the road.

“So I thought that, as we have many rats aboard the old craft, she would be able to pick up a good liv­ing there; and I called to her, and she came at once, and here she is.”

Here she was, sure enough; and as Jack end­ed his sto­ry, she chimed in with a plain­tive lit­tle “Me-​ow,” which said, as plain­ly as ev­er any cat spoke yet, “I'm very cold and hun­gry, and I do wish some­body would take me be­low and give me some food!”

She had not long to wait. Half an hour lat­er she was the best-​fed cat in that part of New York City, and that night she lay snug­ly curled up with a good warm blan­ket over her.

Of course, the first thing to do with an adopt­ed cat is to give it a name, and Jack Har­mon, who was a bit of a wag in his way, and a great ad­mir­er of the mon­ster ele­phant which was just then mak­ing such a stir in New York, called his new pet “Jum­bo.”

Jum­bo soon be­came the pet of the whole crew, and of the pas­sen­gers, too, when they came on board, a few days lat­er, for the voy­age back to Eng­land.

Be­fore we were half-​way across the ocean, the bits of meat or cake, and bits of white bread soaked in milk, which were be­ing con­stant­ly giv­en her by one and an­oth­er, had made her look as round as an ap­ple.

The ladies were nev­er tired of stroking her soft fur and ad­mir­ing her dain­ty white paws, which were now as spot­less as snow. The chil­dren romped all day with this new play­mate, who seemed to en­joy the sport quite as much as them­selves.

But Jum­bo was not con­tent with mere play. She seemed to think her­self bound to do some­thing to “work her pas­sage.” When­ev­er any of the crew went aloft to take in sail, Jum­bo would al­ways climb up, too, as if to help them.

Jack Har­mon was still her fa­vorite, and when­ev­er it came his turn to stand at the bow and keep watch, there was Jum­bo go­ing back­ward and for­ward.

On the eighth night of the voy­age, the stars looked dim and wa­tery, and a low bank of clouds be­gan to rise to wind­ward of us, just be­tween sea and sky.

The old sailors shook their heads and looked grave, as if they ex­pect­ed an un­usu­al storm. Sud­den­ly the wind be­gan to blow strong­ly up­on the star­board quar­ter, stir­ring up a cross-​sea which tossed the great ship like a toy.

Near­ly all the pas­sen­gers had gone be­low, and the few who re­mained on deck but­toned their wa­ter-​proof coats, and held tight­ly on by any thing they could seize.

Jack Har­mon had shut up his cat be­low, but poor puss es­caped some­how, for all at once a shrill cry was heard, and there was Jum­bo cling­ing to a rail, with a great moun­tain of a wave com­ing right down up­on her.

Sev­er­al men sprang to­ward the spot, but Jack was fore­most, and he had just reached his lit­tle pet when down came the great wave up­on them both.

In­stant­ly the whole af­ter-​deck was one roar­ing, foam­ing wa­ter­fall, the fly­ing spray of which blind­ed one for a mo­ment. But when it cleared, there stood our brave Jack--drip­ping, bruised, and bleed­ing from a cut on the head.

But his lit­tle fa­vorite was safe in his arms, and as he came back with her, such a cheer went up from all who were on deck, as the old ship had not heard for many a day.

“Let's send round the hat for him,” said one of the pas­sen­gers.

And the hat was sent around, so suc­cess­ful­ly that Jack got enough mon­ey to give his poor old moth­er a hap­py Christ­mas, and still have some­thing left over for him­self and Jum­bo, who was his moth­er's pet ev­er af­ter.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Should this les­son be read with the same tone of voice as Lessons V. and VI.?

In the first para­graph, do not say _pier rin_ for _pier in; dir' tand_ for _dirt and_.

Point out two oth­er places in the les­son where mis­takes sim­ilar to those just giv­en might oc­cur.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark the sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _car­go, of­fi­cer, blan­ket, pas­sen­gers, in­stant­ly, bleed­ing_.

_Work her pas­sage_ means to pay her fare by mak­ing her­self use­ful.

Make out an _anal­ysis_ in six parts for this les­son, and use it in telling the sto­ry in your own words.

* * * * *

LES­SON VI­II.

loi'ter ing, _go­ing slow­ly, lin­ger­ing_.

pro tect'or, _one who keeps an­oth­er from harm_.

throng'ing, _gath­er­ing in large num­bers_.

wrecked, _dashed to pieces_.

thatched, _cov­ered with straw or twigs_.

bronzed, _brown, dark­ed-​col­ored_.

bleach'ing, _whiten­ing_.

van'ished, _gone out of sight; de­part­ed sud­den­ly_.

rapt'ure, _great joy; de­light_.

* * * * *

RES­CUED.

“Lit­tle lad, slow wan­der­ing across the sands so yel­low, Lead­ing safe a lassie small--O tell me, lit­tle fel­low, Whith­er go you, loi­ter­ing in the sum­mer weath­er, Chat­ter­ing like sweet-​voiced birds on a bough to­geth­er?”

“I am Robert, if you please, and this is Rose, my sis­ter, Youngest of us all”--he bent his curly head and kissed her, "Ev­ery day we come and wait here till the sun is set­ting, Watch­ing for our fa­ther's ship, for moth­er dear is fret­ting.

"Long ago he sailed away, out of sight and hear­ing, Straight across the bay he went, in­to sun­set steer­ing. Ev­ery day we look for him, and hope for his re­turn­ing, Ev­ery night my moth­er keeps the can­dle for him burn­ing.

“Sum­mer goes, and win­ter comes, and spring re­turns but nev­er Fa­ther's step comes to the gate. O, is he gone for­ev­er? The great, grand ship that bore him off, think you some tem­pest wrecked her?” Tears shone in lit­tle Rose's eyes, up­turned to her pro­tec­tor.

Ea­ger­ly the bon­ny boy went on: “O, sir, look yon­der! In the off­ing see the sails that east and west­ward wan­der; Ev­ery hour they come and go, the misty dis­tance throng­ing. While we watch and see them fade, with sor­row and with long­ing.”

“Lit­tle Robert, lit­tle Rose!” The stranger's eyes were glis­ten­ing At his bronzed and beard­ed face, upgazed the chil­dren, lis­ten­ing; He knelt up­on the yel­low sand, and clasped them to his bo­som, Robert brave, and lit­tle Rose, as bright as any blos­som.

“Fa­ther, fa­ther! Is it you?” The still air rings with rap­ture; All the van­ished joy of years the wait­ing ones re­cap­ture! Finds he wel­come wild and sweet, the low-​thatched cot­tage reach­ing, But the ship that in­to sun­set steered, up­on the rocks lies bleach­ing.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Read the con­ver­sa­tion­al parts of this po­em like con­ver­sa­tion in prose.

Point out the _em­phat­ic words_ in the first line of the last stan­za.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--_In­to sun­set steer­ing_, means sail­ing west­ward.

_The misty dis­tance throng­ing_, means gath­er­ing to­geth­er in the dis­tance.

_The still air rings with rap­ture_, means that the air be­comes full of joy­ful shouts.

_All the van­ished joy of years the wait­ing ones re­cap­ture_, means that the chil­dren re­gain the hap­pi­ness lost dur­ing their fa­ther's ab­sence.

* * * * *

LES­SON IX.

im­pos'ing, _grand look­ing; of great size_.

glar'ing, _fierce look­ing_.

lim'its, _space_.

e nor'mous, _very large; huge_.

start'led, _sud­den­ly alarmed; sur­prised_.

au'di­ble, _that may be heard_.

maj'es­ty, _great­ness; no­bil­ity_.

in­creas'ing, _grow­ing larg­er_.

* * * * *

THE LI­ON.

There is, in the ap­pear­ance of the li­on, some­thing both no­ble and im­pos­ing. Na­ture has giv­en him won­der­ful strength and beau­ty.

His body, when full grown, is on­ly about sev­en feet long and less than four feet high; but his large and shape­ly head, with its pow­er­ful jaws, his glar­ing eye, and long, flow­ing mane, give him an air of majesty that shows him wor­thy of the name--“King of Beasts.”

Yet we are told that a li­on will not will­ing­ly at­tack man, un­less first at­tacked him­self or driv­en by hunger to for­get his habits.

On meet­ing man sud­den­ly, he will turn, re­treat slow­ly for a short dis­tance, and then run away.

The li­on be­longs to the cat fam­ily, and his teeth and claws are sim­ilar in form and ac­tion to those of the house cat.

His food is the flesh of an­imals; and so great is his ap­petite, that it must re­quire sev­er­al thou­sand oth­er an­imals to sup­ply one li­on with food dur­ing his life-​time.

His strength is so enor­mous that he can crush the skull of an ox with a sin­gle blow of his pow­er­ful paw, and then grasp it in his jaws and bound away.

Un­less driv­en by hunger to bold­er mea­sures, he will hide in the bush­es, or in the tall reeds along the banks of rivers, and spring sud­den­ly up­on the un­lucky an­imal that chances to come near him.

Many li­ons have been cap­tured, and their habits and ap­pear­ance care­ful­ly stud­ied. Al­though there is a dif­fer­ence in col­or--some be­ing of a yel­low­ish brown, oth­ers of a deep red, and a few sil­very gray--the gen­er­al form and ap­pear­ance of all li­ons is the same.

The mane is of a dark brown, or of a dusky col­or, and the tail near­ly three feet long, with a bunch of hair at the tip.

The li­oness, or fe­male li­on, is small­er in ev­ery way than the male and has no mane.

It is in the night-​time that the li­on goes out from his den to seek for food, and his col­or is so dark and his move­ments so silent, that his pres­ence is not known even at the dis­tance of a few yards.

These dan­ger­ous beasts are no longer found in Eu­rope, al­though they lived there in num­bers many hun­dred years ago. It is on­ly in the deserts and rocky hills of Asia and Africa that they are met with.

Those who have vis­it­ed a menagerie, and have seen a li­on with­in the lim­its of a nar­row iron cage, can form no idea of the majesty of the brute when roam­ing about freely on his na­tive soil.

The voice of the li­on is loud and strong. It is like­ly to strike ter­ror to the bravest heart.

“It con­sists,” says a well-​known writ­er, “at times of a low, deep moan­ing, re­peat­ed five or six times, and end­ing in scarce­ly au­di­ble sighs; at oth­er times, the for­est is star­tled with loud, deep-​toned, solemn roars, in­creas­ing in loud­ness to the third or fourth, and then dy­ing away in sounds like dis­tant thun­der.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--This les­son should be read a lit­tle more slow­ly than con­ver­sa­tion. When we wish to de­scribe any thing, we must give time for those who lis­ten to us to get the mean­ing of what we say.

Do not run the words to­geth­er when read­ing. (See Di­rec­tions for Read­ing, page 42.)[03]

Ex­am­ple.--“There is, in the ap­pear­ance of the li­on, some­thing both no­ble and im­pos­ing.”

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _meet­ing, re­quire, Eu­rope, idea, ter­ror, mea­sures, un­lucky, nar­row, bold­er_.

_Air of majesty_ means the no­ble ap­pear­ance sup­posed to be­long to kings.

[03] See Les­son VII.

* * * * *

LES­SON X.

ar ti fi' cial, _not re­al; made by hu­man skill_.

ex er'tion, _great ef­fort; at­tempt_.

de­stroyed', _killed; put an end to_.

cleansed, _cleaned; freed from dirt_.

sit u a'tion, _po­si­tion_.

fa'mous, _much talked of; well known_.

fre'quent ly, _of­ten_.

in'ci dent, _ad­ven­ture; event_.

nar rat'ed, _told_.

hurled, _thrown with force_.

stu'por, _sleepy feel­ing_.

* * * * *

AD­VEN­TURE WITH A LI­ON.

The dan­gers of li­on-​hunt­ing may be un­der­stood from the fol­low­ing in­ci­dent, nar­rat­ed by Liv­ing­stone, the fa­mous African trav­el­er:

"The vil­lagers among whom I was stay­ing were much trou­bled by li­ons, which leaped in­to their cat­tle-​pens and de­stroyed their cows.

"As I knew well that, if one of a num­ber of li­ons is killed, the oth­ers fre­quent­ly take the hint and leave that part of the coun­try, I gave the vil­lagers ad­vice to that end, and, to en­cour­age them, of­fered to lead the hunt.

"The li­ons were found hid­ing among the rocks on a hill cov­ered with trees, and about a quar­ter of a mile in length. The men cir­cled the hill, and slow­ly edged in clos­er and clos­er, so that the li­ons might be com­plete­ly sur­round­ed.

"Present­ly one of the na­tives spied a li­on sit­ting on a piece of rock, and fired at him, the ball miss­ing the beast and strik­ing the rock.

"The li­on turned, bit like a dog at the spot where the bul­let had struck, and then bound­ed off to the shel­ter of the brush­wood.

"Soon I saw an­oth­er li­on in much the same sit­ua­tion as the for­mer, and, be­ing not more than thir­ty yards from it, let fly with both bar­rels.

"As the li­on was still on its legs, I has­tened to reload my gun; but hear­ing a sud­den and fright­ful cry from the na­tives, I looked up and saw the wound­ed li­on spring­ing up­on me.

"I was caught by the shoul­der and hurled to the ground. Growl­ing ter­ri­bly in my ear, the li­on shook me as a dog does a rat.

"The shock pro­duced a stu­por, sim­ilar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse af­ter the first shake of a cat.

"The li­on then leaped up­on one of the na­tives who had tried to shoot at him, and then sprang at the neck of a sec­ond na­tive who, armed with a spear, was rush­ing to the res­cue.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

"The ex­er­tion was too much for the wound­ed beast, and so, with his claws bed­ded in the spear­man's shoul­der, he rolled over and died.

"I had es­caped, but with a shoul­der so bro­ken as to need an ar­ti­fi­cial joint, and with eleven teeth wounds in my arm.

“These wounds were less se­vere than they would have been, had not a heavy jack­et which I had on, cleansed the teeth of the li­on in their pas­sage. As it was, they were soon cured and gave me no trou­ble af­ter­ward.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Read this les­son in a full and clear con­ver­sa­tion­al tone of voice.

Those parts of the les­son to which we wish to call at­ten­tion, should be read slow­ly.

Ex­am­ple.--“The men edged in clos­er and clos­er, so that the li­ons might be com­plete­ly sur­round­ed.”

Should the slow and clear read­ing be kept up through­out pages 51 and 52, or should those pages be read more rapid­ly?[04]

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _Liv­ing­stone, bul­let, growl­ing, jack­et, of­fered, ad­vice, se­vere_.

_Edged in clos­er and clos­er_ means went slow­ly near­er and near­er.

_Let fly with both bar­rels_ means fired both bar­rels of his gun at the same time.

_Still on its legs_ means not so bad­ly wound­ed but that it was able to stand up.

Tell the sto­ry in your own words.

[04] See this les­son.

* * * * *

LES­SON XI.

en riched', _made rich_.

de tec'tion, _be­ing found out_.

dis mount'ed, _got down from_.

sat' is fied, _sup­plied with all one wants_.

sum'mit, _top; high­est point_.

en trust'ed, _gave the care of_.

em ployed', _used; made use of_.

im por'tant, _wor­thy of at­ten­tion_.

ad dressed', _spoke to_.

di' a mond, _a very valu­able stone_.

in clud' ed, _put in as a part_.

* * * * *

THE NO­BLEST DEED OF ALL.

A rich Per­sian, feel­ing him­self grow­ing old, and find­ing that the cares of busi­ness were too great for him, re­solved, to di­vide his goods among his three sons, keep­ing a very small part to pro­tect him from want in his old age.

The sons were all well sat­is­fied, and each took his share with thanks, and promised that it should be well and prop­er­ly em­ployed. When this im­por­tant busi­ness was thus fin­ished, the fa­ther ad­dressed the sons in the fol­low­ing words:

"My sons, there is one thing which I have not in­clud­ed in the share of any one of you. It is this cost­ly di­amond which you see in my hand. I will give it to that one of you who shall earn it by the no­blest deed.

“Go, there­fore, and trav­el for three months; at the end of that time, we will meet here again, and you shall tell me what you have done.”

The sons there­upon de­part­ed, and trav­eled for three months, each in a dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion. At the end of that time they re­turned; and all came to­geth­er to their fa­ther to give an ac­count of their jour­ney. The el­dest son spoke first.

"Fa­ther, on my jour­ney a stranger en­trust­ed to me a great num­ber of valu­able jew­els, with­out tak­ing any ac­count of them. In­deed, I was well aware that he did not know how many the pack­age con­tained.

“One or two of them would nev­er have been missed, and I might eas­ily have en­riched my­self with­out fear of de­tec­tion. But I gave back the pack­age ex­act­ly as I had re­ceived it. Was not this a no­ble deed?”

“My son,” replied the fa­ther, “sim­ple hon­esty can­not be called no­ble. You did what was right, and noth­ing more. If you had act­ed oth­er­wise, you would have been dis­hon­est, and your deed would have shamed you. You have done well, but not nobly.”

The sec­ond son now spoke. He said: "As I was rid­ing along on my jour­ney, I one day saw a poor child play­ing by the shore of a lake; and just as I rode by, it fell in­to the wa­ter, and was in dan­ger of be­ing drowned.

“I at once dis­mount­ed from my horse, and plung­ing in­to the wa­ter, brought it safe to land. All the peo­ple of the vil­lage where this hap­pened will tell you that what I say is true. Was it not a no­ble ac­tion?”

“My son,” replied the old man, “you did on­ly what was your du­ty. You could hard­ly have left the child to die with­out ex­ert­ing your­self to save it. You, too, have act­ed well, but not nobly.”

Then the third son came for­ward to tell his tale. He said: "Fa­ther, I had an en­emy, who for years had done me much harm and tried to take my life.

"One evening dur­ing my jour­ney, I was pass­ing along a dan­ger­ous road which ran be­side the sum­mit of a cliff. As I rode along, my horse start­ed at sight of some­thing in the road.

"I dis­mount­ed to see what it was, and found my en­emy ly­ing fast asleep on the very edge of the cliff. The least move­ment in his sleep and he must have rolled over and been dashed to pieces on the rocks be­low.

“His life was in my hands. I drew him away from the edge and then woke him, and told him to go on his way in peace.”

Then the old Per­sian cried out with great joy, “Dear son, the di­amond is yours, for it is a no­ble and god­like thing to help an en­emy and re­turn good for evil.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Read this les­son in a con­ver­sa­tion­al tone of voice, and some­what more slow­ly than Les­son III.

Read what is said by each one of the four dif­fer­ent per­sons, as you think each one of them would speak.

How would you read the third and fourth para­graphs?--the last para­graph?

Point out the _em­phat­ic words_ in the last para­graph.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _Per­sian, there­fore, valu­able, ac­count, jew­els, aware, con­tained, dis­hon­est, du­ty, en­emy_.

Let pupils use oth­er words, to ex­press the fol­low­ing:

To go on his way in peace. Re­turn good for evil.

Tell the sto­ry in your own words, us­ing the points in the fol­low­ing

Anal­ysis.--1. The fa­ther di­vides his goods. 2. What he said to his sons. 3. What the el­dest son did. 4. What the sec­ond son did. 5. What the third son did. 6. What the fa­ther said.

* * * * *

LES­SON XII.

a new', _over again_.

al'ma nac, _a book giv­ing days, weeks, and months of the year_.

rus'tling, _shak­ing with a gen­tle sound_.

scents, _smells_.

drow'sy, _sleepy; mak­ing sleepy_.

larch, _a kind of tree_.

flue, _an open­ing for air or smoke to pass through_.

haunt'ing, _stay­ing in; re­turn­ing of­ten_.

mur'mur, _a low sound_.

fra' grant, _sweet smelling_.

* * * * *

MAR­JORIE'S AL­MANAC.

Robins in the tree-​top, Blos­soms in the grass, Green things a-​grow­ing Ev­ery-​where you pass; Sud­den fra­grant breezes, Show­ers of sil­ver dew, Black bough and bent twig Bud­ding out anew; Pine-​tree and wil­low-​tree, Fringed elm and larch,-- Don't you think that May-​time's Pleas­an­ter than March?

Ap­ples in the or­chard Mel­low­ing one by one; Straw­ber­ries up­turn­ing Soft cheeks to the sun; Ros­es faint with sweet­ness, Lilies fair of face, Drowsy scents and mur­murs Haunt­ing ev­ery place; Lengths of gold­en sun­shine, Moon­light bright as day,-- Don't you think that sum­mer's Pleas­an­ter than May?

Roger in the corn-​patch Whistling ne­gro songs; Pussy by the hearth-​side Romp­ing with the tongs; Chest­nuts in the ash­es Burst­ing through the rind; Red leaf and gold leaf Rustling down the wind; Moth­er “doin' peach­es” All the af­ter­noon,-- Don't you think that au­tumn's Pleas­an­ter than June?

Lit­tle fairy snow-​flakes Danc­ing in the flue; Old Mr. San­ta Claus, What is keep­ing you? Twi­light and fire­light, Shad­ows come and go; Mer­ry chime of sleigh-​bells Tin­kling through the snow; Moth­er knit­ting stock­ings (Pussy's got the ball!)-- Don't you think that win­ter's Pleas­an­ter than all?

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Read the les­son with spir­it, and avoid any­thing like sing-​song.

Do not make the last word of each line _em­phat­ic_, un­less it is re­al­ly an _em­phat­ic word_.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words; _Mar­jorie's, chest­nuts, peach­es, af­ter­noon_.

What part of the year is de­scribed in each stan­za?

What two words can be used for each of the fol­low­ing: _May-​time's, sum­mer's_.

* * * * *

LES­SON XI­II.

col'o ny, _a num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing to­geth­er in one place_.

set'tlers, _those peo­ple who form a colony_.

shy, _eas­ily fright­ened; timid_.

es tab'lished, _formed; set­tled_.

war'ri­or, _a sol­dier; one who fights in war_.

fur'ni ture, _ar­ti­cles used in a house_.

dread'ed, _feared very much_.

pros' per ous, _suc­cess­ful; rich_.

* * * * *

THE STO­RY OF IN­DI­AN SPRING.

PART I.

"You want to know why this is called In­di­an Spring, Rob­bie? I will tell you.

"When Mary and I were lit­tle girls, fa­ther moved away from our pleas­ant home on the bank of the Delaware Riv­er, and came to this part of the coun­try. There were five of us: fa­ther, moth­er, Mary, our dear nurse Lizzie, and I.

"Lizzie was a col­ored wom­an, who had lived with us a long time. She was very hand­some, and straight as an ar­row. She was a few years old­er than moth­er.

"Grand­fa­ther Thor­pe, your great grand­fa­ther, boys, gave her to moth­er when she was mar­ried. Your grand­fa­ther was a miller. The old mill that I went to see to-​day, was his. It was the first mill built in this part of Penn­syl­va­nia.

"O, this was a beau­ti­ful coun­try! my eyes nev­er were tired of look­ing out over these moun­tains and val­leys. But I saw that moth­er's face was get­ting thin­ner and whiter ev­ery day; they said she was home­sick, and be­fore we had been in the colony a year, a grave was made un­der an elm-​tree close by, and that grave was moth­er's.

"I thought my heart was bro­ken then, but I soon for­got my sor­row: I still had fa­ther, sis­ter Mary, and Lizzie.

"In this part of Penn­syl­va­nia at that time there were very few white peo­ple, and be­sides our own, there was no oth­er colony with­in ten miles. But our peo­ple be­ing so near to­geth­er, and well armed, felt quite safe.

"Ten miles away on the Susque­han­na, was a small vil­lage es­tab­lished by a colony from the north, which was used as a trad­ing-​post. There the friend­ly In­di­ans of­ten came to trade.

"Fa­ther went twice a year to this vil­lage to get sup­plies that came up the riv­er. He of­ten spoke of Red Feath­er, an old In­di­an war­rior. Fa­ther liked Red Feath­er, and he learned to trust him al­most as he would have trust­ed a white man.

"Time passed on un­til I was thir­teen years old, a tall, strong girl, and very brave for a girl. I could shoot al­most as well as fa­ther.

"Lit­tle Mary was very qui­et and shy, not like me at all. I loved fish­ing, and of­ten went out hunt­ing with fa­ther, but she staid at home with Lizzie, or sat down un­der the trees by the spring, watch­ing the shad­ow of the trees mov­ing in it.

"Our colony had by this time be­come quite pros­per­ous. A good many of the set­tlers had built hous­es for them­selves more like those they had left be­hind on the Delaware.

"The spring that I was four­teen, fa­ther built this house. The mill had al­ready been grind­ing away for two years. We were very hap­py when we moved out of our lit­tle log cab­in in­to this pleas­ant house.

"We had but lit­tle fur­ni­ture, but we had plen­ty of room. Up to this time, there had not been much trou­ble with the In­di­ans, and though we had of­ten dread­ed it, and lived in fear many days at a time, on­ly four of our men had been killed by them.

"We had trust­ed many of the friend­ly In­di­ans, and Red Feath­er had fre­quent­ly spent days at our set­tle­ment. He seemed to like the mill.

"I be­came quite at­tached to the old man; but Mary was al­ways afraid of him, and Lizzie kept her sharp eyes on him when­ev­er he came in­to the house. She hat­ed him, and he knew it.

"One beau­ti­ful clear morn­ing in Au­gust of that year, fa­ther went down to the mill as usu­al. Lizzie was busy with her work, and lit­tle Mary was play­ing with some tame doves, when look­ing up, I saw Lizzie start sud­den­ly.

"She had seen some­thing in the woods that fright­ened her. With­out speak­ing, she went to the door, closed and fas­tened it, then turned and looked out of the win­dow. She nev­er told mo what she saw.

“Fa­ther came home ear­ly that day; he looked anx­ious, and I knew that some­thing trou­bled him. With­out wait­ing to eat his sup­per, he went out, and very soon most of the men of the colony had gath­ered round him at the spring.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--With what tone of voice should this les­son be read?

What oth­er lessons be­fore this, have been read with the same tone of voice?

Name two _em­phat­ic words_ in the fol­low­ing _ex­cla­ma­tion_:

“O, this was a beau­ti­ful coun­try!”

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Change the _ex­cla­ma­tion_ giv­en above to a _state­ment_. What word would be omit­ted? How would the punc­tu­ation be changed?

Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _Delaware, thin­ner, Susque­han­na, grind­ing_.

* * * * *

LES­SON XIV.

con fu'sion, _dis­or­der_.

sense'less, _with­out the pow­er of think­ing or act­ing; seem­ing­ly life­less_.

re vived', _came back to life; re­cov­ered_.

cun'ning, _sly­ness; skill_.

pro voke', _make an­gry_.

stunned_, made sense­less by a blow on the head_.

meek'ly, _in a gen­tle man­ner_.

his'to ry, _what is told of the past; a sto­ry_.

tot'ter, _shake as if about to fall_.

* * * * *

THE STO­RY OF IN­DI­AN SPRING.

PART II.

"It was as I had feared; we were in dan­ger of an at­tack from the In­di­ans.

"Some­thing had hap­pened at the trad­ing-​post to pro­voke them, and rouse their thirst for blood. But a qui­et night passed by and the sun shone again over the hills in won­der­ful beau­ty.

"Sud­den­ly, there sound­ed from the for­est a scream. I had nev­er heard it be­fore, but I knew it. It was the ter­ri­ble war-​whoop. Then all was con­fu­sion and hor­ror.

"I saw Nani­to, an In­di­an that I knew, who had eat­en at our ta­ble. I saw him strike down our fa­ther, while Lizzie fought to save him.

"But it was no use, there was no mer­cy in the heart of the In­di­an. They car­ried Lizzie away from us, and we nev­er saw her again.

"Poor lit­tle fright­ened Mary and I were tied to­geth­er, our hands fas­tened be­hind us, and we were giv­en, to--whom do you think, Rob­bie?--to Red Feath­er. Then I hat­ed him, and re­solved that I would kill him if I could.

"Af­ter a while he took us out of the house, and then I saw that most of the hous­es in the lit­tle vil­lage were burn­ing. The wom­en and chil­dren were saved alive, but near­ly all the men were killed.

"I was very qui­et, for I want­ed my hands un­tied, and I thought per­haps Red Feath­er would pity me and un­fas­ten them.

"Lit­tle Mary was fright­ened near­ly to death. She had not spo­ken since she saw the In­di­an strike fa­ther down,--when she screamed and fell sense­less.

"For a good while I thought she was dead. She had re­vived a great deal, but had not spo­ken.

"About sun­down Red Feath­er led us down past the spring, out in­to the woods, but not far away. We could still see the smoke ris­ing from the burn­ing hous­es. The In­di­ans had gone some dis­tance far­ther and camped with the white pris­on­ers.

"Red Feath­er could speak En­glish, so I told him if he would un­tie my hands, I would make his fire, and bake his corn cake for him.

"He was old and fee­ble, and had lost much of his nat­ural cun­ning. He knew me, and trust­ed me; so with­out speak­ing, he took his hunt­ing knife from his belt, cut the cords, and I was free.

"I took the hatch­et that he gave me to cut some branch­es for a fire, and went to work very meek­ly, with my head down.

"I dared not speak to Mary, for fear he might see me, for his eyes were fixed on me ev­ery mo­ment. I baked his corn cake in the ash­es, and gave it to him. By this time it was dark, but the light from our fire shone far out in­to the woods.

"I no­ticed Red Feath­er did not watch me so close­ly, and his eyes would now and then shut, for he was very tired.

"He leaned for­ward to light his pipe in the ash­es, when in­stant­ly, al­most with­out think­ing, I seized the hatch­et, and struck him with all my might.

"With a loud scream, I plunged in­to the woods to­ward home. Turn­ing an in­stant, I saw Mary spring up, tot­ter, and fall. With an­oth­er sharp re­port came a twinge of pain in my side. Sud­den­ly I fell, and in the dark­ness of the woods, they passed on, leav­ing me stunned and near­ly dead.

"I will not tell you now, my dear Rob­bie, how I was cared for, and who brought home lit­tle Mary and laid her to rest un­der the elm, be­side moth­er--but the bul­let that struck me then, I still car­ry in my side, and shall as long as I live.

“Many years have passed since that ter­ri­ble day, but I can nev­er for­get it. As long as the his­to­ry of this coun­try lasts, In­di­an Spring will be re­mem­bered, and oth­er boys will lis­ten, with eyes as wide open as yours, to the tale it has to tell.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Should the sec­ond or third para­graph of the les­son be read the faster?

When do we speak more rapid­ly--in telling an ex­cit­ing sto­ry, or in com­mon con­ver­sa­tion?

Do our feel­ings guide us when we speak slow­ly or rapid­ly?--when, we speak qui­et­ly or forcibly?

Point out three para­graphs in the les­son that you would read as slow­ly as Les­son XI­II.; three that you would read more rapid­ly.

In read­ing rapid­ly, be care­ful not to omit syl­la­bles, and not to run words to­geth­er. (See Di­rec­tions for Read­ing, page 42.)[05]

[05] See Les­son VII.

* * * * *

LES­SON XV.

aft, _near the stern of a ship_.

an­ch'or, _a large iron for hold­ing a ship_.

aimed, _di­rect­ed or point­ed at, as a gun_.

car'tridge, _a small case con­tain­ing pow­der and ball_.

mood, _state of mind; tem­per_.

sul'try, _very hot_.

cleav'ing, _cut­ting through; di­vid­ing_.

dis cov'ered, _found out; seen clear­ly_.

buoys, _floats, made of wood, hol­low iron, or cop­per_.

re sults', _what fol­lows an act_.

* * * * *

AN AD­VEN­TURE WITH A SHARK.

Our no­ble ship lay at an­chor in the Bay of Tang­iers, a town in the north-​west part of Africa.

The day had been very mild, with a gen­tle breeze sweep­ing to the north­ward and west­ward. To­ward the close of the day the sea-​breeze died away, and hot, sul­try breath­ings came from the great, sun­burnt desert of Sa­hara.

Half an hour be­fore sun­down, the cap­tain gave the cheer­ing or­der to call the hands to “go in swim­ming”; and, in less than five min­utes, the forms of our sailors were seen leap­ing from the arms of the low­er yards in­to the wa­ter.

One of the sails, with its cor­ners fas­tened from the main yard-​arm and the swing­ing boom, had been low­ered in­to the wa­ter, and in­to this most of the swim­mers made their way.

Among those who seemed to be en­joy­ing the sport most hearti­ly were two boys, one of whom was the son of our old gun­ner; and, in a laugh­ing mood, they start­ed out from the sail on a race.

There was a loud ring­ing shout of joy on their lips as they put off; they dart­ed through the wa­ter like fish­es. The sur­face of the sea was smooth as glass, though its bo­som rose in long, heavy swells that set in from the ocean.

One of the buoys which was at­tached to the an­chor, to show where it lay, was far away on the star­board quar­ter, where it rose and fell with the lazy swell of the waves.

To­wards this buoy the two lads made their way, the old gun­ner's son tak­ing the lead; but, when they were with­in about six­ty yards of the buoy, the oth­er boy shot ahead and promised to win the race.

The old gun­ner had watched the progress of his son with great pride; and when he saw him drop be­hind, he leaped up­on the quar­ter-​deck, and was just up­on the point of urg­ing him on by a shout, when a cry was heard that struck him with in­stant hor­ror.

“A shark! a shark!” shout­ed the of­fi­cer of the deck; and, at the sound of those ter­ri­ble words, the men who were in the wa­ter, leaped and plunged to­ward the ship.

Three or four hun­dred yards away, the back of a mon­ster shark was seen cleav­ing the wa­ter. Its course was for the boys.

For a mo­ment the gun­ner stood like one who had lost his rea­son; then he shout­ed at the top of his voice for the boys to turn; but they heard him not.

Stout­ly the two swim­mers strove, know­ing noth­ing of the dan­ger from the shark. Their mer­ry laugh­ter still rang over the wa­ters, as they were both near­ing the buoy.

O, what anx­iety filled the heart of the gun­ner! A boat had put off, but he knew it could not reach the boys in time to pre­vent the shark from over­tak­ing them.

Ev­ery mo­ment he ex­pect­ed to see the mon­ster sink from sight,--then he knew all hope would be gone. At this mo­ment a cry was heard on board the ship, that reached ev­ery heart,--the boys had dis­cov­ered their en­emy.

The cry star­tled the old gun­ner, and, quick­er than thought, he sprung from the quar­ter-​deck. The guns were all load­ed and shot­ted, fore and aft, and none knew their tem­per bet­ter than he.

With steady hand, made strong by sud­den hope, the old gun­ner pricked the car­tridge of one of the quar­ter guns; then he took from his pock­et a per­cus­sion cap, fixed it on its place, and set back the ham­mer of the gun-​lock.

With great ex­er­tions, the old man turned the heavy gun to its bear­ing, and then seiz­ing the string of the lock, he stood back and watched for the next swell that would bring the shark in range. He had aimed the piece some dis­tance ahead of his mark; but yet a mo­ment would set­tle his hopes and fears.

Ev­ery breath was hushed, and ev­ery heart in that old ship beat painful­ly. The boat was yet some dis­tance from the boys, while the hor­rid sea-​mon­ster was fear­ful­ly near.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

Sud­den­ly the si­lence was bro­ken by the roar of the gun; and, as the old man knew his shot was gone, he cov­ered his face with his hands, as if afraid to see the re­sult. If he had failed, he knew that his boy was lost.

For a mo­ment af­ter the re­port of the gun had died away up­on the air, there was an un­bro­ken si­lence; but, as the thick smoke arose from the sur­face of the wa­ter, there was, at first, a low mur­mur break­ing from the lips of the men,--that mur­mur grew loud­er and stronger, till it swelled to a joy­ous, deaf­en­ing shout.

The old gun­ner sprung to his feet, and gazed off on the wa­ter, and the first thing that met his sight was the huge body of the shark float­ing on its back, the shot aimed by him hav­ing in­stant­ly killed it.

In a few mo­ments the boat reached the dar­ing swim­mers, and, great­ly fright­ened, they were brought on board. The old man clasped his boy in his arms, and then, over­come by the pow­er­ful ex­cite­ment, he leaned up­on a gun for sup­port.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--What para­graphs should be read rapid­ly? Does the feel­ing re­quire it?

Use _call­ing tones_ for the words, “A shark! A shark!”

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _Tang­iers, Sa­hara, per­cus­sion, ex­cite­ment, sup­port_.

Tell the sto­ry in your own words, us­ing the points in the fol­low­ing

Anal­ysis.--1. Where the ship was. 2. The race. 3. The shark. 4. The gun­ner's tri­al. 5. The re­sult.

* * * * *

LES­SON XVI.

scant'y, _not enough for use_.

hu'man, _be­long­ing to man or mankind_.

cubs, _the young of wild an­imals_.

le'gend, _a sto­ry; a tale_.

soot'y, _black­ened with smoke_.

scar'let, _of a bright red col­or_.

self'ish ly, _as if car­ing on­ly for one's self_.

knead'ed, _pressed and rolled with the hands_.

dough, _un­baked bread or cake_.

* * * * *

A LEG­END OF THE NORTH­LAND.

Away, away in the North­land, Where the hours of the day are few, And the nights are so long in win­ter, They can not sleep them through;

Where they har­ness the swift rein­deer To the sledges when it snows; And the chil­dren look like bear's cubs, In their fun­ny, fur­ry clothes:

They tell them a cu­ri­ous sto­ry-- I don't be­lieve 'tis true; And yet you may learn a les­son If I tell the tale to you.

Once, when the good Saint Pe­ter Lived in the world be­low, And walked about it, preach­ing, Just as he did, you know;

He came to the door of a cot­tage, In trav­el­ing round the earth, Where a lit­tle wom­an was mak­ing cakes, In the ash­es on the hearth.

And be­ing faint with fast­ing-- For the day was al­most done-- He asked her, from her store of cakes, To give him a sin­gle one.

So she made a very lit­tle cake, But as it bak­ing lay, She looked at it and thought it seemed Too large to give away.

There­fore she knead­ed an­oth­er, And still a small­er one; But it looked, when she turned it over, As large as the first had done.

Then she took a tiny scrap of dough, And rolled and rolled it flat; And baked it thin as a wafer-- But she couldn't part with that.

For she said, “My cakes that seem so small When I eat of them my­self, Are yet too large to give away.” So she put them on a shelf.

Then good Saint Pe­ter grew an­gry, For he was hun­gry and faint; And sure­ly such, a wom­an Was enough to pro­voke a saint.

And he said, "You are far too self­ish To dwell in a hu­man form, To have both food and shel­ter, And fire to keep you warm.

“Now, you shall build as the birds do, And shall get your scanty food By bor­ing, and bor­ing, and bor­ing, All day in the hard dry wood.”

Then up she went through the chim­ney. Nev­er speak­ing a word; And out of the top flew a wood­peck­er, For she was changed to a bird.

She had a scar­let cap on her head, And that was left the same, But all the rest of her clothes were burned Black as a coal in the flame.

And ev­ery coun­try school-​boy Has seen her in the wood; Where she lives in the trees till this very day Bor­ing and bor­ing for food.

And this is the les­son she teach­es: Live not for your­selves alone, Lest the needs you will not pity Shall one day be your own.

Give plen­ty of what is giv­en to you, Lis­ten to pity's call; Don't think the lit­tle you give is great, And the much you get is small.

Now, my lit­tle boy, re­mem­ber that, And try to be kind and good, When you see the wood­peck­er's sooty dress, And see her scar­let hood.

You mayn't be changed to a bird, though you live As self­ish­ly as you can; But you will be changed to a small­er thing-- A mean and self­ish man.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--In what man­ner should this les­son be read at the be­gin­ning--qui­et­ly, or with much spir­it?

On page 77, be­gin­ning with the sec­ond stan­za, is what Saint Pe­ter says qui­et and slow, or em­phat­ic and some­what rapid?[06]

Point out three places where two lines are to be joined and read as one.

What two lines in each stan­za end with sim­ilar sounds?

[06] See stan­za num­ber 12 of the po­em.

* * * * *

LES­SON XVII.

ex pres'sion, _a look show­ing feel­ing_.

a maze'ment, _great sur­prise; as­ton­ish­ment_.

mag'netis­nm, _an un­known pow­er of draw­ing or pulling_.

con tin'ued, _went on; stayed_.

test'ing, _try­ing_.

con ven'ience, _ease; the sav­ing of trou­ble_.

ex per'i ments, _the tri­als made to find out facts_.

* * * * *

A FUN­NY HORSE­SHOE.

“What a fun­ny horse­shoe!” said Char­lie, “It has no holes for the nails!”

I looked up and saw that he had tak­en up a small “horse­shoe mag­net.”

“Why that isn't a horse­shoe,” I said. “It's a mag­net.”

“Mag­net! What's that?”

Char­lie turned it over in his hands, and pulled the bar a lit­tle. The bar slipped so that it hung on­ly by a cor­ner.

“Nev­er mind,” I said, as he looked up with a scared ex­pres­sion. “It isn't bro­ken. Put the bar back.”

Char­lie put it back, and it sprung in­to place with a sharp click.

“That's fun­ny!” he cried again. “What made it jump so? And what makes it stick? It doesn't feel sticky.”

“We call it mag­netism,” I said. “Now, take hold of the bar, and see if you can pull it straight off.”

“I can't. It sticks fast.”

“Pull hard­er.”

Char­lie braced him­self for a strong pull. Sud­den­ly the bar came off, and he went tum­bling back­ward.

“What did you say makes it hold so hard?” said he, get­ting up.

“Mag­netism,” said I again.

“But what is mag­netism?”

“I couldn't tell you if I tried; but I think you could learn a great deal about it with that mag­net. You will find a lot of things in that box that may help you.”

Say­ing this, I left him to pur­sue his stud­ies as best he could. When I came back, I found him more puz­zled than when I left him.

“That's the queer­est thing I ev­er saw,” he said. “Some things just jump at it as though they were alive; some things it pulls; and some things it doesn't pull a bit.”

“That's a very long les­son you have learned,” I said. “What does it pull?”

“These,” he said, point­ing to a pile of things on one side of the box. “And these things it doesn't pull.”

“Let us see what you have in this pile,” I said, look­ing at the first lit­tle heap; “keys?”

“Trunk keys,” said Char­lie. “It doesn't pull door keys. I tried ev­er so many.”

“Try this key,” said I, tak­ing one from my pock­et. “This is a trunk key. See if the mag­net pulls it.”

“No-​o,” said Char­lie, thought­ful­ly, “it doesn't; but it pulled all the rest of the trunk keys I could find.”

“Try this key to my of­fice door.”

Char­lie tried it, and to his great amaze­ment the key stuck fast to the mag­net.

“Sure­ly,” said I, “it pulls some door keys, and fails to pull some trunk keys.”

Char­lie was more puz­zled than ev­er. He looked at the keys, thought a mo­ment, then picked up my trunk key, and said: “This key is brass; the rest are iron.”

“That's so,” I said.

“And all these door keys that the mag­net didn't pull,” he con­tin­ued, “are brass, too. Per­haps it can't pull brass things.”

“Sup­pose you try. But first see if there are any brass things that the mag­net pulled.”

Char­lie looked them over. Then we tried the cast­ers of my chair, and all the oth­er brass things we could find, none of which the mag­net would pull.

“There's no use in try­ing any longer,” said Char­lie. “It won't pull brass.”

“Then, there's an­oth­er mat­ter set­tled,” I said. “The mag­net does not pull brass. Is there any thing else it does not pull?”

“Wood,” said Char­lie. “I tried lots of pieces.”

“Any thing else?”

“Stones,” said Char­lie, ea­ger­ly.

“What are these?” I asked, hold­ing up a cou­ple of heavy stones he had put among the things the mag­net pulled.

“I guess I put those there by mis­take,” said Char­lie, test­ing with, the mag­net a num­ber of stones in the oth­er pile.

“Try them,” I said.

“O!” he said, as the mag­net lift­ed them; “I for­got. It does lift some stones.”

“Well, what else have you in that pile of things the mag­net did not pull?”

“Glass, leather, lead, bone, cloth, tin, zinc, corn, and a lot of things.”

“Very well. Now let us see what the mag­net does pull.”

“Iron keys,” said Char­lie, “and nails.”

“Here's a nail in this oth­er pile.”

“That's a brass nail. The mag­net pulls on­ly iron nails.”

“What else have we in this pile?”

“Nee­dles, hair-​pins, screws, wire--iron wire,” he added quick­ly. “Brass wire doesn't stick, you know.”

“How about this?” I asked, tak­ing a small coil of cop­per wire from my desk.

“I guess that won't stick,” said Char­lie. “Be­cause that's cop­per wire, and the mag­net doesn't seem to pull any thing that isn't iron.”

Much to Char­lie's sat­is­fac­tion, the mag­net did not pull the cop­per wire. Then I took up two stones, one rusty red, the oth­er black, and said: “What about these?”

“I guess they must have iron in them too,” said Char­lie. “Have they?”

“They have,” I replied. “They are iron ores from which iron is made. Why did you think there was iron in them?”

“Be­cause they wouldn't have stuck to the mag­net if there wasn't.”

“Quite true. So you have learned an­oth­er very im­por­tant fact. Can you tell me what it is?”

“The mag­net pulls iron,” said Char­lie.

“Good,” said I; “and it is al­so true that the mag­net does not pull--”

“Things that are not iron,” said Char­lie.

“True again,” I said. “So far as our ex­per­iments go, the mag­net pulls iron al­ways, and nev­er any thing else.”

“But what makes it pull iron?”

"That I can not tell. We see it does pull, but just how the pulling is done, or what makes it, no one has yet found out.

“For con­ve­nience we call the pulling pow­er mag­netism. You may keep the mag­net, and at some oth­er time, I will tell you more about it.”

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Name six words in the les­son, each of which is made up of two words by leav­ing out let­ters.

Write out the two words in each case.

What is the name of the mark which shows the omis­sion of let­ters?

Point out the _state­ment, com­mand, ques­tion_, and _ex­cla­ma­tion_ in the sen­tences giv­en be­low.

“O, isn't it a fun­ny horse­shoe!”

“Put the bar back.”

“What made it jump so?”

“The mag­net pulls iron.”

* * * * *

LES­SON XVI­II.

ex pos'es, _shows_.

mi mo'sa, _a tree that grows in Africa_.

mot'tled, _marked with spots of dif­fer­ent col­or_.

re sem'bling, _look­ing like_.

ap proach', _com­ing near_.

pub'lic, _open to all; free_.

va'ri ous, _dif­fer­ent; un­like in kind_.

de fend', _take care of; pro­tect_.

gait, _man­ner of step­ping_.

pre vents', _keeps from; stops_.

ca' pa ble, _hav­ing pow­er; able_.

* * * * *

THE GI­RAFFE OR CAMELOPARD.

There are few sights more pleas­ing than a herd of tall and grace­ful gi­raffes.

With, their heads reach­ing a height of from twelve to eigh­teen feet, they move about in small herds on the open plains of Africa, eat­ing the ten­der twigs and leaves of the mi­mosa and oth­er trees.

The legs of a large gi­raffe are about nine feet long, and its neck near­ly six feet; while its body mea­sures on­ly sev­en feet in length and slopes rapid­ly from the neck to the tail.

The grace­ful ap­pear­ance of the gi­raffe is in­creased by the beau­ty of its skin, which is or­ange red in col­or and mot­tled with dark spots.

Its long tail has at the end a tuft of thick hair which serves the pur­pose of keep­ing off the flies and sting­ing in­sects, so plen­ti­ful in the hot cli­mate of Africa.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

Its tongue is very won­der­ful. It is from thir­teen to sev­en­teen inch­es in length, is slen­der and point­ed, and is ca­pa­ble of be­ing moved in var­ious ways. It is al­most as use­ful to the gi­raffe as the trunk is to the ele­phant.

The horns of the gi­raffe are very short and cov­ered with skin. At the ends there are tufts of short hair. The an­imal has di­vid­ed hoofs some­what re­sem­bling those of the ox.

The head of the gi­raffe is small, and its eyes, large and mild look­ing. These eyes are set in such a way that the an­imal can see a great deal of what is be­hind it with­out turn­ing its head.

In ad­di­tion to its won­der­ful pow­er of sight, the gi­raffe can scent dan­ger from a great dis­tance; so there is no an­imal more dif­fi­cult of ap­proach.

Strange to re­late, the gi­raffe has no voice. In Lon­don, some years ago, two gi­raffes were burned to death in their sta­bles, when the slight­est sound would have giv­en no­tice of their dan­ger, and saved their lives.

The gi­raffe is nat­ural­ly both gen­tle and timid, and he will al­ways try to avoid dan­ger by flight. It is when run­ning that he ex­pos­es his on­ly un­grace­ful point.

He runs swift­ly, but as he moves the fore and hind legs on each side at the same time, it gives him a very dis­pleas­ing and awk­ward gait.

But though timid, he will, when over­tak­en, turn even up­on the li­on or pan­ther, and de­fend him­self suc­cess­ful­ly by pow­er­ful kicks with his strong legs.

The na­tives of Africa cap­ture the gi­raffe in pit­falls, which are deep holes cov­ered over with branch­es of trees and dirt. When cap­tured, he can be tamed, and gives scarce­ly any trou­ble dur­ing cap­tiv­ity.

Fifty years ago, but lit­tle was known about gi­raffes in Eu­rope or Amer­ica. Now we can find them in menageries and the pub­lic gar­dens of our large cities.

The gi­raffe thrives in cap­tiv­ity and seems to be well sat­is­fied with a di­et of corn and hay. It is a source of great sat­is­fac­tion to those who ad­mire this beau­ti­ful an­imal, that there is no rea­son which pre­vents him from liv­ing in a cli­mate so dif­fer­ent from that of his African home.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Write state­ments con­tain­ing each of the fol­low­ing words, used in such a man­ner as to show their prop­er mean­ing: _feet, feat; red, read; fore, four; gait, gate_.

Mod­el.--

We are com­ing to _see_ you to-​mor­row.

He stood watch­ing the ships sail­ing on the _sea_.

* * * * *

LES­SON XIX.

ex pert', _skill­ful_.

ad vise', _of­fer ad­vice; give no­tice of what has hap­pened_.

civ'il ized, _hav­ing laws, learn­ing, and good man­ners_.

quan'ti ty, _a large amount; part_.

in duce', _lead one to think or act_.

pre pared', _made ready for use_.

de part'ed, _went away_.

hence forth', _from this time for­ward_.

part'ner, _one who shares with an­oth­er, as a part­ner in busi­ness_.

ar riv'ing, _com­ing to; reach­ing a point_.

con vince', _make one be­lieve_.

* * * * *

THE TRAD­ER'S TRICK.

Out in the West, where many In­di­ans live, there are white men who go among them to trade for furs and skins of an­imals.

These furs and skins are col­lect­ed and pre­pared by the In­di­ans, and serve the pur­pose of mon­ey when the traders vis­it them to dis­pose of var­ious kinds of goods.

In old times, be­fore the white men came to this coun­try, the In­di­ans had on­ly bows and ar­rows, and spears with which to hunt.

But the white men soon taught them to use guns, and to-​day, near­ly all the tribes in Amer­ica are well sup­plied with ri­fles or shot­guns.

They are very ex­pert with these fire-​arms, and as they use them a great deal, must have a large and con­stant sup­ply of gun­pow­der.

A sto­ry is told of how, at one time, a tribe of In­di­ans tried to raise gun­pow­der by plant­ing seed. This shows how lit­tle they knew of civ­ilized life and habits.

A trad­er went to a cer­tain In­di­an na­tion to dis­pose of a stock of goods. Among oth­er things he had a quan­ti­ty of gun­pow­der.

The In­di­ans trad­ed for his cloths, hats, ax­es, beads, and oth­er things, but would not take the pow­der, say­ing: “We do not wish for the pow­der; we have plen­ty.”

The trad­er did not like to car­ry all the pow­der back to his camp; so thought he would play a trick on the In­di­ans, and in­duce them to buy it.

Go­ing to an open piece of ground near the In­di­an camp, he dug some lit­tle holes in the soft, rich soil; then mix­ing a quan­ti­ty of onion seed with his pow­der, he be­gan to plant it.

The In­di­ans were cu­ri­ous to know what he was do­ing, and stood by great­ly in­ter­est­ed.

“What are you do­ing?” said one. “Plant­ing gun­pow­der,” replied the trad­er.

“Why do you plant it?” in­quired an­oth­er.

“To raise a crop of pow­der. How could I raise it with­out plant­ing?” said the trad­er. “Do you not plant corn in the ground?”

“And will gun­pow­der grow like corn?” ex­claimed half a dozen at once.

“Cer­tain­ly it will,” said the trad­er. “Did you not know it? As you do not want my pow­der, I thought I would plant it, and raise a crop which I could gath­er and sell to the Crows.”

Now the Crows were an­oth­er tribe of In­di­ans, which was al­ways at war with this tribe. The idea of their en­emies hav­ing a large sup­ply of pow­der in­creased the ex­cite­ment, and one of the In­di­ans said:

“Well, well, if we can raise pow­der like corn, we will buy your stock and plant it.”

But some of the In­di­ans thought best to wait, and see if the seed would grow. So the trad­er agreed to wait a few days.

In about a week the tiny sprouts of the onion seed be­gan to ap­pear above the ground.

The trad­er call­ing the In­di­ans to the spot, said: “You see now for your­selves. The pow­der al­ready be­gins to grow, just as I told you it would.”

The fact that some small plants ap­peared where the trad­er had put the gun­pow­der, was enough to con­vince the In­di­ans.

Ev­ery one of them be­came anx­ious to raise a crop of gun­pow­der.

The trad­er sold them his stock, in which there was a large mix­ture of onion seeds, at a very high price, and then left.

From this time, the In­di­ans gave no at­ten­tion to their corn crop. If they could raise gun­pow­der, they would be hap­py.

They took great care of the lit­tle plants as they came up out of the ground, and watched ev­ery day for the ap­pear­ance of the gun­pow­der blos­soms.

They planned a buf­fa­lo hunt which was to take place af­ter the pow­der har­vest.

Af­ter a while the onions bore a plen­ti­ful crop of seeds, and the In­di­ans be­gan to gath­er and thresh it.

They be­lieved that thresh­ing the onion seeds would pro­duce the pow­der. But thresh­ing failed to bring it. Then they dis­cov­ered that they had been cheat­ed.

Of course the dis­hon­est trad­er avoid­ed these In­di­ans, and did not make them a sec­ond vis­it.

Af­ter some time, how­ev­er, he sent his part­ner to them for the pur­pose of trad­ing goods for furs and skins.

By chance they found out that this man was the part­ner of the one who had cheat­ed them.

They said noth­ing to him about the mat­ter; but when he had opened his goods and was ready to trade, they cool­ly helped them­selves to all he had, and walked off.

The trad­er did not un­der­stand this. He be­came fu­ri­ous­ly an­gry, and went to make his com­plaint to the chief of the na­tion.

“I am an hon­est man,” said he to the chief. “I came here to trade hon­est­ly. But your peo­ple are thieves; they have stolen all my goods.”

The old chief looked at him some time in si­lence, and then said: “My chil­dren are all hon­est. They have not stolen your goods. They will pay you as soon as they gath­er their gun­pow­der har­vest.”

The man had heard of the trick played up­on the In­di­ans; but did not know be­fore this, that his part­ner was the one who had cheat­ed them. He could not say a word. He de­part­ed at once. Ar­riv­ing at his home, he said to his part­ner:

“We must sep­arate. I have learned a les­son. I can not re­main in busi­ness with a dis­hon­est man. You cheat­ed the In­di­ans for a lit­tle gain. You have lost it, and I ad­vise you, hence­forth, to deal hon­est­ly with all men.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--In the first para­graph of the les­son, no­tice the places marked be­low (__) where words are like­ly to be run to­geth­er in read­ing, and avoid mak­ing such er­rors.

“Out__in the West, there__are men who trade for furs__and skins__of an­imals.”

Point out sim­ilar places in the sec­ond para­graph.

Name four _em­phat­ic words_ oc­cur­ring in the last sen­tence of the les­son.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son. Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _dis­pose, gun­pow­der, com­plaint, hence­forth_.

Give rea­sons for the cap­ital let­ters and marks of punc­tu­ation used in the last para­graph of the les­son.

Tell the sto­ry in your own words, us­ing the points giv­en in the fol­low­ing

Anal­ysis.--1. Trad­ing with the In­di­ans. 2. The use of fire-​arms among the In­di­ans. 3. The trad­er's trick. 4. Vis­it of the trad­er's part­ner. 5. What the In­di­ans did. 6. The re­turn of the part­ner. 7. What he said to the trad­er.

* * * * *

LES­SON XX.

floss'y, _made of silk_.

mag'ic, _un­nat­ural pow­er_.

war'bling, _singing_.

mope, _be­come stupid or dull_.

boun'ty, _what is giv­en freely_.

lan'guish, _be­come weak; with­er_.

* * * * *

A HAP­PY PAIR.

Over my shad­ed door­way Two lit­tle brown-​winged birds Have cho­sen to fash­ion their dwelling, And ut­ter their lov­ing words; All day they are go­ing and com­ing On er­rands fre­quent and fleet, And war­bling over and over, “Sweet­est, sweet, sweet, O sweet!”

Their necks are change­ful and shin­ing, Their eyes like liv­ing gems; And all day long they are busy Gath­er­ing straws and stems, Lint and feath­ers and grass­es, And half for­get­ting to eat, Yet nev­er fail­ing to war­ble, “Sweet­est, sweet, sweet, O sweet!”

I scat­ter crumbs on the doorstep, And fling them some flossy threads; They fear­less­ly gath­er my boun­ty, And turn up their grate­ful heads. And chat­ter and dance and flut­ter, And scrape with their tiny feet, Telling me over and over, “Sweet­est, sweet, sweet, O sweet!”

What if the sky is cloud­ed? What if the rain comes down? They are all dressed to meet it, In wa­ter-​proof suits of brown. They nev­er mope nor lan­guish, Nor mur­mur at storm or heat; But say, what­ev­er the weath­er, “Sweet­est, sweet, sweet, O sweet!”

Al­ways mer­ry and busy, Dear lit­tle brown-​winged birds! Teach me the hap­py mag­ic Hid­den in those soft words, Which al­ways, in shine or shad­ow, So lov­ing­ly you re­peat, Over and over and over, “Sweet­est, sweet, sweet, O sweet!”

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils ex­press, in their own lan­guage, the words giv­en be­low in dark type.

Their eyes are like _liv­ing gems_.

Which you al­ways re­peat _in shine or shad­ow_.

What kind of birds are de­scribed in the les­son?

Why did they gath­er straws, stems, lint, feath­ers, and grass­es?

* * * * *

LES­SON XXI.

mes'sage, _word; no­tice_.

mer'chan dise, _things trad­ed; goods_.

guid'an­ce _lead­ing; di­rect­ing_.

halt, _stop_.

de cid'ed, _made up their minds_.

re trac'ing, _go­ing back over_.

ho ri'zon, _line where the earth and sky seem to meet_.

en camped', _set up tents_.

sole, _on­ly_.

gushed, _flowed rapid­ly; poured_.

* * * * *

ALI, THE BOY CAMEL-​DRIV­ER

PART I.

Has­san was a camel-​driv­er who dwelt at Gaza. It was his busi­ness to go with car­avans, back­wards and for­wards, across the desert to Suez, to take care of the camels. He had a wife and one young son, called Ali.

Has­san had been, ab­sent for many weeks, when his wife re­ceived from him a mes­sage, brought by an­oth­er camel-​driv­er, who had re­turned with a car­avan from Suez.

It said: “Send the boy with the camel to Suez with the next car­avan. I have some mer­chan­dise to bring home, and I will stop at Suez till he comes.”

Ali's moth­er was pained at the thought of send­ing her young son away to such a dis­tance for the first time; but she said to her­self that Ali was now quite old enough to be help­ing his fa­ther, and she at once set about do­ing what was re­quired for his jour­ney.

Ali got out the trap­pings for the camel, and looked to the wa­ter-​bot­tles to see that they did not leak. His moth­er did all that was need­ed to make him quite ready to join the next car­avan that start­ed.

Ali was de­light­ed to think that he was to go to his fa­ther, and that at last the day was come when, he too was to be a camel-​driv­er, and to take a jour­ney with the dear old camel which he was so fond of.

He had long want­ed to ride on its back across the desert, and to lie down by its side to rest at night. He had no fear.

The camel, of which Ali was so fond, had been bought by his fa­ther with the sav­ings of many a year's hard work, and formed the sole rich­es of the fam­ily.

Has­san was looked up­on as quite a rich man by the oth­er camel-​drivers, and Ali, be­sides hav­ing a great love for the an­imal, was proud of his fa­ther be­ing a camel own­er.

Though it was a great crea­ture by the side of the young boy, it would obey the voice of Ali, and come and go at his bid­ding, and lie down and rise up just as he wished. Has­san called his camel by an Ara­bi­an word, which meant “Meek-​eye.”

At last, there was a car­avan about to start for Suez which Ali could join. The par­ty met near the gates of the city, where there were some wells, at which the wa­ter-​bot­tles could be filled. Ali's moth­er at­tend­ed, and bid her son a lov­ing farewell.

The car­avan start­ed. The camels which were to lead the way, had around their necks jin­gling bells, which the oth­ers hear­ing, fol­lowed with­out oth­er guid­ance.

Ali looked about and saw his moth­er stand­ing near the city gate. He took his cap off and waved it above his head, and his moth­er took off the linen cloth which she wore over her head, and waved it.

Tramp, tramp, tramp went the camels, their soft spongy feet mak­ing a noise as they trod the ground. The camel-​drivers laughed, and talked to each oth­er.

Ali was the on­ly boy in the car­avan, and no one seemed to no­tice him. He had a stout heart, and tried not to care.

He could talk to Meek-​eye, and this he did, pat­ting the crea­ture's back, and telling him they would soon see his fa­ther.

The sun rose high­er and high­er, and the day grew hot­ter and hot­ter. The morn­ing breeze died away, and the noon was close and sul­try.

The sand glowed like fire. There was noth­ing to be seen but sand and sky. At mid-​day a halt was made at one of the places well known to the drivers, where shade and wa­ter could be had.

The wa­ter-​bot­tles were not to be touched that day, for at this place a lit­tle stream, which gushed from a rock, sup­plied enough for the men, while the camels need­ed no wa­ter for many days.

Af­ter rest­ing a short time, the kneel­ing camels were made to rise, the rid­ers first plac­ing them­selves on their backs, and the car­avan then moved on.

At night the par­ty en­camped for rest, the camels ly­ing down, while fires were light­ed and food was pre­pared.

Sev­er­al days were thus passed, and Ali found that he liked this kind of life as well as he thought he should.

No Arabs were met with, nor even seen; but a dan­ger of the desert, worse than a par­ty of Arabs, came up­on them.

There arose one day at noon, one of those fear­ful burn­ing winds which do such mis­chief to the trav­el­er and his camel. The loose sand was raised like a cloud. It filled the nos­trils and blind­ed the eyes.

The on­ly thing to be done, was for the men to get off the backs of the camels, and lie down with their faces to the earth.

Af­ter the storm had passed, they arose to con­tin­ue their jour­ney. But the sand had been so blown as to cov­er the beat­en track, and thus all trace of the road was lost.

The camel-​drivers who led the way stood still, and said that they did not know which way to turn.

No dis­tant rock or palm-​tree was to be seen, and no one could say which was the south, to­wards which their faces ought to be turned.

They wan­dered on, now turn­ing to the right, and now to the left; and some­times, when they had gone some dis­tance in one di­rec­tion, re­trac­ing their steps and try­ing an­oth­er.

The car­avan made a halt, and it was now de­cid­ed to jour­ney to­wards the set­ting sun, in hopes of find­ing once more the right track.

Night came on, how­ev­er, and they had not found it, nor had they reached any place where they could fill their wa­ter-​bot­tles, which were emp­ty.

Once or twice, some one of the par­ty fan­cied that he saw in the dis­tance the top of a palm-​tree; but no, it turned out to be but a lit­tle cloud up­on the hori­zon.

They had not yet found the old track; nei­ther had they sup­plied them­selves with wa­ter to cool their parched lips.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Al­ways take breath be­fore be­gin­ning to read a sen­tence. If the sen­tence is a long one, choose such places for breath­ing as will not in­jure the sense.

When we are out of breath, we are like­ly ei­ther to read too fast, or stop to breathe at such places as to in­jure the sense.

In the first sen­tence of the sec­ond para­graph on page 101, we may make slight paus­es to take breath af­ter _noon_ and af­ter _winds_.[07]

Point out breath­ing-​places in the last para­graph on page 100.[08]

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _jin­gling, nos­trils, farewell_.

Let pupils use oth­er words to ex­press the fol­low­ing:

A stout heart. To­wards the set­ting sun.

[07] See para­graph 22 be­gin­ning, “There arose one day at noon....”

[08] See para­graph 21 be­gin­ning, “Sev­er­al days were thus passed....”

* * * * *

LES­SON XXII.

pro pose', _of­fer; ad­vise_.

group, _a num­ber of per­sons or things to­geth­er_.

grief, _great sor­row; dis­tress_.

draughts (drafts), _quan­ti­ties of wa­ter tak­en at one time_.

quenched, _sat­is­fied; put out_.

re' cent­ly, _new­ly; late­ly_.

flick'er ing, _flut­ter­ing; keep­ing in mo­tion_.

greed'ily, _very ea­ger­ly_

pre'cious, _of great price; cost­ly_.

wea'ry, _very tired_.

re­fresh'ing, _cool­ing; re­viv­ing_.

* * * * *

ALI, THE BOY CAMEL-​DRIV­ER.

PART II.

Poor Ali suf­fered like the rest from ter­ri­ble thirst. He drank the last drop of wa­ter from his wa­ter-​bot­tle, and thought of the mor­row with fear.

He was so tired when night came, he was glad to lie down by the side of Meek-​eye and go to sleep. Ali slept, but be­fore morn­ing, was awak­ened by the sound of voic­es.

He lis­tened, and heard the chief driv­er tell one of the mer­chants that, if they did not find wa­ter very soon, the next day a camel must be killed, in or­der to get the wa­ter con­tained in its stom­ach.

This is of­ten done in cas­es of great need in the desert, the stom­ach of the camel be­ing so formed as to hold a great quan­ti­ty of wa­ter.

Ali was not sur­prised to hear such a thing spo­ken of; but what was his dis­tress and alarm, when he heard the mer­chant pro­pose that it should be “the boy's camel” that should be killed!

The mer­chant said the oth­er camels were of too good a kind, and of too much val­ue; while, as to this young boy, what busi­ness had he to have a camel of his own?

It would be bet­ter far, they said, for him to lose his camel than for him to die, like the rest, of thirst. And so it was de­cid­ed that Meek-​eye should be killed, un­less wa­ter were found the next morn­ing.

Ali slept no more. His heart was full of grief; but his grief was mixed with courage and res­olu­tion. He said to him­self that Meek-​eye should not die.

His fa­ther had trust­ed him to bring the camel, and what would he say if he should ar­rive at Suez with­out it? He would try to find his way alone, and leave the car­avan as soon as pos­si­ble.

That night when all was qui­et, and the mer­chant and camel-​driv­er had gone to sleep, Ali arose, and gen­tly pat­ting the neck of Meek-​eye, awoke him.

He placed his emp­ty bag and wa­ter-​bot­tles on his back, and seat­ing him­self on him, made signs for the crea­ture to rise, and then sud­den­ly start­ed off.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, went Meek-​eye over the soft sand. The night was cool and re­fresh­ing, and Ali felt stronger and braver with ev­ery tramp. The stars were shin­ing bright­ly, and they were his on­ly guides.

He knew the star which was al­ways in the north, and the one which was in the west af­ter the sun had gone down. He must keep that star to the right, and he would be sure to be go­ing to­wards the south.

He jour­neyed on till day be­gan to dawn. The sun came up on the edge of the desert, and rose high­er and high­er. Ali felt faint, weary, and thirsty, and could scarce­ly hold him­self on to Meek-​eye. When he thought of his fa­ther and moth­er, he took courage again, and bore up brave­ly.

The sun was now at its height. Ali fan­cied he saw a palm-​tree in the dis­tance. It seemed as if Meek-​eye saw it al­so, for he raised his head and quick­ened his step.

It was not long be­fore Ali found him­self at one of those pleas­ant green is­lands which are found through­out the desert, and are called oases.

He threw him­self from the camel's back, and hunt­ed out the pool of wa­ter that he knew he should find in the midst of the reeds and long grass which grew there.

He dipped in his wa­ter-​bot­tle and drank, while Meek-​eye, ly­ing down, stretched out his long neck, and greed­ily sucked up great draughts of the cool wa­ter.

How sweet was the sleep which crept over them as they lay down in the shade of the great palm-​tree, now that they had quenched their thirst!

Re­freshed and rest­ed, Ali was able to sat­is­fy his hunger on some ripe dates from the palm-​tree, while Meek-​eye be­gan to feed up­on the grass and leaves around.

Ali no­ticed, while eat­ing his dates, that oth­er trav­el­ers had been there re­cent­ly: as the grass at the side of the pool was tram­pled down. This great­ly cheered him. He quick­ly fol­lowed in their track, still go­ing in a souther­ly di­rec­tion.

He kept the set­ting sun to his right, and when it had gone down, he no­ticed the bright star that had guid­ed him be­fore.

He trav­eled on, tired and faint with hunger for many a mile, till at last he saw, a long way off, the fires of a car­avan which had halt­ed for the night.

Ali soon came up to them. He got down, from Meek-​eye, and lead­ing him by the bri­dle, came to­wards a group of camel-​drivers, who were sit­ting in a cir­cle.

He told them his sto­ry, and asked per­mis­sion to join the par­ty, and begged a lit­tle rice, for which he was ready to pay with the piece of mon­ey that his moth­er had giv­en him when he left home.

Ali was kind­ly re­ceived by them, and al­lowed to par­take of their sup­per. The men ad­mired the courage with which he had saved his fa­vorite camel. Af­ter sup­per Ali soon closed his weary eyes, and slept sound­ly by the side of Meek-​eye.

In the midst of a pleas­ant dream, Ali was sud­den­ly aroused by the sound of tin­kling bells, and on wak­ing up he saw that an­oth­er car­avan had ar­rived, which had come from the south.

The mer­chants sat down to wait un­til their sup­per was brought to them, and a par­ty of camel-​drivers drew round the fire near which Ali had been sleep­ing. They raked up its ash­es, put on fresh fu­el, and then pre­pared to boil their rice.

What voice was that which roused Ali just as he was falling asleep again? He lis­tened, he start­ed to his feet, he looked about him, and wait­ed for a flash of flame from the fire to fall on the faces of the camel-​drivers who stood around it.

It came flick­er­ing up at first, and then all at once blaz­ing out, flashed up­on the camel-​driv­er who stood stoop­ing over it, and light­ed up the face of Ali's fa­ther!

The fa­ther had wait­ed at Suez many days, won­der­ing why Ali did not come; and then, think­ing there had been some mis­take, de­ter­mined to re­turn home with the car­avan, which was start­ing for Gaza.

We need hard­ly de­scribe the joy of both fa­ther and son at thus meet­ing, nor the plea­sure with which the fa­ther lis­tened to the his­to­ry of Ali the fears and dan­gers to which his young son had been ex­posed. He was glad, too, that their pre­cious Meek-​eye had been saved.

There was no one in the whole car­avan so hap­py as Has­san, when, the next morn­ing, he con­tin­ued, his jour­ney to Gaza in com­pa­ny with Meek-​eye and his beloved son Ali.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Syl­lab­ify, ac­cent, and mark sounds of let­ters in the fol­low­ing words: _suf­fered, per­mis­sion, par­take, mer­chants, beloved_.

Let pupils use oth­er words to ex­press the mean­ing of what is giv­en be­low in dark type.

Ali _bore up brave­ly_.

Meek-​eye _quick­ened his step_.

_The sun_ was now _at its height_.

Write state­ments con­tain­ing each of the fol­low­ing words, used in such a man­ner as to show their prop­er mean­ing: _herd, heard; need, knead; no, know; way, weigh; knew, new_.

Make out an _anal­ysis_ of the two lessons, and use it in telling the sto­ry in your own words.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXI­II.

ob served', _saw; no­ticed_.

trans par'ent, _clear; eas­ily seen through_.

ma te'ri al, _that of which any thing is made or to be made_.

ob tained', _tak­en from; re­ceived_.

gar'ments, _ar­ti­cles of cloth­ing_.

verd'ure, _any green growth_.

a dorn', _dress with taste; beau­ti­fy_.

par tic'ular, _of an un­usu­al kind_.

va ri'e ty, _a num­ber of dif­fer­ent kinds_.

del'i cate, _gen­tle; ten­der_.

ca ressed', _treat­ed with fond­ness_.

* * * * *

A QUEER PEO­PLE.

One evening, as Cap­tain Per­ry was sit­ting by the fire­side at his home in Liv­er­pool, his chil­dren asked him to tell them a sto­ry.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

“What shall it be about?” said the cap­tain.

“O,” said Har­ry, “tell us about oth­er coun­tries, and the cu­ri­ous peo­ple you have seen in them.”

“Yes, yes!” ex­claimed Mary. “We were much in­ter­est­ed, while you were away the last time, in read­ing 'Gul­liv­er's Trav­els' and 'Sind­bad the Sailor.'”

“You have seen as won­der­ful things as they did, haven't you, fa­ther?” said Har­ry.

“No, my dears,” said the cap­tain. “I nev­er met such won­der­ful peo­ple as they tell about, I as­sure you; nor have I seen the 'Black Load­stone Moun­tain' or the 'Val­ley of Di­amonds.'”

“But,” said Mary, “you have seen a great many peo­ple, and their dif­fer­ent man­ners and ways of liv­ing.”

“Yes,” said the cap­tain, “and if it will in­ter­est you, I will tell you some of the cu­ri­ous things that I have ob­served.”

“Pray, do so!” cried Har­ry, as both the chil­dren drew close to him.

“Well, then,” be­gan the cap­tain, "I was once in a coun­try where it was very cold, and the poor peo­ple could scarce­ly keep them­selves from starv­ing.

"They were clothed part­ly in the skins of beasts, made smooth and soft by some par­tic­ular art; but chiefly in gar­ments made from the out­er cov­er­ing of an an­imal cru­el­ly stripped off its back while alive.

"They lived in hous­es part­ly sunk be­low the ground. These hous­es were most­ly built of stones or of earth hard­ened by fire.

"The walls of the hous­es had holes to let in light; but to pre­vent the cold air and rain from com­ing in, they were cov­ered with a sort of trans­par­ent stone, made of melt­ed sand.

“As wood was rather scarce, they used for fu­el a cer­tain kind of stone which they dug out of the earth, and which, when put among burn­ing wood, catch­es fire and makes a bright flame.”

“Dear me!” said Har­ry. “What a won­der­ful stone! Why didn't you bring a piece home with you, fa­ther?”

“I have a piece, which I will show you some time,” replied the cap­tain. "But to go on with my sto­ry.

"What these peo­ple eat is re­mark­able, too. Some of the poor peo­ple eat fish which had been hung up and smoked un­til quite dry and hard, and along with it they eat the roots of plants, or coarse, black cake made of pow­dered seeds.

"The rich peo­ple have a whiter kind of cake up­on which they spread a greasy mat­ter that is ob­tained from a large an­imal. They eat al­so the flesh of many birds and beasts when they can get it, and the leaves and oth­er parts of a va­ri­ety of veg­eta­bles--some raw and oth­ers cooked.

"For drink they use the wa­ter in which cer­tain dry leaves have been steeped. These leaves, I was told, came from a coun­try a great dis­tance away.

"I was glad to leave this coun­try be­cause it was so very cold; but about six months af­ter, I was obliged to go there again. What was my sur­prise to find that great changes had tak­en place!

"The cli­mate was mild and warm, and the coun­try was full of beau­ty and ver­dure. The trees and shrubs bore a great va­ri­ety of fruits, which, with oth­er veg­etable prod­ucts, were used large­ly as food.

"The peo­ple were gen­tle and civ­ilized. Their dress was var­ied. Many wore cloth wo­ven from a sort of wool grown in pods on bush­es.

"An­oth­er sin­gu­lar ma­te­ri­al was a fine, glossy stuff used chiefly by the rich peo­ple. I was told that it was made out of the webs of cater­pil­lars, which to me seemed quite won­der­ful, as it must have tak­en a great num­ber of cater­pil­lars to pro­duce the large quan­ti­ty of the stuff that I saw.

"These peo­ple have queer ideas about their dress. The wom­en wear strange­ly fig­ured gar­ments, and adorn their heads, like some In­di­an na­tions, with feath­ers and oth­er fan­ci­ful head-​dress­es.

"One thing sur­prised me very much. They bring up in their hous­es an an­imal of the tiger species, hav­ing the same kind of teeth and claws as the tiger.

“In spite of the nat­ural fierce­ness of this lit­tle beast, it is played with and ca­ressed by the most timid and del­icate of their wom­en and chil­dren.”

“I am sure I would not play with it,” said Har­ry.

“You might get an ug­ly scratch, if you did,” said the cap­tain.

“Aha!” cried Mary; “I've found you out: you have been telling us of our coun­try and what is done at home all this while!”

“But we don't burn stones, or eat grease and pow­dered seeds, or wear skins and cater­pil­lars' webs, or play with tigers,” said Har­ry.

“No?” said the cap­tain. “Pray, what is coal but a kind of stone; and is not but­ter, grease; and wheat, seeds; and leather, skins; and silk, the web of a kind of cater­pil­lar; and may we not as well call a cat an an­imal of the tiger kind, as a tiger an an­imal of the cat kind?”

“So, if you will re­mem­ber what I have been de­scrib­ing, you will find that all the oth­er won­der­ful things that I have told you of, are well known among our­selves.”

“I have told you the sto­ry to show that a for­eign­er might eas­ily rep­re­sent ev­ery thing among us as equal­ly strange and won­der­ful, as we could with re­spect to his coun­try.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Point out breath­ing-​places in the last para­graph.

Name the _em­phat­ic words_ in the last para­graph.

Pro­nounce care­ful­ly the fol­low­ing words: _veg­etable, for­eign­er, beasts, prod­ucts, across, again, al­so, apron_.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils ex­press the mean­ing of what is giv­en be­low in dark type, us­ing a sin­gle word for each ex­am­ple.

Hous­es built of _earth hard­ened by fire_.

The walls have _holes to let in the light_.

They were cov­ered with _a sort of trans­par­ent stone_.

They drink _wa­ter in which dry leaves have been steeped_.

Many wore cloth wo­ven from _a sort of wool grown in pods_.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXIV.

lin'net, _a kind of bird_.

com pare', _be equal; have sim­ilar ap­pear­ance_.

wor'ried, _trou­bled; anx­ious_.

hum'ble, _meek; low­ly_.

mis'chiev ous, _full of mis­chief; trou­ble­some_.

grub, _dig up by the roots_.

* * * * *

THE ILL-​NA­TURED BRIER

Lit­tle Miss Brier came out of the ground, She put out her thorns, and scratched ev'ry thing 'round. “I'll just try,” said she, “How bad I can be; At prick­ing and scratch­ing, there are few can match me.”

Lit­tle Miss Brier was hand­some and bright, Her leaves were dark green, and her flow­ers pure white; But all who came nigh her Were so wor­ried by her, They'd go out of their way to keep clear of the Brier.

Lit­tle Miss Brier was look­ing one day At her neigh­bor, the Vi­olet, over the way; “I won­der,” said she, “That no one pets me, While all seem so glad lit­tle Vi­olet to see.”

A sober old Lin­net, who sat on a tree, Heard the speech of the Brier, and thus an­swered he: "'Tis not that she's fair, For you may com­pare In beau­ty with even Miss Vi­olet there;

“But Vi­olet is al­ways so pleas­ant and kind, So gen­tle in man­ner, so hum­ble in mind, E'en the worms at her feet She would nev­er ill-​treat, And to Bird, Bee, and But­ter­fly al­ways is sweet.”

Then the gar­den­er's wife the path­way came down, And the mis­chievous Brier caught hold of her gown; “O dear, what a tear! My gown's spoiled, I de­clare! That trou­ble­some Brier!--it has no busi­ness there; Here, John, grub it up; throw it in­to the fire.” And that was the end of the ill-​na­tured Brier.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--This les­son should be read in a spir­it­ed man­ner.

It is sug­gest­ed to vary the read­ing ex­er­cise by hav­ing one pupil read each stan­za, and the class re­peat it in con­cert.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils use oth­er words to ex­press the mean­ing of what is giv­en be­low in dark type.

There are few can _match_ me.

They'd go out of their way to _keep clear of_ the Brier.

Sup­ply let­ters omit­ted from the fol­low­ing words: _they'd, gown's, e'en, 'round_. Write the words in full.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXV.

ply, _make reg­ular jour­neys_.

com'mer­ce, _trade be­tween places or peo­ples_.

might'y, _of great pow­er_.

trav'erse, _pass over; cross_.

re'al ize, _un­der­stand the truth of_.

pro pel', _drive for­ward_.

prop'er­ty, _any thing that be­longs to a per­son_.

or'chards, _num­bers of fruit-​trees_.

im mense', _very large_.

glit'ter ing, _sparkling with light_.

* * * * *

WA­TER.

It is dif­fi­cult to re­al­ize that near­ly three-​fourths of the sur­face of the earth is wa­ter; yet it is a fact.

Think of the im­mense space cov­ered by oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers, and how use­ful all this wa­ter is to mankind.

Sail­ing ships and steam-​ships tra­verse the oceans and lakes. Steam-​boats ply along the rivers, car­ry­ing peo­ple and mer­chan­dise to and fro, go­ing some­times as far as three thou­sand miles from their start­ing point.

It is by wa­ter that men float their rafts of logs or lum­ber to dis­tant places. Wa­ter turns the great wheels of many of our mills, and thus har­nessed to mighty ma­chines, does more work than thou­sands of men and hors­es.

These ma­chines pro­duce pa­per, cloth, flour, lum­ber, and many oth­er use­ful ar­ti­cles.

When wa­ter is heat­ed and turned in­to steam, it moves pow­er­ful en­gines. These en­gines pro­pel our great steam-​ships and steam-​boats and drive ma­chines of all kinds in mills and fac­to­ries.

Many of you have seen wa­ter, clear and cool, trick­ling from the rocks in the side of a hill. This wa­ter first forms a spring.

From this spring, the wa­ter es­capes in a tiny stream, called a rivulet or creek, and flows along un­til it en­ters a riv­er. Many springs make many rivulets; many rivulets make large rivers.

Rivers some­times re­ceive such great quan­ti­ties of wa­ter that they over­flow their banks, and de­stroy much valu­able prop­er­ty. This is called a freshet or a flood.

Many peo­ple who live near some of our rivers have lost their hous­es, fur­ni­ture, and cat­tle, which were all swept away by these floods.

In the win­ter of 1883, the Ohio Riv­er re­ceived so much wa­ter from the thou­sands of rivulets flow­ing in­to it, that it over­flowed its banks.

The re­sult of this over­flow was one of the great­est floods ev­er known, and many, no doubt, who read this, were there to see its ter­ri­ble ef­fects.

But where does all this wa­ter come from? you may ask.

Let me see if I can ex­plain it to you. The wa­ter in all these rivers, lakes, and oceans is con­stant­ly ris­ing in­to the air in what is called mois­ture or va­por. We can not see this mois­ture, nei­ther can we see the air.

If the air is cold, mois­ture does not rise rapid­ly; but, as the air be­comes heat­ed, it takes up more mois­ture, so that the more heat there is in the air, the more mois­ture ris­es.

Heat­ed air is light, and ris­es high­er and high­er from the ground, tak­ing the mois­ture with it, un­til it reach­es a point where it be­gins to cool.

Then as the air cools, the mois­ture forms in­to clouds, and these clouds are, in a cer­tain sense, float­ing wa­ter.

Float­ing wa­ter! How can wa­ter float! do you ask?

Well, I will tell you. Cold air is heav­ier than heat­ed air, and un­til the clouds be­come so full of mois­ture as to re­turn some of it to the earth, in the shape of rain, they float be­cause they are lighter than the air un­der­neath them.

The winds, by the flap­ping of their mighty wings, drive the clouds over the land to the hills and the moun­tains and the thirsty fields; and there they pour their bless­ings on the farms, pas­tures, or­chards, and the dusty roads and way-​side grass, bring­ing green­ness and glad­ness ev­ery-​where.

With­out wa­ter noth­ing would grow; ev­ery thing would dry up and with­er.

All an­imals drink wa­ter, for it forms a part of their blood and thus helps to keep them alive. All trees and plants drink it by draw­ing it through their roots or leaves, for it helps to form their sap.

Some­times on a sum­mer morn­ing you will see drops of clear sparkling wa­ter on flow­ers and grass.

To look at them you would think it had rained dur­ing the night; but, notic­ing that the ground is dry, you know that no rain has fall­en.

What then are these glit­ter­ing drops of wa­ter? Where do they come from?

I will tell you. These drops are called dew. As night comes on, the grass and the leaves of flow­ers and plants be­come cool.

When the warm air touch­es them, it be­comes chilled, and as the air can not then car­ry so much mois­ture as be­fore, it leaves some of its mois­ture on the flow­ers and grass.

A mois­ture like dew some­times col­lects in the house. Did you ev­er ob­serve it in drops on the out­side of a pitch­er of cold wa­ter? Some peo­ple sup­pose that the wa­ter comes through the pitch­er, but it does not.

The wa­ter be­ing cold makes the pitch­er cold, and as the warm air of the room strikes it, a mois­ture like dew is left on the pitch­er, in the same man­ner as dew is left on grass, leaves, and flow­ers.

In cold weath­er, when the dew gath­ers on plants and flow­ers, it some­times freezes and forms frost, and when the clouds throw off their mois­ture in rain drops, the rain be­comes sleet, hail, or snow.

So you see that dew, rain, frost, sleet, snow, and hail are on­ly dif­fer­ent forms of wa­ter.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXVI.

treas'ure, _a large quan­ti­ty of mon­ey; valu­able things_.

for'mer ly, _in time past; hereto­fore_.

mod'er ate, _not great; lim­it­ed in quan­ti­ty_.

or'phan, _a child whose fa­ther and moth­er are dead_.

at tract'ive, _invit­ing; hav­ing pow­er to draw to­ward_.

em'er y, _a kind of hard, sharp sand_.

ex treme', _last point or lim­it_.

rub'bish, _things of no val­ue_.

fit'tings, _things need­ed in mak­ing an ar­ti­cle ready for use_.

* * * * *

THE HID­DEN TREA­SURE.

PART I.

On a pleas­ant street in the old town of Fair­field, stands a neat, lit­tle cot­tage. This was for­mer­ly the home of Mrs. Reed, an old la­dy re­spect­ed by her neigh­bors and loved by all the young peo­ple of the place.

There was about Mrs. Reed a kind­ly man­ner which pleased all who knew her. Al­though very poor, she took much in­ter­est in her young friends and tried to make them hap­py.

Mrs. Reed had not al­ways been poor. Her hus­band when alive was sup­posed to be rich; but af­ter his death, it was found that noth­ing was left to his wid­ow but two small cot­tages.

In one of these cot­tages, Mrs. Reed lived; the oth­er, she rent­ed. But the rent re­ceived was no more than enough to en­able her to live with mod­er­ate com­fort. She had lit­tle or noth­ing left with which to do for oth­ers.

One cold win­ter morn­ing, two per­sons were talk­ing to­geth­er in the cozy sit­ting-​room of the cot­tage. One was Mrs. Reed, and the oth­er, Al­ice Brown, a poor or­phan girl, who lived with some dis­tant rel­atives in Fair­field.

“You are very kind to come to see me so of­ten, Al­ice,” said Mrs. Reed. “I won­der why you do; be­cause there is noth­ing at­trac­tive here.”

“Why, Mrs. Reed!” replied Al­ice; “how can you talk so? are you not here? do I not al­ways re­ceive a kind word and a wel­come smile from you?”

“Well, you know I love you, Al­ice, and am al­ways de­light­ed to have you come,” said Mrs. Reed; "I am sure that were it in my pow­er to do so, I would have you here all the time.

“I would like to give you books, have you at­tend school, and do ev­ery thing to make you hap­py. But alas! Al­ice, you know I am too poor to do what I wish, and at times it makes me feel very sad.”

"O, in­deed you are too good, Mrs. Reed! My great­est plea­sure is to come and see you, and I hope you will al­ways love me.

“I wish I could stay here all day; but you know that the day af­ter to-​mor­row will be Christ­mas, and I must hur­ry home now, as aun­tie wants me to help her pre­pare for it. So good-​by.”

“But, Al­ice, you will come to see me Christ­mas morn­ing, will you not?” asked Mrs. Reed.

“Yes,” replied Al­ice, “for a lit­tle while.” And with a kiss and an­oth­er good-​by, she left Mrs. Reed alone.

“What a dear good girl she is,” said Mrs. Reed to her­self, as she watched Al­ice trip­ping down the street to­ward her home.

"She was so good to me last sum­mer when I was ill! and here is Christ­mas and I have no mon­ey with which to buy her a present.

“O dear, dear! why was I left so poor! I am sure my hus­band had some mon­ey; what could he have done with it!”

Mrs. Reed sat down in her rock­ing-​chair and for a full half hour looked thought­ful­ly in­to the fire. Start­ing up sud­den­ly, she again ex­claimed to her­self:

"I do re­al­ly be­lieve that if I go up in­to the gar­ret, I can find, some­thing for a Christ­mas present, that will please Al­ice.

“I re­mem­ber a cu­ri­ous old box that Mr. Reed had, that was sent to him from In­dia. If I can find some bits of rib­bon, and silk, I will line it and make it in­to a nice lit­tle work-​box for Al­ice.”

Then Mrs. Reed climbed up the nar­row stair­way in­to the gar­ret, and, af­ter search­ing some time among the rub­bish that lay around in all the nooks and cor­ners, dis­cov­ered the box.

Tak­ing it down-​stairs and find­ing some pieces of silk, she spent the rest of the day in mak­ing it in­to a work-​box.

She made a pret­ty nee­dle-​book, a tiny pin­cush­ion, and an emery bag like a big straw­ber­ry. Then from her own scanty stock she added nee­dles, pins, thread, and her on­ly pair of small scis­sors, scoured to the last ex­treme of bright­ness.

One thing on­ly she had to buy--a thim­ble; and that she bought for a pen­ny. The thim­ble was of brass and so bright that it was quite as hand­some as gold.

When full, the lit­tle box was very pret­ty. In the bot­tom lay a quilt­ed lin­ing, which had al­ways been there, and up­on which she had placed the fit­tings.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--The con­ver­sa­tion­al parts of this les­son may be read as a di­alogue by two pupils.

Which is the most _em­phat­ic word_ in the fol­low­ing sen­tence?

“O dear, dear! Why was I left so poor!”

Point out the _em­phat­ic words_ in the third para­graph of the les­son.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXVII.

hand'y, _con­ve­nient; ready for use_.

ad join'ing, _next to; neigh­bor­ing_.

sin cere'ly, _hon­est­ly; tru­ly_.

fort'u nate, _fa­vored; lucky_.

act'u al ly, _re­al­ly; tru­ly_.

suf fi'cient, _enough; plen­ty_.

carv'in­gs, _fig­ures cut in wood or stone_.

mys'ter y, _some­thing en­tire­ly un­known_.

thresh'old, _a piece of board which lies un­der a door_.

tile, _a thin piece of baked clay_.

ex am'ine, _look at with care_.

* * * * *

THE HID­DEN TREA­SURE.

PART II.

Christ­mas morn­ing came, and soon Al­ice Brown en­tered Mrs. Reed's cot­tage and re­ceived a warm wel­come.

“Mer­ry Christ­mas! Mrs. Reed,” said Al­ice.

“Thank you, my dear,” replied Mrs. Reed; “it will in­deed be a 'Mer­ry Christ­mas' if you can re­main with me this forenoon.”

“Well, I can stay till din­ner-​time,” said Al­ice. “See what a pret­ty present cousin John sent me!” and Al­ice held up a new pock­et-​book.

“That is very nice, Al­ice,” said Mrs. Reed; “now if you had some one to fill it with mon­ey, it would be bet­ter still.”

“Yes, in­deed,” cried Al­ice, laugh­ing­ly; “but as I was not so for­tu­nate as to re­ceive any mon­ey, and have none of my own to put in it, the pock­et-​book is not like­ly to be worn out for a long time.”

“Well, well, Al­ice,” replied Mrs. Reed, "it is al­ways handy to have things in the house; for some time they may be need­ed.

“Ex­cuse me a mo­ment, Al­ice,” con­tin­ued Mrs. Reed; “sit down here by the fire and warm your­self.”

Al­ice took a seat by the fire and warmed her fin­gers; for, al­though it was a bright sun­shiny day, it was very cold.

Mrs. Reed stepped in­to the ad­join­ing room, and with a light heart and an ex­pres­sion on her face that no one had seen for many a day, took up the lit­tle work-​box she had pre­pared for Al­ice.

Re­turn­ing again to the sit­ting-​room with the box in her hand, she ap­proached Al­ice and said;

“Here, my dear, is a lit­tle Christ­mas present I have for you. I sin­cere­ly wish it were some­thing bet­ter. It will be use­ful, I know, and I hope it will please you.”

“O how beau­ti­ful!” ex­claimed Al­ice, as she caught sight of the cu­ri­ous carv­ings on the out­side of the box. “And a work-​box, too!” she con­tin­ued, as she took it in her hands and lift­ed the cov­er; “is it re­al­ly for me?”

“For no one else, I as­sure you,” replied Mrs. Reed, as her face light­ed up with joy, at see­ing Al­ice so hap­py.

“O how can I ev­er thank you enough!” ex­claimed Al­ice, as she threw her arms around Mrs. Reed's neck and kissed her again and again.

Then tak­ing a seat by Mrs. Reed, Al­ice be­gan to ex­am­ine the con­tents of the new work-​box, lift­ing out the ar­ti­cles one by one, and plac­ing them in her lap.

She then ad­mired the beau­ti­ful lin­ing which. Mrs. Reed had put in the box, ask­ing her where she got such pret­ty pieces of silk.

"That piece of silk at the top, Al­ice, is a bit of my wed­ding-​dress; and that on the sides, is a part of my wed­ding-​sash. Those re­mind me of hap­py days, Al­ice.

“I had plen­ty then: a good hus­band, a hap­py home, and nev­er thought that I should come to pover­ty.”

“What is this from?” asked Al­ice, touch­ing the silk lin­ing at the bot­tom of the box.

"O that was al­ways in the box, Al­ice. It was there when my hus­band re­ceived it, and must be a piece of In­dia silk.

“Is any thing the mat­ter with it?” con­tin­ued Mrs. Reed, as she no­ticed Al­ice pick­ing at one cor­ner of it.

“O noth­ing is the mat­ter,” replied Al­ice; “it on­ly seemed to me to be a lit­tle loose.”

“Let me look,” said Mrs. Reed. “I don't think it can be loose, or I should have seen it when I was lin­ing the box.”

“It is ac­tu­al­ly quite loose,” said Al­ice, as she ex­am­ined it fur­ther, and picked up one cor­ner with, a pin; “and here is a lit­tle piece of pa­per un­der­neath it.”

“That is re­mark­able,” said Mrs. Reed, as she put on her spec­ta­cles and drew up her chair a lit­tle clos­er to Al­ice.

“And there is some writ­ing on it too,” said Al­ice, as she drew it from its hid­ing-​place and hand­ed it to Mrs. Reed.

“Why, it's my hus­band's writ­ing!” ex­claimed Mrs. Reed, as she close­ly ex­am­ined the fad­ed let­ters. “What can it mean? I nev­er saw it be­fore. Read it, Al­ice; your eyes are younger than mine.”

Al­ice read: “'Look and ye shall find,' and un­der­neath this,” con­tin­ued Al­ice, “is a pic­ture of a man­tel-​piece, and un­der­neath that, it reads: 'A word to the wise is suf­fi­cient.'”

Mrs. Reed again took the pa­per. Her hand trem­bled and her face be­came a lit­tle pale.

“Al­ice,” said she, “this is a pic­ture of the old tile man­tel-​piece in the oth­er room. There is some mys­tery about this. What can it mean?”

“Yes,” said Al­ice, “the tiles in that man­tel have quo­ta­tions on them.”

In an in­stant, Al­ice was on her feet and sprung in­to the oth­er room, leav­ing Mrs. Reed in a state of won­der­ment.

Hasti­ly ex­am­in­ing the tiles in the man­tel, Al­ice cried out: “O Mrs. Reed, do come! here is a tile with ex­act­ly the same words on it!”

Mrs. Reed hur­ried in­to the room, and had scarce­ly passed the thresh­old, when the tile fell to the hearth and broke in­to a dozen pieces.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Point out breath­ing-​places in the last para­graph.

Pro­nounce care­ful­ly the fol­low­ing words: _for­tu­nate, ad­join­ing, clothes, hearth, sit­ting-​room, wed­ding-​dress_.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils use oth­er words to ex­press the mean­ing of the fol­low­ing sen­tences.

_Al­ice re­ceived a warm wel­come_.

_Mrs. Reed stepped in­to the ad­join­ing room with a light heart_.

_Her face light­ed up with joy_.

_Those things re­mind me of hap­py days_.

“_A word, to the wise is suf­fi­cient_.”

Change the _state­ments_ giv­en above to _ques­tions_.

Change the fol­low­ing _ex­cla­ma­tions_ to com­plete _state­ments_.

Do come! Let me look! Read it, Al­ice!

Mod­el.--See my pock­et-​book! = I wish you would look at my pock­et-​book.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXVI­II.

be fall'en, _hap­pened to_.

thrust, _move sud­den­ly or with force_.

mis hap', _some­thing which has oc­curred to cause pain or sor­row_.

ex cit'ed ly, _in a very earnest man­ner_.

min'gled, _joined close­ly; unit­ed_.

le'gal ly, _as the law re­quires_.

a bun'dant, _be­yond one's need; plen­ti­ful_.

com'fort a ble, _hav­ing ev­ery­thing need­ed to keep one from pain or want_.

re la'tions, _the feel­ings or acts of peo­ple to­ward each oth­er_.

charm'ing, _very pleas­ant_.

* * * * *

THE HID­DEN TREA­SURE.

PART III.

“O what have I done! what have I done!” cried Al­ice. “O Mrs. Reed, I'm so sor­ry--I have bro­ken the tile!”

“How did it hap­pen, Al­ice? Was it loose?”

“Why yes,” replied Al­ice; “I put my hand on it, and thought it ap­peared to move a lit­tle. Hav­ing my scis­sors with, me, I, through cu­rios­ity, ran the points in be­tween that tile and the next one.”

“Nev­er mind, child,” said Mrs. Reed kind­ly, see­ing that Al­ice was feel­ing sad over the mishap; “per­haps the tile can be mend­ed--let us see.”

As they both stooped down to pick up the pieces, Al­ice no­ticed that there was a hol­low space back of where the tile had been, and that it con­tained some­thing of a dingy white col­or.

“O Mrs. Reed!” cried she; “there is some­thing in there! See, it looks like a bag tied up! May I take it out?”

Mrs. Reed turned dead­ly pale. “Yes,” she replied, scarce­ly know­ing what she ex­pect­ed or dared hope.

Al­ice thrust her hand in­to the hole to pull the hag out, but as it was very old, it fell apart, and O won­der of won­ders! as many as a hun­dred pieces of gold coin fell with a jin­gle on the hearth and rolled ev­ery way.

“My hus­band's mon­ey!” ex­claimed Mrs. Reed, as she leaned on Al­ice to keep from falling.

Al­ice was near­ly wild and talked like a crazy per­son.

“O goody, goody!” she cried, clap­ping her hands and jump­ing up and down. “Now you can have ev­ery­thing you want! you won't be poor any longer!”

But Mrs. Reed was too much over­come to hear what Al­ice said.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

She could scarce­ly re­al­ize the good for­tune that had so sud­den­ly be­fall­en her.

Present­ly, how­ev­er, with the ten­der­ness of a moth­er, she placed her arms around Al­ice and said: “O you pre­cious child! but for you, I should nev­er have known this!”

“And if you had not giv­en me the work-​box,” said Al­ice, "per­haps no one would ev­er have found it out.

“But,” con­tin­ued she, ex­cit­ed­ly, “let us see if there is any thing more in there.”

Again reach­ing in­to the hole in the man­tel-​piece, she sprung back with a look of amaze­ment that fright­ened Mrs. Reed.

“Why, Al­ice, what is the mat­ter?” in­quired the old la­dy.

“Mat­ter!” ex­claimed Al­ice. “Why, dear me! Mrs. Reed, there are lots and lots of bags in there yet!”

“Is it pos­si­ble!” said Mrs. Reed hoarse­ly. Then reach­ing her hand in­to the hole, she drew out bag af­ter bag, han­dling them very care­ful­ly, so that they would not fall to pieces as the first one had done.

In the mean­time Al­ice had pushed a ta­ble up near the fire-​place. The bags were emp­tied up­on it, un­til the glit­ter­ing gold made a heap that struck Mrs. Reed and Al­ice with greater amaze­ment than ev­er.

“Al­ice,” said Mrs. Reed, “this is a bless­ing from Heav­en that I do not de­serve. I can not tell you how thank­ful I am for it. My hap­pi­ness now will be in do­ing for oth­ers.”

Al­ice said noth­ing; her heart was too full. A look of sad­ness came over her face.

She was won­der­ing whether Mrs. Reed would con­tin­ue to love her, and think­ing, with a min­gled feel­ing of fear and dread, that now her friend was rich, per­haps she, the poor or­phan girl, might not be so wel­come at the cot­tage as be­fore.

Mrs. Reed seemed to un­der­stand some­what the na­ture of Al­ice's thoughts. “Cheer up, Al­ice,” said she; "this is not a time to be sad! Come, help me put away this gold.

“By the way, Al­ice, now is the time to use your pock­et-​book; you know I told you it was handy to have things in the house, they might be need­ed,” she con­tin­ued, smil­ing­ly.

“Why, cer­tain­ly, Mrs. Reed; do you want to bor­row my pock­et-​book? here it is.”

“Yes, my dear,” replied Mrs. Reed, “I shall want a new one my­self, and I want to see yours. I won­der how many pieces of gold it will hold.”

Then Mrs. Reed crammed the pock­et-​book full of gold pieces.

“There!” said she, hand­ing it to Al­ice; “that is the Christ­mas present I want­ed to give you this morn­ing, but did not have it.”

“What! this for me! O no, no! I do not de­serve it!” cried Al­ice.

“But you must take it, Al­ice, and lis­ten; for I have some­thing to tell you. I want you to be my daugh­ter now. I will have abun­dant means to make both of us com­fort­able and hap­py.”

“O Mrs. Reed,” said Al­ice, burst­ing in­to tears; “I would love to be your daugh­ter, noth­ing could make me hap­pi­er.”

In a very short time ev­ery thing was changed in the lit­tle cot­tage. Mrs. Reed had legal­ly adopt­ed Al­ice as her daugh­ter and was send­ing her to school.

Fresh paint, in­side and out, and many new com­forts, made the old house charm­ing and bright. But noth­ing could change the hap­py re­la­tions be­tween the two friends, and a more con­tent­ed and cheer­ful house­hold could not be found any­where.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Tell the sto­ry in your own words, us­ing the points giv­en in the fol­low­ing

Anal­ysis.--1. Mrs. Reed's home. 2. Her talk with Al­ice. 3. Mrs. Reed pre­pares a present for Al­ice. 4. Al­ice re­ceives the work-​box. 5. What was found in it. 6. The bro­ken tile and the dis­cov­ery of the mon­ey. 7. What hap­pened af­ter that.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXIX.

dells, _small val­leys_.

bow'ers, _cov­ered places made of boughs_.

troupe, _a num­ber of liv­ing be­ings; a com­pa­ny_.

daf'fo dils, _yel­low flow­ers_.

sheen, _bright­ness; splen­dor_.

sprite, _an un­re­al per­son_.

sus pend'ed, _stopped for a time; hung_.

va'ries, _is dif­fer­ent; changes_.

blue'bell, _a kind of flow­er_.

ram'bling, _wan­der­ing_.

rev'el, _play in a noisy man­ner_.

* * * * *

LOOK­ING FOR THE FAIRIES.

I've peeped in many a blue­bell, And crept among the flow­ers, And hunt­ed in the acorn cups, And in the wood­land bow­ers; And shook the yel­low daf­fodils, And searched the gar­dens round, A-​look­ing for the lit­tle folk I nev­er, nev­er found.

I've linger'd till the set­ting sun Threw out a gold­en sheen, In hope to see a fairy troupe Come danc­ing on the green; And mar­veled that they did not come To rev­el in the air, And won­dered if they slept, and where Their hid­ing-​places were.

I've wan­dered with a timid step Be­neath the moon's pale light, And ev­ery blaz­ing dew-​drop seemed To be a tiny sprite; And lis­tened with sus­pend­ed breath, Among the grand, old trees, For fairy mu­sic float­ing soft Up­on the evening breeze.

Ah me! those pleas­ant, sun­ny days, In youth­ful fan­cies wild,-- Ram­bling through the wood­ed dells, A care­less, hap­py child! And now I sit and sigh to think Age from child­hood varies, And nev­er more may we be found Look­ing for the fairies.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Which one of the stan­zas should be read more slow­ly than the oth­ers?

Point out the _em­phat­ic words_ in the last four lines of the les­son.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Which lines in each stan­za end in sim­ilar sounds?

Let pupils ex­plain the mean­ing of what is giv­en be­low in dark type.

I've hunt­ed in the _acorn cups_.

I've wan­dered with a _timid step_.

_Age from child­hood varies._

* * * * *

LES­SON XXX.

poi'son ous, _like­ly to do great harm or in­jury_.

sep'a rate, _apart from oth­er things_.

con di'tion, _state; sit­ua­tion_.

nec'es sa ry, _re­al­ly need­ed_.

dis a gree'a ble, _very un­pleas­ant_.

sen'si ble, _wise; know­ing what is prop­er_.

ac cus'tomed, _be­ing used to_.

es pe'cial ly, _more than usu­al_.

* * * * *

AIR.

We all know very well that we can not live with­out breath­ing.

What we do not all know, or do not all think of, is that we want not on­ly air, but good air. We are apt to take it for grant­ed that any air will do for us; stale air, dirty air, even poi­sonous air.

What makes the mat­ter worse is, that we can not help spoil­ing air our­selves by the very act of breath­ing.

If peo­ple are shut up in rooms where the bad air can not get out and the good air can not get in at all, they are sure to be made ill.

Some peo­ple in Scot­land thought they would have a mer­ry Christ­mas par­ty, and in­vit­ed their friends to come to a dance.

As it was very cold weath­er, they shut all the doors and win­dows tight, and then they be­gan to dance.

It was a small room with a low ceil­ing, and there were thir­ty-​six peo­ple danc­ing in it all night. By the time morn­ing came the air was so bad that it was re­al­ly like poi­son; and very soon sev­en of the poor dancers were seized with a ter­ri­ble fever, and two of them ac­tu­al­ly died.

The air we breathe out is dif­fer­ent from the air we take in. We send away some things with our breath which were not in the air when we took it in.

One of these is wa­ter. Some­times you can see this for your­self. On a cold, frosty day, you know we can see the clouds of steam com­ing out of our mouths. This steam is on­ly very fine par­ti­cles of wa­ter.

In warm weath­er we do not see the steam, but the wa­ter is there all the same; if you will breathe on a look­ing-​glass at any time, you will make it dim and damp di­rect­ly with the wa­ter that is con­tained in your breath.

We al­so breathe out an­imal mat­ter, lit­tle par­ti­cles of our own bod­ies just ready to de­cay. We can not see them, but they soon give the air a close, dis­agree­able smell. Good air has no smell at all.

And now I have some­thing to say to you about the use of noses.

I dare say you can not see much use in the sense of smell. See­ing, hear­ing, touch­ing, are very need­ful to us, we all know; but as to smelling, that does not seem to have any par­tic­ular val­ue.

It is pleas­ant to smell a sweet rose or vi­olet; and, I be­lieve, smelling re­al­ly forms a good part of what we call tast­ing.

Of all our sens­es, smell is the one that soon­est gets out of prac­tice. If peo­ple would al­ways ac­cus­tom them­selves to use their noses, they nev­er would con­sent to live in the hor­rid air they do.

If you go from the fresh air in­to a close room, you will no­tice the smell at once. Then, if you re­main there, you will soon get ac­cus­tomed to the smell and not no­tice it; but it will still be there, and will be do­ing you a great deal of harm.

In good air there are, main­ly, two sorts of gas.

The first is a very live­ly sort of gas, called oxy­gen; it is very fond of join­ing it­self with oth­er things, and burn­ing them, and things burn very fast in­deed in oxy­gen.

The sec­ond is a very slow, dull gas, called ni­tro­gen; and noth­ing will burn in it at all. Pure oxy­gen would be too ac­tive for us to live in, so it is mixed with ni­tro­gen.

When we breathe, the air goes down in­to our lungs, which are some­thing like sponges, in­side our chests.

These sponges have in them an im­mense quan­ti­ty of lit­tle blood-​ves­sels, and great num­bers of lit­tle air-​ves­sels; so that the blood al­most touch­es the air; there is on­ly a very, very thin skin be­tween them.

Through that skin, the blood sends away the waste and use­less things it has col­lect­ed from all parts of the body, and takes in the fresh oxy­gen which the body wants.

You have of­ten heard man's life com­pared to a can­dle. I will show you some ways in which they are much alike.

When a can­dle or lamp burns, if we keep it from get­ting any new air, it soon us­es all the live­ly gas, or oxy­gen, and then it goes out. This is eas­ily shown by plac­ing a glass jar over a light­ed can­dle.

If the can­dle gets on­ly a lit­tle fresh air, it burns dim and weak. If we get on­ly a lit­tle fresh air, we are sick­ly and weak.

The can­dle makes an­oth­er kind of gas. It is called car­bon­ic acid gas, which, is un­healthy and not fit for breath­ing. The heat of our bod­ies al­so makes this gas, and we throw it off in our breath.

Oxy­gen and car­bon, in a sep­arate con­di­tion, make up a good part of our flesh, blood, and bones; but when they are joined to­geth­er, and make car­bon­ic acid gas, they are of no fur­ther use to us.

You might go to a store and buy sand and sug­ar; but if they be­came mixed to­geth­er as you brought them home, you would not be able to use ei­ther one of them, un­less some clever fairy could pick them apart for you.

You see now one great way of spoil­ing the air. How are we to get rid of this bad air, and ob­tain fresh air, with­out be­ing too cold?

In sum­mer time this is quite sim­ple, but in win­ter it is more dif­fi­cult; be­cause it is a very bad thing to be cold, and a thin, cold draught of air is es­pe­cial­ly bad.

The bad air load­ed with car­bon­ic acid gas, when we first breathe it out, is warm. Warm gas­es are much lighter than cold ones, there­fore the bad air at first goes up to the ceil­ing.

If there is an open­ing near the top of the room, the bad air goes out; but if there is no open­ing, it by and by grows cold and heavy, and comes down again. Then we have to breathe it.

If you open the win­dow at the top, it will let out the bad air, and you will not feel a draught. It is not of­ten so very cold that you can­not bear the win­dow open, even a lit­tle way from the top, and that is the best way of air­ing a room.

This is just as nec­es­sary by night as by day. Peo­ple who shut in the bad air, and shut out the good air, all night long, can nev­er ex­pect to awake re­freshed, feel­ing bet­ter for their sleep.

What be­comes of the car­bon­ic acid gas which the body throws off through our breath? Can any thing pick the car­bon and oxy­gen in it apart, and make them fit for us to use again?

Yes. Ev­ery plant, ev­ery green leaf, ev­ery blade of grass, does that for us. When the sun shines on them, they pick the car­bon out and send back the oxy­gen for us to breathe. They keep the car­bon and make that fit for us and an­imals to eat.

The grass makes the car­bon fit for sheep and cows, and then we eat their flesh or drink their milk; and the corn makes the car­bon fit to eat; so do pota­toes, and all the oth­er veg­eta­bles and fruits which we eat. Is not this a won­der­ful ar­range­ment?

But per­haps you think, con­sid­er­ing what an amaz­ing num­ber of peo­ple there are in the world, be­sides all the an­imals--for all crea­tures that breathe, spoil the air just as we do--there can hard­ly be trees and plants enough to set all the air right again.

Round about cities and large towns there are cer­tain­ly more peo­ple than there are trees, but in many oth­er parts of the world there are a great many more trees than there are peo­ple.

I have heard of forests in South Amer­ica so thick and so large, that the mon­keys might run along the tops of the trees for a hun­dred miles. So you see there are plen­ty of trees in the world to do the work.

But then, how does all the bad air leave the towns and cities where men live, and get to the forests and mead­ows?

The air is con­stant­ly mov­ing about; ris­ing and falling, sweep­ing this way or that way, and trav­el­ing from place to place.

Not on­ly the lit­tle par­ti­cles out of our breath, but any thing that gives the air any smell, does it some harm. Even nice smells, like those of ros­es, are un­healthy, if shut up in a room for some time.

Dirty walls, ceil­ings, and floors give the air a musty, close, smell; so do dirty clothes, mud­dy boots, cook­ing, and wash­ing. Some of these ought not to be in the house at all; oth­ers re­mind us to open our win­dows wide.

All the things I have been say­ing to you about pure air, ap­ply still more to sick peo­ple than to healthy ones.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Read the fol­low­ing sen­tences care­ful­ly, and avoid run­ning the words to­geth­er.

The good__air can not get__in at__all.

We are__apt to take__it for grant­ed.

It__is sure to make them__ill.

Point out three oth­er places in the les­son where sim­ilar er­rors are like­ly to oc­cur.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Add _ment_ to each of the fol­low­ing words, and then give the mean­ing of the words so formed.

_ar­range move set­tle en­cour­age_

* * * * *

LES­SON XXXI.

dis tinct'ly, _clear­ly; plain­ly_.

a roused', _wak­ened_.

re ced'ing, _go­ing back­ward or away from_

vig'i lant, _watch­ful; care­ful_.

ex haust'ed, _tired out with work_.

pre ced'ing, _go­ing be­fore_.

fort'night, _two weeks' time_.

con vul'sive, _ir­reg­ular in move­ment_.

tar'ried, _de­layed; re­mained_.

grad'u al ly, _step by step; slow­ly_.

* * * * *

A TIME­LY RES­CUE.

It was in the month of Febru­ary, 1831, a bright moon­light night, and ex­treme­ly cold, that the lit­tle brig I com­mand­ed lay qui­et­ly at her an­chors in­side the bay.

We had had a hard time of it, beat­ing about for eleven days, with cut­ting north-​east­ers blow­ing, and snow and sleet falling for the greater part of the time.

When at length we made the port, all hands were al­most ex­haust­ed, and we could not have held out two days longer with­out re­lief.

“A bit­ter cold night, Mr. Larkin,” I said to my mate, as I tar­ried for a mo­ment on deck to fin­ish my pipe. “The tide is run­ning out swift and strong; it will be well to keep a sharp look-​out for this float­ing ice, Mr. Larkin.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” an­swered the mate, and I went be­low.

Two hours af­ter­wards I was aroused from a sound sleep by the vig­ilant of­fi­cer. “Ex­cuse me for dis­turb­ing you, cap­tain,” said he, as he de­tect­ed an ex­pres­sion of vex­ation on my face; “but I wish you would turn out, and come on deck as soon as pos­si­ble.”

“Why--what's the mat­ter, Mr. Larkin?”

“Why, sir, I have been watch­ing a cake of ice that swept by at a lit­tle dis­tance a mo­ment ago; I saw some­thing black up­on it--some­thing that I thought moved.”

We were on deck be­fore ei­ther spoke an­oth­er word. The mate point­ed out, with no lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty, the cake of ice float­ing off to lee­ward, and its white, glit­ter­ing sur­face was bro­ken by a black spot.

“Get me a spy-​glass, Mr. Larkin--the moon will be out of that cloud in a mo­ment, and then we can see dis­tinct­ly.” I kept my eye on the re­ced­ing mass of ice, while the moon was slow­ly work­ing its way through a heavy bank of clouds.

The mate stood by with a spy-​glass. When the full light fell at last up­on the wa­ter, I put the glass to my eye. One glance was enough..

“For­ward, there!” I shout­ed at the top of my voice; and with, one bound I read­ied the main hatch, and be­gan to clear away the ship's cut­ter. Mr. Larkin had re­ceived the glass from my hand to take a look for him­self.

“O, piti­ful sight!” he said in a whis­per, as he set to work to aid me in get­ting out the boat; “there are two chil­dren on that cake of ice!”

In a very short space of time we launched the cut­ter, in­to which Mr. Larkin and my­self jumped, fol­lowed by two men, who took the oars. I held the tiller, and the mate sat be­side me.

“Do you see that cake of ice with some­thing black up­on it, lads?” I cried; “put me along­side of that, and I will give you a month's ex­tra wages when you are paid off.”

The men were worn out by the hard du­ty of the pre­ced­ing fort­night; and, though they did their best, the boat made lit­tle more way than the tide. This was a long chase; and Mr. Larkin, who was suf­fer­ing as he saw how lit­tle we gained, cried out--

“Pull, lads--I'll dou­ble the cap­tain's prize. Pull, lads, for the sake of mer­cy, pull!”

A con­vul­sive ef­fort at the oars told how will­ing the men were to obey, but their strength was gone. One of the poor fel­lows splashed us twice in re­cov­er­ing his oar, and then gave out; the oth­er was near­ly as far gone. Mr. Larkin sprung for­ward and seized the de­sert­ed oar.

“Lie down in the bot­tom of the boat,” said he to the man; “and, cap­tain, take the oth­er oar; we must row for our­selves.” I took the sec­ond man's place.

Larkin had stripped to his Guernsey shirt; as he pulled the bow I wait­ed the sig­nal stroke. It came gen­tly, but firm­ly; and the next mo­ment we were pulling a long, steady stroke, grad­ual­ly in­creas­ing in ra­pid­ity un­til the wood seemed to smoke in the oar-​locks.

We kept time with each oth­er by our long, deep breath­ing. Such a pull! At ev­ery stroke the boat shot ahead like an ar­row. Thus we worked at the oars for fif­teen min­utes--it seemed to me as many hours.

“Have we al­most come to it, Mr. Larkin?” I asked.

“Al­most, cap­tain,--don't give up: for the love of our dear lit­tle ones at home, don't give up, cap­tain,” replied Larkin.

The oars flashed as the blades turned up to the moon­light. The men who plied them were fa­thers, and had fa­thers' hearts; the strength which nerved them at that mo­ment was more than hu­man.

Sud­den­ly Mr. Larkin stopped pulling, and my heart for a mo­ment al­most ceased its beat­ing; for the ter­ri­ble thought that he had giv­en out crossed my mind. But I was quick­ly re­as­sured by his say­ing--

“Gen­tly, cap­tain, gen­tly--a stroke or two more--there, that will do”--and the next mo­ment the boat's side came in con­tact with some­thing.

Larkin sprung from the boat up­on the ice. I start­ed up, and, call­ing up­on the men to make fast the boat to the ice, fol­lowed.

We ran to the dark spot in the cen­tre of the mass, and found two lit­tle boys--the head of the small­er nestling in the bo­som of the larg­er. Both were fast asleep!

They were be­numbed with cold, and would sure­ly have frozen to death, but for our time­ly res­cue.

Mr. Larkin grasped one of the lads, cut off his shoes, tore off his jack­et; and then, loos­en­ing his own gar­ments to the skin, placed the chilled child in con­tact with his own warm body, care­ful­ly wrap­ping over him his great-​coat.

I did the same with the oth­er child; and we then re­turned to the boat; and the men hav­ing part­ly re­cov­ered, pulled slow­ly back.

The chil­dren, as we learned when we af­ter­wards had the de­light of re­turn­ing them to their par­ents, were play­ing on the ice, and had ven­tured on the cake.

A move­ment of the tide set the ice in mo­tion, and the lit­tle fel­lows were borne away on that cold night, and would cer­tain­ly have per­ished, had not Mr. Larkin seen them as the ice was sweep­ing out to sea.

“How do you feel?” I said to the mate, the next morn­ing af­ter this ad­ven­ture.

“A lit­tle stiff in the arms, cap­tain,” the no­ble fel­low replied, while the big tears of grate­ful hap­pi­ness gushed from his eyes--“a lit­tle stiff in the arms, cap­tain, but very easy here,” and he laid his hand on his man­ly heart.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Change the fol­low­ing _com­mands_ to _state­ments_.

Take the oth­er oar. Don't give up!

Give the mean­ing of the word _lads_ in the third and fourth lines of page 152, and in the fourth line of page 154.[09]

Make out an _anal­ysis_ of the les­son, and use it in telling the sto­ry in your own words.

[09] See Les­son XXXI.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXXII.

re'gion, _place; space_.

furze, _a thorny shrub with yel­low flow­ers_.

list'eth, _wish­es; pleas­es_.

mirth, _joy; fun_.

boon, _gay; mer­ry_.

shaft, _an ar­row; the stem of an ar­row_.

up borne', _held or borne up_.

crest'ing, _touch­ing the tops of_.

* * * * *

BIRDS IN SUM­MER.

How pleas­ant the life of a bird must be, Flit­ting about in each leafy tree;-- In the leafy trees so broad and tall, Like a green and beau­ti­ful palace hall, With its airy cham­bers, light and boon, That open to sun, and stars, and moon; That open un­to the bright blue sky, And the frol­ic­some winds, as they wan­der by!

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

They have left their nests in the for­est bough; Those homes of de­light they need not now; And the young and old they wan­der out, And tra­verse their green world round about; And hark! at the top of this leafy hall, How, one to the oth­er, they lov­ing­ly call: “Come up, come up!” they seem to say, "Where the top­most twigs in the breezes play!

“Come up, come up, for the world is fair, Where the mer­ry leaves dance in the sum­mer air!” And the birds be­low give back the cry, “We come, we come to the branch­es high!” How pleas­ant the life of the birds must be, Liv­ing in love in a leafy tree; And away through the air what joy to go, And to look on the green, bright earth be­low!

How pleas­ant the life of a bird must be, Skim­ming about on the breezy sea, Crest­ing the bil­lows like sil­very foam, And then wheel­ing away to its cliff-​built home! What joy it must be to sail, up­borne By a strong, free wing, through the rosy morn, To meet the young sun, face to face, And pierce, like a shaft, the bound­less space!

How pleas­ant the life of a bird must be, Wher­ev­er it lis­teth there to flee: To go, when a joy­ful fan­cy calls, Dash­ing down, 'mong the wa­ter­falls; Then wheel­ing about, with its mates at play, Above and be­low, and among the spray, Hith­er and thith­er, with screams as wild As the laugh­ing mirth of a rosy child!

What a joy it must be, like a liv­ing breeze, To flut­ter among the flow­er­ing trees; Light­ly to soar, and to see be­neath, The wastes of the blos­som­ing pur­ple heath, And the yel­low furze, like fields of gold, That glad­den some fairy re­gion old. On moun­tain tops, on the bil­lowy sea, On the leafy stems of the for­est tree, How pleas­ant the life of a bird must be!

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--The words of the first line of the po­em, when re­peat­ed on pages 157 and 158, should be slight­ly em­pha­sized.[10]

Point out the lines on page 157 which would be joined in read­ing.

Let the class read one or more stan­zas of the po­em in con­cert.

[10] This les­son, Les­son XXXII.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXXI­II.

stroll'ing, _wan­der­ing on foot_.

quaint, _un­usu­al; cu­ri­ous look­ing_.

con sult'ed, _asked ad­vice of_.

roy'al, _be­long­ing to a king or a queen_.

en ter tain', _re­ceive and care for_.

court'esy, _po­lite­ness of man­ners_.

bod'ice, _an ar­ti­cle of cloth­ing_.

loy'al ty, _love of one's coun­try or ruler_.

a miss', _out of the way; wrong_.

tri'fles, _ar­ti­cles small in size or val­ue_.

mut'tered, _said in a low voice_.

ad mis'sion, _per­mis­sion to en­ter_.

* * * * *

TRUE COUR­TESY.

PART I.

Prince George, the hus­band of Queen Anne of Eng­land, one time vis­it­ed the town of Bris­tol, hav­ing with him as a com­pan­ion, an of­fi­cer of his house­hold.

While strolling about the town, look­ing at the peo­ple and the quaint old build­ings, they stepped in­to the Ex­change, where all the great mer­chants of the town had come to­geth­er do­ing busi­ness.

Prince George walked about, talk­ing quite freely, first to one and then to an­oth­er. As the towns-​peo­ple had not ex­pect­ed him, no prepa­ra­tion had been made to re­ceive him with hon­or; and the mer­chants stood in lit­tle groups, and con­sult­ed to­geth­er with, a look of anx­iety up­on their faces.

“What is to be done?” asked one.

“I do not know,” replied an­oth­er. “If his Roy­al High­ness does not give us no­tice of his com­ing, how can we en­ter­tain him in a prop­er man­ner?”

“Would it be well to ask him to come to one of our homes?” in­quired a third.

“No, no!” cried an­oth­er. “We could not ask him to par­take of our hum­ble fare, or even come to our homes, af­ter the splen­dor to which he has been ac­cus­tomed. For my part, I shall go home to din­ner.”

“And I al­so,” said the first one. “I do not care to re­main here, and stare at the Prince, when we have noth­ing to of­fer.”

Then one by one, the mer­chants slipped away, afraid or ashamed to ask the great Prince to their homes.

Prince George and the of­fi­cer won­dered at see­ing the mer­chants dis­ap­pear. At last there was but one man left, and as he walked to­ward the Prince, he bowed low, and said--

“Ex­cuse me, sir; are you the hus­band of our Queen Anne, as folks here say you are?”

“Yes, I am,” was the an­swer; “and have come for a few hours to see the sights of the good town of Bris­tol.”

“Sir,” said the man, "I have seen with much dis­tress that none of our great mer­chants have in­vit­ed you to their homes. Think not, sir, that it is be­cause they are want­ing in love and loy­al­ty. They doubt­less were all afraid to ask one so high as your­self to dine with them.

“I am one John Dud­dle­stone, sir, on­ly a bodice-​mak­er, and I pray you not to take it amiss if I ask you and the gen­tle­man who is with, you, to come to my hum­ble home, where you will be most wel­come.”

“In­deed,” an­swered the Prince, laugh­ing, “I am on­ly too de­light­ed to ac­cept your kind in­vi­ta­tion, and I thank you for it very hearti­ly. If you lead the way, we will fol­low at once.”

So Prince George, the of­fi­cer, and Dud­dle­stone, passed out of the Ex­change to­geth­er.

“Ours is but hum­ble fare,” said Dud­dle­stone; “for, sir, I can of­fer you on­ly roast beef and plum-​pud­ding.”

“Very good, very good in­deed!” ex­claimed the Prince; “it is food to which I bring a hearty ap­petite.”

They stopped be­fore a small house. John pulled the latch, and, walk­ing in, looked for his wife; but she was up­stairs.

“Here, wife, wife!” he called in a loud whis­per, as he put his head up the nar­row stair­case; “put on a clean apron, and make haste and come down, for the Queen's hus­band and a sol­dier-​gen­tle­man have come to dine with, us.”

As you may think, Mrs. Dud­dle­stone was strange­ly sur­prised at the news; but she did not be­come ex­cit­ed; she very sel­dom did, I be­lieve.

“Ay, ay!” she called. “I'm com­ing;” and then mut­tered, “The Queen's hus­band! the Queen's hus­band! Sure, that can nev­er be--how­ev­er, I'll go down and see.”

She ran to her clos­et, and pulled out a nice, clean apron and cap, and tied, the one round her waist, and the oth­er round her come­ly face, say­ing all the time, “Dear me, dear me, to think of it!” and away she ran down stairs, where stood her hus­band and the two gen­tle­men.

The good wom­an bowed low, first to one and then to the oth­er.

“In­deed, but I'm proud,” she said, turn­ing to Prince George, “to wel­come you to our home. 'Tis but poor and hum­ble, but we shall think more of it af­ter this. I'll hur­ry and get din­ner at once. I dare say you are hun­gry, gen­tle­men.”

Prince George laughed gay­ly, as he thanked her for her kind wel­come, and sat down.

The ta­ble was soon spread, and the Prince ate well, and ap­peared to en­joy him­self so much, that Mrs. Dud­dle­stone could scarce­ly be­lieve he had al­ways been ac­cus­tomed to lords and ladies and foot­men, and had nev­er be­fore sat down in such an hum­ble way.

Prince George in­quired about their busi­ness and plea­sures.

“Do you nev­er come up to Lon­don?” he asked; “I think you would find it worth your while to take a hol­iday some time, and see the great city.”

“Ah well,” said Mrs. Dud­dle­stone, “if that is not just the thing I long for. I've nev­er been yet, nor am I like­ly to go, but John has been once or twice.”

“And why, John, have you nev­er tak­en your wife as well, to see the great sights?”

“Well, to say the truth,” an­swered John, "I do not go to see the sights; for though I've been two or three times, I don't think I've seen any.

“I must needs go some­times to buy whale­bone, and oth­er tri­fles which I must have for my busi­ness here. So I just go and come back, and med­dle with none.”

“Well, well,” said the Prince, “the next time you come to Lon­don, you must bring your wife with you, and pay me a vis­it.”

Mrs. Dud­dle­stone clasped her fat lit­tle hands with de­light.

“And shall I see the Queen?” she ex­claimed.

“And see both the Queen and my­self,” an­swered the Prince. “Come, John, say you will do so!”

“Sure­ly, sir,” said John, “I should like to give the good wom­an a bit of plea­sure in that way, but your grand ser­vants would shut the doors be­fore us, and nev­er let us in, per­haps.”

“I can soon set that right!” and tak­ing a card from his pock­et, Prince George wrote a few words on it, and gave it to them.

“That will gain you ready ad­mis­sion,” he said, “and now I must leave you. Next time we meet, I shall en­ter­tain and care for you. For the present, I thank you for your kind wel­come and good din­ner, which I have hearti­ly en­joyed.”

Then ris­ing, he and the of­fi­cer bade farewell to the good peo­ple and took their leave.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son--Let pupils use oth­er words to ex­press what is giv­en be­low in dark type.

I _must needs go_.

In­deed, _but I'm proud_.

Ours is _but hum­ble fare_.

He _pulled the latch_.

So I _med­dle with none_.

To see _the great sights_.

Notes.--Queen Anne ruled over Eng­land from 1702 to 1714. Roy­al High­ness is a ti­tle be­long­ing to all per­sons in a roy­al fam­ily.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXXIV.

de sired', _asked; ex­pressed a wish_.

as sem'bled, _come to­geth­er_.

in tro duce', _make known_.

sum'mon­ed, _called_.

knight, _a man of no­ble po­si­tion_.

grat'i tude, _thank­ful­ness_.

el'e gant, _beau­ti­ful; hand­some_.

pos sess'ing, _hav­ing; hold­ing_.

dis play', _a grand show_.

e vent', _any­thing that takes place_.

* * * * *

TRUE COUR­TESY.

PART II.

It was some weeks lat­er that John Dud­dle­stone found his stock of whale­bone was grow­ing low.

“Wife,” said he, “the whale­bone's near­ly gone, and I must have some more at once.”

“Sure­ly, John, I know well it's near­ly gone!” she an­swered. “Haven't I watched ev­ery bit as you've used it? and haven't I pret­ty near cried to see it go so slow­ly?”

“Pooh! you fool­ish wom­an!” he cried.

“But, John, you'll take me, and go to see the King and Queen?” she in­quired.

“Why, you sil­ly wom­an, do you think I should leave you be­hind, when I know you're near­ly crazed to go?”

“O John, John, you dear, good man! I've mend­ed all my dress­es, and made my­self trim and neat. I've seen to your coats; and all's done; and I feel as if I could scarce­ly live till I see the Queen.”

“You'd best keep alive,” said her hus­band; “and if all goes well we'll start by the coach on Mon­day.”

Mon­day was as love­ly a day as heart could wish; and John and his wife walked down the Bris­tol streets to the pub­lic-​house from which the coach was to start.

It was a great event in Mrs. Dud­dle­stone's life, for she had nev­er been be­yond her own town, ex­cept for a drive in­to the coun­try in a neigh­bor's cart.

They were qui­et peo­ple; but it had got about the town, that they were go­ing to Lon­don to vis­it the Queen, and num­bers came out to see them go.

Per­haps some of the great mer­chants wished they had been sim­ple and hum­ble enough to of­fer to en­ter­tain Prince George when he had vis­it­ed their town.

They jour­neyed straight to Lon­don, where John bought his whale­bone, and then found their way to St. James' Palace, where, pre­sent­ing the Prince's card, they gained ready ad­mit­tance.

They were shown in­to a room, more beau­ti­ful than any that they had ev­er seen. Very short­ly the door opened, and the well-​re­mem­bered face of their guest ap­peared. Al­most be­fore he had greet­ed them, a qui­et-​look­ing la­dy fol­lowed him, and came smil­ing­ly to greet them.

“This is the Queen,” said Prince George; and then, turn­ing to her, he added, “These are the good peo­ple who showed me such kind­ness in Bris­tol.”

The Queen was so gen­tle and cour­te­ous that nei­ther John nor his wife felt con­fused in her pres­ence. She talked kind­ly to them, ask­ing af­ter their trade, and how they had fared in their jour­ney.

She then asked them to dine with her that evening, and said dress­es would be pro­vid­ed for them, so that they should not feel strange by see­ing that they were dressed dif­fer­ent­ly from all her oth­er guests.

She then called an at­ten­dant, and de­sired that re­fresh­ment should be giv­en them, and that they should be well cared for, and shown all that might in­ter­est them un­til din­ner time.

It was a long, won­der­ful day to them, as they walked about from place to place. Be­fore din­ner they were tak­en to the room that was pre­pared for them, and there they found el­egant court dress­es of pur­ple vel­vet ready to put on.

“Sure­ly, John, they can not be for us!” cried Mrs. Dud­dle­stone.

“Yes, but they must be! Did not the Queen say she would give us dress­es? and do not these dress­es look as if they had been giv­en by a queen?”

“John, I shall feel very strange be­fore all the grand ladies!”

“Then you need not, wife, for the Queen and Prince will be there; and the oth­ers will not trou­ble you; but this is a queer dress. It's like be­ing some­body else.”

And very queer they felt, as for the first time they walked down the grand stairs, in such, splen­did dress­es, to dine at the Queen's ta­ble, with the Queen's ser­vants to wait on them.

“You must go first, John,” said his wife, for shy­ness came over her.

“Be not so fool­ish, wife,” whis­pered John; and, though feel­ing rather awk­ward in his new dress, he walked sim­ply for­ward, as he might have done in a friend's house.

The Queen met them at the door, and, turn­ing to her oth­er guests, who were as­sem­bled, she said, “Gen­tle­men, I have to in­tro­duce to you, with great plea­sure, the most loy­al peo­ple in the town of Bris­tol.”

At these words they all rose and bowed low, while John and his wife did the same, and then sat down, and ate a good din­ner.

Af­ter the din­ner was over, the Prince sum­moned John Dud­dle­stone to the Queen.

At her com­mand John knelt be­fore her, and she laid a sword light­ly on his shoul­der, with the words, “Rise up, Sir John Dud­dle­stone”; and the sim­ple, kind-​heart­ed bodice-​mak­er of Bris­tol rose up a knight.

His wife stood by, watch­ing with ea­ger­ness, and could hard­ly be­lieve that from plain Mis­tress Dud­dle­stone she had be­come La­dy Dud­dle­stone.

She would, have been very proud if the Queen had laid the sword up­on her al­so; but she heard that was not need­ed. How­ev­er, she was made very hap­py by be­ing called to the Queen's side.

“La­dy Dud­dle­stone,” said Her Majesty, “al­low me to present you with my gold watch, in re­mem­brance of your vis­it to St. James' Palace, and of the Prince's vis­it to Bris­tol, which led to our know­ing two such loy­al and cour­te­ous sub­jects.”

La­dy Dud­dle­stone bowed low­er and low­er, al­most un­able to find any words in which to ex­press her grat­itude.

A gold watch! Was it pos­si­ble? Watch­es were not com­mon in those times. She had heard of watch­es, and had even seen some; but had nev­er dreamt of pos­sess­ing one.

Such a big beau­ty it was! She was glad to fall back be­hind the oth­er guests, and get time to think qui­et­ly, and re­al­ize that all was true, and not a dream from which she would wake, and find her­self in her lit­tle at­tic bed-​room at Bris­tol.

Queen Anne then spoke to Sir John, of­fer­ing to give him a po­si­tion un­der Gov­ern­ment; but he begged to be ex­cused.

“It would be strange, your Majesty, very strange, up in Lon­don, and my work at Bris­tol suits me far the best. We want for noth­ing, and should nev­er feel so well and home-​like as in our lit­tle house at Bris­tol.”

The Queen un­der­stood him, and did not press him; and in an­oth­er day or two the cou­ple were again on their way home.

“You're glad, wife, that we're go­ing home?” John asked; “and you think I did well not to take some of­fice in Lon­don?”

"Well! You could have clone no bet­ter. It's been grand to see, and grand to hear; but it would be very strange and un­com­fort­able to live al­ways like that, and I'll be right glad to be back once more.

“I'm more than proud of it all. But I should nev­er like our own room, in which Prince George sat so home-​like with us, to be­long to an­oth­er.”

“No, no--we will keep our own snug home,” replied John with earnest­ness.

And so they did, liv­ing on qui­et­ly as of old; and the on­ly dis­play ev­er made by La­dy Dud­dle­stone was, that when­ev­er she went to church or to mar­ket, she al­ways wore the Queen's big gold watch.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils use oth­er words to ex­press the mean­ing of what is giv­en be­low in dark type.

You'd _best keep_ alive.

It's been _grand_ to see.

_Then you need not_.

You're _near­ly crazed to go_.

_At­ten­dant_ is made up of two parts--the stem, _at­tend_, and the end­ing, _ant_ (mean­ing one who).

The mean­ing of the word _at­ten­dant_ is _one who at­tends_.

Make out an _anal­ysis_ of the last two lessons, and use it in telling the sto­ry in your own words.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXXV.

pre sume', _sup­pose; think with­out be­ing sure_.

mus'cles, _those parts of the body which give us mo­tion, and by which we ex­ert our strength_.

ex tent', _space; dis­tance_.

or'di na ry, _com­mon; usu­al_.

knowl'edge, _that which is known through study_.

de gree', _mea­sure, as of space or time_.

spent, _used up; ex­haust­ed_.

snapped, _bro­ken off_.

de tached', _tak­en away from_.

* * * * *

WHY AN AP­PLE FALLS.

“Fa­ther,” said Lucy, “I have been read­ing to-​day that Sir Isaac New­ton was led to make a great dis­cov­ery, by see­ing an ap­ple fall from a tree. What was there won­der­ful about the ap­ple falling?”

“Noth­ing very won­der­ful in that,” replied her fa­ther; “but it set him to think­ing of what made it fall.”

“Why, I could have told him that,” said Lucy; “be­cause the stem snapped and there was noth­ing to sup­port it.”

“And what then?” asked her fa­ther.

“Why, then, of course it must fall.”

“Ah!” said her fa­ther, “that is the point: why must it fall?”

“I am sure I don't know,” said Lucy. “I pre­sume it was be­cause there was noth­ing to keep it up.”

“Well, Lucy, sup­pose there was not--does it fol­low that it must come to the ground?”

“Yes, cer­tain­ly,” replied Lucy, won­der­ing­ly.

“Let us see,” said her fa­ther; “but first an­swer this ques­tion: What is an an­imate ob­ject?”

“Any thing that has an­imal life, and pow­er to move at will,” replied Lucy.

“Very good,” said her fa­ther; “now, what is an inan­imate ob­ject?”

“Any thing that does not pos­sess an­imal life, or can not move at will.”

“Very good again,” said her fa­ther. “Now an ap­ple is, of course, an inan­imate ob­ject; and there­fore it could not move it­self, and Sir Isaac New­ton thought that he would try to find out what pow­er moved it.”

“Well, then,” said Lucy; “did he find that the ap­ple fell, be­cause it was forced to fall?”

“Yes,” replied her fa­ther; “he found that there was some force out­side of the ap­ple it­self that act­ed up­on it, oth­er­wise it would have re­mained for­ev­er where it was, no mat­ter if it were de­tached from the tree.”

“Would it, in­deed?” asked Lucy.

“Yes, with­out doubt,” replied her fa­ther, “for there are on­ly two ways in which it could be moved--by its own pow­er of mo­tion, or the pow­er of some­thing else mov­ing it. Now the first pow­er, you know it does not have; so the cause of its mo­tion must be the sec­ond.”

“But ev­ery thing falls to the ground as well as an ap­ple, when there is noth­ing to keep it up,” said Lucy.

“True. There must there­fore be some pow­er or force which caus­es things to fall,” said her fa­ther.

“And what is it?” asked Lucy.

“If things away from the earth can not move them­selves to it,” said her fa­ther, “there can be no oth­er cause of their falling than that the earth pulls them.”

“But,” said Lucy, “the earth is no more an­imate than they are; so how can it pull?”

“That is not an or­di­nary ques­tion, but I will try an ex­pla­na­tion,” said her fa­ther. "Sir Isaac New­ton dis­cov­ered that there was a law in na­ture called at­trac­tion, and that all bod­ies ex­ert this force up­on each oth­er. The greater the body, the greater is its pow­er of at­trac­tion.

“Now, the earth is an im­mense mass of mat­ter, with which noth­ing near it can com­pare in size. It draws there­fore with mighty force all things with­in its reach, which is the cause of their falling. Do you un­der­stand this?”

“I think that I do,” said Lucy; “the earth is like a great mag­net.”

“Yes,” said her fa­ther; “but the at­trac­tion of the mag­net is of a par­tic­ular kind and is on­ly over iron, while the at­trac­tion of the earth acts up­on ev­ery thing alike.”

“Then it is pulling you and me at this mo­ment!” said Lucy.

“Cer­tain­ly it is,” replied her fa­ther; "and as I am the larg­er, it is pulling me with more force than it is pulling you. This at­trac­tion is what gives ev­ery thing weight.

“If I lift up any thing, I am act­ing against this force, for which rea­son the ar­ti­cle seems heavy; and the more mat­ter it con­tains, the greater is the force of at­trac­tion and the heav­ier it ap­pears to me.”

“Then,” said Lucy, “if this at­trac­tion is so pow­er­ful, why do we not stick to the ground?”

“Be­cause,” replied her fa­ther, “we are an­imate be­ings, and have the pow­er of mo­tion, by which, to a lim­it­ed de­gree, we over­come the at­trac­tion of the earth.”

“Well then, fa­ther,” said Lucy, “if our pow­er of mo­tion can over­come the at­trac­tion, why can not we jump a mile high as well as a foot?”

“Be­cause,” replied her fa­ther, “as I said be­fore, we can on­ly over­come the at­trac­tion to a cer­tain ex­tent. As soon as the force our mus­cles give to the jump is spent, the at­trac­tion of the earth pulls us back.”

“Did Sir Isaac New­ton think of all these things, be­cause he saw the ap­ple fall?” in­quired Lucy.

“Yes; of all these and many more. He was a man of great knowl­edge. The name by which the force he dis­cov­ered is gen­er­al­ly known, is the At­trac­tion of Grav­ita­tion, and some time you will learn how this force keeps the earth, and the sun, moon, and stars, all in their places.”

* * * * *

LES­SON XXXVI.

en'vy, _wish one's self in an­oth­er's place_.

doffed, _took off, as an ar­ti­cle of dress_.

blithe, _very hap­py; gay_.

fee, _what is re­ceived as pay for ser­vice done_.

boast, _ob­ject of pride_.

quoth, _spoke_.

hale, _in good health; strong_.

* * * * *

THE MILLER OF THE DEE.

There dwelt a miller, hale and bold, Be­side the riv­er Dee; He worked and sang from morn till night-- No lark so blithe as he; And this the bur­den of his song For­ev­er used to be: “I en­vy no­body--no, not I, And no­body en­vies me!”

“Thou'rt wrong, my friend,” said good King Hal; “As wrong as wrong can be; For could my heart be light as thine, I'd glad­ly change with thee. And tell me now, what makes thee sing, With voice so loud and free. While I am sad, though I'm a king, Be­side the riv­er Dee?”

The miller smiled and doffed his cap: “I earn my bread,” quoth he; “I love my wife, I love my friend, I love my chil­dren three; I owe no pen­ny I can not pay; I thank the riv­er Dee, That turns the mill that grinds the corn That feeds my babes and me.”

“Good friend,” said Hal, and sighed the while, “Farewell! and hap­py be! But say no more, if thou'dst be true, That no one en­vies thee. Thy mealy cap is worth my crown; Thy mill, my king­dom's fee; Such men as thou are Eng­land's boast, O miller of the Dee!”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--In the sec­ond stan­za of the les­son, _wrong_ be­comes very _em­phat­ic_ on ac­count of _rep­eti­tion_ (be­ing re­peat­ed a num­ber of times). _My_ and _thine_, in the same stan­za, are _em­phat­ic_ on ac­count of _con­trast_ (con­trary mean­ing of the words).

Point out an ex­am­ple of _em­pha­sis_ by _rep­eti­tion_, and an ex­am­ple of _em­pha­sis_ by _con­trast_, in the third stan­za.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Hal = Har­ry = Hen­ry.

Let pupils place _un_ be­fore each of the fol­low­ing words, and give their mean­ing.

changed bur­dened en­vied

* * * * *

LES­SON XXXVII.

fero'cious, _sav­age; fierce_.

rosette', _an ar­ti­cle made to re­sem­ble a rose_.

aban'doned, _left for­ev­er; giv­en up_.

en­coun'ter, _meet face to face_.

in'flu­ence, _pow­er over oth­ers_.

keen, _sharp; pierc­ing_.

rep­uta'tion, _what is known of a per­son_.

wit'ness, _see or know by per­son­al pres­ence_.

trail, _track; foot­steps_.

alert', _on the watch; care­ful_.

* * * * *

THE JAGUAR.

The jaguar, or as he is some­times called, the Amer­ican tiger, is the largest and most fe­ro­cious of the cat fam­ily found on this con­ti­nent.

Some jaguars have been seen equal in size to the Asi­at­ic tiger; but in most cas­es the Amer­ican, an­imal is small­er. He is strong enough, how­ev­er, to drag a horse or an ox to his den--some­times to a long dis­tance; and this feat has been fre­quent­ly ob­served.

The jaguar is found in all the trop­ical parts of North and South Amer­ica.

While he bears a con­sid­er­able like­ness to the tiger, both in shape and habits, the mark­ings of his skin are quite dif­fer­ent. In­stead of be­ing striped like the tiger, the skin of the jaguar is beau­ti­ful­ly spot­ted.

Each spot re­sem­bles a rosette, and con­sists of a black ring with a sin­gle dark-​col­ored spot in the mid­dle.

Jaguars are not al­ways of the same col­or; some have skins of an or­ange col­or, and these are the most beau­ti­ful. Oth­ers are lighter col­ored; and some few have been seen that were very near­ly white.

There, is a “black jaguar,” which is thought to be of a dif­fer­ent species. It is larg­er and fiercer than the oth­er kinds, and is found on­ly in South Amer­ica.

This an­imal is more dread­ed by the in­hab­itants than the oth­er kinds and is said al­ways to at­tack man wher­ev­er it may en­counter him. All the oth­er beasts fear it.

Its roar pro­duces ter­ror and con­fu­sion among them and caus­es them to flee in ev­ery di­rec­tion. It is nev­er heard by the na­tives with­out a feel­ing of fear, and no won­der; for a year does not pass with­out a num­ber of these peo­ple falling vic­tims to its fe­roc­ity.

It is dif­fi­cult for one liv­ing in a coun­try where such fierce an­imals are un­known, to be­lieve that they have an in­flu­ence over man, to such an ex­tent as to pre­vent his set­tling in a par­tic­ular place; yet such is the fact.

In many parts of South Amer­ica, not on­ly plan­ta­tions, but whole vil­lages, have been aban­doned sole­ly from fear of the jaguars.

There are men, how­ev­er, who can deal sin­gle-​hand­ed with the jaguar; and who do not fear to at­tack the brute in its own haunts.

They do not trust to fire-​arms, but to a sharp spear. On their left arm they car­ry a strong shield.

This shield is held for­ward and is usu­al­ly seized by the jaguar. While it is bus­ied with this, the hunter thrusts at the an­imal with his sharp spear, and gen­er­al­ly with dead­ly ef­fect.

A trav­el­er in South Amer­ica re­lates the fol­low­ing in­ci­dent as hav­ing come un­der his ob­ser­va­tion:

"De­sir­ing to wit­ness a jaguar hunt, I em­ployed two well-​known In­di­an hunters, and set out for the for­est. The names of these hunters were Ni­no and Guapo. Both of them had long been ac­cus­tomed to hunt the jaguar, and I felt per­fect­ly safe in their com­pa­ny.

"Guapo, the larg­er of the two, was a man of won­der­ful mus­cu­lar pow­er, and had the rep­uta­tion of hav­ing at one time killed a black jaguar with on­ly a stout club.

"When all the prepa­ra­tions had been made for our start, we looked as if we might cap­ture all the jaguars that came in our way.

"Some hours af­ter we had en­tered the for­est, the quick eye of Guapo dis­cov­ered the trail of a large jaguar which he as­sured me was re­cent­ly made.

"Stop­ping for a mo­ment, both Guapo and Ni­no looked care­ful­ly about in ev­ery di­rec­tion, and lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly, in or­der that they might see or hear the an­imal if he were near.

"Then mo­tion­ing me to fol­low at a lit­tle dis­tance be­hind them, they stepped off qui­et­ly in the di­rec­tion of the trail, Guapo be­ing about thir­ty feet in ad­vance of Ni­no.

"We went for­ward in this man­ner sev­er­al hun­dred yards, not a word be­ing spo­ken, and the keen eyes of both the hunters con­stant­ly on the alert.

"Guapo, in the mean­time, who seemed to have no fear and be­came more and more ex­cit­ed as he ap­proached to where he thought the an­imal must be, had in­creased the dis­tance be­tween him­self and Ni­no con­sid­er­ably.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

"Sud­den­ly a ter­rif­ic roar, and at the same time a cry of pain and a shout, warned us that Guapo had met the jaguar.

"Ni­no bound­ed for­ward, and I fol­lowed as quick­ly as I could. A fear­ful sight met our eyes!

"The jaguar, which had been hid­ing in the branch­es of a large tree, had sprung down up­on Guapo and fas­tened its ter­ri­ble teeth in his thigh.

"With a shout filled with fury and de­ter­mi­na­tion, Ni­no at once sprung for­ward and sav­age­ly at­tacked the beast with his spear.

"This caused the jaguar to let go its hold of Guapo, who, made fu­ri­ous from the pain of the wound the an­imal had giv­en him, turned, and with his spear at­tacked it with a mad fe­roc­ity as sav­age as that of the beast it­self.

"In a mo­ment all was over, and the jaguar lay dead at our feet. I dressed Guapo's wound the best I could, while Ni­no took the skin from the body of the an­imal, which proved to be near­ly eight feet long.

“We re­turned very slow­ly to the vil­lage with the wound­ed man and our prize. In a few weeks Guapo had en­tire­ly re­cov­ered from his wounds, and was ready for an­oth­er hunt.”

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Let pupils pro­nounce in con­cert, and singly, the fol­low­ing words: _O, most, fe­ro­cious, on­ly, whole, hold, slow­ly, over, both, roar_.

What tone of voice should be used in read­ing this les­son?

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Place _re_ be­fore each of the fol­low­ing words, and then give the mean­ing of each.

turned told join cap­ture call

* * * * *

LES­SON XXXVI­II.

dikes, _high banks of earth_.

con'tra ry, _quite dif­fer­ent from what is usu­al_.

dis as'trous, _caus­ing great loss or suf­fer­ing_.

keels, _strong tim­bers ex­tend­ing along the bot­tom of boats_.

stork, _a kind of bird_.

bus'tle, _quick and ex­cit­ed mo­tion_.

mire, _soft and wet earth_.

scorn'ing, _turn­ing from any thing as if of no val­ue_.

sat'u rat ed, _wet through and through_.

moored, _tied fast, as a ship to land_.

slouched, _hung down_.

mim'ic, _copied in a small­er form_.

* * * * *

HOL­LAND.

PART I.

Hol­land is one of the queer­est coun­tries un­der the sun. It should be called Odd-​land, or Con­trary-​land; for, in near­ly ev­ery thing, it is dif­fer­ent from oth­er parts of the world.

In the first place, a large por­tion of the coun­try is low­er than the lev­el of the sea. Great dikes have been built at a heavy cost of mon­ey and la­bor, to keep the ocean where it be­longs.

On cer­tain parts of the coast it some­times leans with all its weight against the land, and it is as much as the poor coun­try can do to stand the pres­sure.

Some­times the dikes give way, or spring a leak, and the most dis­as­trous re­sults fol­low. They are high and wide, and the tops of some of them are cov­ered with build­ings and trees. They have even fine pub­lic roads up­on them, from which hors­es may look down up­on way­side cot­tages.

Of­ten the keels of float­ing ships are high­er than the roofs of the dwellings. The stork, on the house-​peak, may feel that her nest is lift­ed far out of dan­ger, but the croak­ing frog in the neigh­bor­ing bul­rush­es is near­er the stars than she.

Wa­ter-​bugs dart back­ward and for­ward above the heads of the chim­ney swal­lows; and wil­low-​trees seem droop­ing with shame, be­cause they can not reach so high as the reeds near by.

Ditch­es, canals, ponds, rivers, and lakes are ev­ery-​where to be seen. High, but not dry, they shine in the sun­light, catch­ing near­ly all the bus­tle and the busi­ness, quite scorn­ing the tame fields, stretch­ing damply be­side them. One is tempt­ed to ask: “Which is Hol­land--the shores or the wa­ter?”

The very ver­dure that should be con­fined to the land has made a mis­take and set­tled up­on the fish ponds. In fact the en­tire coun­try is a kind of sat­urat­ed sponge, or, as the En­glish po­et But­ler called it--

“A land that rides at an­chor, and is moored, In which they do not live, but go aboard.”

Per­sons are born, live, and die, and even have their gar­dens on canal-​boats. Farm­hous­es, with roofs like great slouched hats pulled over their eyes, stand on wood­en legs, with a tucked up sort of air, as if to say, “We in­tend to keep dry if we can.”

Even the hors­es wear a wide stool on each hoof to lift them out of the mire.

It is a glo­ri­ous coun­try in sum­mer for bare-​foot­ed girls and boys. Such wad­ings! Such mim­ic ship sail­ing! Such row­ing, fish­ing, and swim­ming! On­ly think of a chain of pud­dles where one can launch chip boats all day long, and nev­er make a re­turn trip!

But enough. A full recital would set all Young Amer­ica rush­ing in a body to­ward the Zuy­der Zee.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--In read­ing the first line of page 187, there will be a slight ris­ing of the voice af­ter each of the words, _ditch­es', canals', ponds', rivers'_, and a slight falling of the voice af­ter _lakes'_.[11]

This ris­ing or falling of the voice is called _in­flec­tion_, and may be in­di­cat­ed as above.

Lan­guage Les­son.--What is the mean­ing of “Young Amer­ica”?

[11] See para­graph 7.

* * * * *

LES­SON XXXIX.

freight, _car­go; that which forms a load_.

con­vey'an­ce, _the act of car­ry­ing_.

jum'ble, _a num­ber of things crowd­ed to­geth­er with­out or­der_.

bobbed, _cut off short_.

be­wil'de­ring, _con­fus­ing_.

gild'ed, _cov­ered with a thin, sur­face of gold_.

yoked, _joined to­geth­er with har­ness_.

rare'ly, _not of­ten_.

im­pris'oned, _shut up or con­fined, as in a prison_.

clat'ter­ing, _mak­ing a loud noise_.

* * * * *

HOL­LAND.

PART II.

Dutch cities seem, at first sight, to be a be­wil­der­ing jum­ble of hous­es, bridges, church­es, and ships, sprout­ing in­to masts, steeples, and trees. In some cities boats are hitched, like hors­es, to their own­ers' door-​posts, and re­ceive their freight from the up­per win­dows.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

Moth­ers scream to their chil­dren not to swing on the gar­den gate for fear they may be drowned. Wa­ter roads are more fre­quent there than com­mon roads and rail­roads; wa­ter-​fences, in the form of lazy green ditch­es, in­close plea­sure-​ground, farm, and gar­den.

Some­times fine green hedges are seen; but wood­en fences, such as we have in Amer­ica, are rarely met with in Hol­land. As for stone fences, a Hol­lan­der would lift his hands with as­ton­ish­ment at the very idea.

There is no stone there ex­cept­ing those great mass­es of rock that have been brought from oth­er lands to strength­en and pro­tect the coast.

All the small stones or peb­bles, if there ev­er were any, seem to be im­pris­oned in pave­ments, or quite melt­ed away. Boys, with strong, quick arms, may grow from aprons to full beards with­out ev­er find­ing one to start the wa­ter-​rings, or set the rab­bits fly­ing.

The wa­ter roads are noth­ing less than canals cross­ing the coun­try in ev­ery di­rec­tion. These are of all sizes, from the great North Hol­land Ship Canal, which is the won­der of the world, to those which a boy can leap.

Wa­ter-​om­nibus­es con­stant­ly ply up and down these roads for the con­veyance of pas­sen­gers; and wa­ter-​drays are used for car­ry­ing fu­el and mer­chan­dise.

In­stead of green coun­try lanes, green canals stretch from field to barn, and from barn to gar­den; and the farms are mere­ly great lakes pumped dry. Some of the bus­iest streets are wa­ter, while many of the coun­try roads are paved with brick.

The city boats, with their round­ed sterns, gild­ed bows, and gay­ly-​paint­ed sides, are un­like any oth­ers un­der the sun; a Dutch wag­on with its fun­ny lit­tle crooked pole is a per­fect mys­tery of mys­ter­ies.

One thing is clear, you may think that the in­hab­itants need nev­er be thirsty. But no, Odd-​land is true to it­self still. With the sea push­ing to get in, and the lakes strug­gling to get out, and the over­flow­ing canals, rivers, and ditch­es, in many dis­tricts there is no wa­ter that is fit to swal­low.

Our poor Hol­lan­ders must go dry, or send far in­land for that pre­cious flu­id, old­er than Adam, yet young as the morn­ing dew.

Some­times, in­deed, the in­hab­itants can swal­low a show­er, when they are pro­vid­ed with any means of catch­ing it; but gen­er­al­ly they are like the sailors told of in a fa­mous po­em, who saw

“Wa­ter, wa­ter, ev­ery-​where, Nor any drop to drink!”

Great flap­ping wind­mills all over the coun­try make it look as if flocks of huge sea birds were just set­tling up­on it. Ev­ery-​where one sees the fun­ni­est trees, bobbed in­to all sorts of odd shapes, with their trunks paint­ed a daz­zling' white, yel­low, or red.

Hors­es are of­ten yoked three abreast. Men, wom­en, and chil­dren, go clat­ter­ing about in wood­en shoes with loose heels.

Hus­bands and wives lov­ing­ly har­ness them­selves side by side on the bank of the canal and drag their pro­duce to mar­ket.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Let pupils prac­tice up­on the in­flec­tions marked in the fol­low­ing

Mod­el.--Hous­es', bridges', church­es', and ships', sprout­ing in­to masts', steeples', and trees'.

Which words take the _falling in­flec­tion_?

* * * * *

LES­SON XL.

whisk'ing, _pulling sud­den­ly and with force_.

lus'ti er, _stronger; loud­er_.

of fend'ed, _made an­gry_.

fa mil'iar, _friend­ly; as of a friend_.

ma'tron ly, _el­der­ly; moth­er­ly_.

com mo'tion, _noise; con­fu­sion_.

pant'ed, _breathed quick­ly_.

sa lute', _greet­ing_.

mute, _silent; un­able to speak_.

stur'dy, _strong; pow­er­ful_.

ker'chiefs, _pieces of cloth worn about the head_.

a do', _trou­ble; de­lay_.

in'mates, _the per­sons in a house_.

* * * * *

THE WIND IN A FROL­IC.

The wind one morn­ing sprung up from sleep, Say­ing, “Now for a frol­ic! Now for a leap! Now for a mad­cap gal­lop­ing chase! I'll make a com­mo­tion in ev­ery place!”

So it swept with a bus­tle right through a great town, Creak­ing the signs and scat­ter­ing down Shut­ters, and whisk­ing with mer­ci­less squalls, Old wom­en's bon­nets and gin­ger­bread stalls. There nev­er was heard a much lusti­er shout, As the ap­ples and or­anges tum­bled about.

Then away to the fields it went blus­ter­ing and hum­ming, And the cat­tle all won­dered what­ev­er was com­ing. It pulled by their tails the grave, ma­tron­ly cows, And tossed the colts' manes all about their brows, Till, of­fend­ed at such a fa­mil­iar salute, They all turned their backs and stood silent­ly mute.

So on it went, ca­per­ing and play­ing its pranks; Whistling with reeds on the broad riv­er banks; Puff­ing the birds, as they sat on the spray, Or the trav­el­er grave on the king's high­way. It was not too nice to hus­tle the bags Of the beg­gar, and flut­ter his dirty rags. 'Twas so bold that it feared not to play its joke With the doc­tor's wig, and the gen­tle­man's cloak.

Through the for­est it roared, and cried gay­ly, “Now You stur­dy old oaks, I'll make you bow!” And it made them bow with­out more ado, Or it cracked their great branch­es through and through.

Then it rushed like a mon­ster o'er cot­tage and farm, Strik­ing their in­mates with sud­den alarm; And they ran out like bees in a mid­sum­mer swarm. There were dames with their ker­chiefs tied over their caps, To see if their poul­try were free from mishaps; The turkeys they gob­bled, the geese screamed aloud, And the hens crept to roost in a ter­ri­fied crowd; There was rais­ing of lad­ders, and logs lay­ing on, Where the thatch from the roof threat­ened soon to be gone.

But the wind had passed on, and had met in a lane With a school-​boy, who pant­ed and strug­gled in vain; For it tossed him, and whirled him, then passed, and he stood With his hat in a pool, and his shoe in the mud.

Then away went the wind in its hol­iday glee, And now it was far on the bil­lowy sea; And the lord­ly ships felt its pow­er­ful blow, And the lit­tle boats dart­ed to and fro.

But, lo! it was night, and it sunk to rest On the sea-​birds' rock in the gleam­ing west, Laugh­ing to think, in its frol­ic­some fun, How lit­tle of mis­chief it re­al­ly had done.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Let some pupil in the class state the man­ner in which the les­son should be read.

Point out four lines that should be read more qui­et­ly than the rest of the les­son.

Vary the read­ing by hav­ing parts of les­son read as a con­cert ex­er­cise.

What ef­fect has the rep­eti­tion of the word _now_, in the sec­ond and third lines?

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils write six sen­tences, each con­tain­ing one of the fol­low­ing words, used in such a man­ner as to show its prop­er mean­ing: _right, write; reed, read; tied, tide_.

Let pupils make out an _anal­ysis_ of the les­son, and use it in giv­ing the sto­ry in their own words.

* * * * *

LES­SON XLI.

veg e ta'tion, _ev­ery thing that grows out of the ground_.

meth'od, _way; man­ner_.

ta'per ing, _grow­ing small­er to­ward the end_.

men'tioned, _spo­ken of_.

struct'ure, _ar­range­ment of parts; a build­ing of any kind_.

marsh'y, _wet_.

swamp, _low ground filled with wa­ter_.

sprung, _start­ed; be­gun_.

* * * * *

SOME­THING ABOUT PLANTS.

The name plant be­longs in a gen­er­al way to all veg­eta­tion, from the tini­est spear of grass or creep­ing flow­er one sees on the rocks by the brook-​side, to the largest and tallest of for­est trees.

Plants are di­vid­ed in­to nu­mer­ous groups of fam­ilies, and the study of the many species be­long­ing to each fam­ily, is very in­ter­est­ing.

There are thou­sands of kinds of grass­es, shrubs, and trees, scat­tered over the dif­fer­ent parts of the earth, and the larg­er por­tion of them are in some way use­ful to mankind.

In speak­ing of grass­es, we are apt to think on­ly of the grass in the mead­ows, which is the food for our hors­es and cat­tle; but there are oth­er kinds of grass­es which are just as im­por­tant to man as the grass of the mead­ow is to the beast. These are oats, rye, bar­ley, wheat, corn, and oth­ers, all of which be­long to the grass fam­ily.

Per­haps it ap­pears strange to you to hear wheat and corn called grass, and you ask how can that be.

In the first place, all plants that have the same gen­er­al form and method of growth, be­long to the same fam­ily.

Now, if you will pull up a stalk of grass and a stalk of wheat or rye and com­pare them, you will find that they are alike in all im­por­tant re­spects.

The roots of each look like a lit­tle bun­dle of strings or fibers, and are there­fore called fi­brous; the stalks you will find joint­ed and hol­low; and the leaves are long and nar­row, ta­per­ing to a point at their ends.

Then, if you ex­am­ine the seeds, you will see that they are placed near to­geth­er and form what we call an ear or head, as in an ear of corn, or a head of wheat.

This same gen­er­al form or struc­ture ap­plies to ev­ery one of the plants be­long­ing to the grass fam­ily; and in this fam­ily are in­clud­ed all the dif­fer­ent kinds of canes and reeds that grow in swamps and marshy places, as well as the bam­boo of the trop­ics.

Shrubs are those plants which have woody stems and branch­es. They are gen­er­al­ly of small size, rarely reach­ing over twen­ty feet in height. Small shrubs are usu­al­ly called bush­es.

In this class of plants, the branch­es gen­er­al­ly start close to the ground, and in some cas­es, a lit­tle be­low the sur­face of the ground, ris­ing and spread­ing out in all di­rec­tions.

The com­mon cur­rant bush­es, black­ber­ry bush­es, and rose bush­es which we see in gar­dens, are shrubs.

So al­so are grape-​vines, hon­ey­suck­les, ivy, and all oth­er creep­ing vines. These are called climb­ing plants, be­cause lit­tle ten­drils or claspers which grow out of their branch­es, wind around and fas­ten them­selves to any thing in their way.

Trees are the largest and strongest of all plants.

They have woody stems or trunks, and branch­es. These branch­es do not, as in shrubs, start close to the ground, but at some dis­tance above, from which height they ex­tend in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions.

It is dif­fi­cult to be­lieve that some of the large trees we see, sprung from small seeds; yet it is true that all trees start­ed in this man­ner.

The seeds are scat­tered about by birds and tem­pests, and falling on the soft ground, where they be­come cov­ered with, leaves and earth, they take root and grow.

Thus the lit­tle acorn sprouts, and from it springs the stur­dy oak, which is not on­ly the no­blest of trees, but lives hun­dreds of years.

The trunks and branch­es of trees are pro­tect­ed by a cov­er­ing called bark. This bark is thick­er near the base or root of the tree than it is high­er up among the branch­es.

On some trees, the bark is very rough and shag­gy look­ing, as on the oak, ash, wal­nut, and pine; on oth­ers, the bark is smooth, as on the beech, ap­ple, and birch.

Some trees live for on­ly a few years, rapid­ly reach­ing their full growth, and rapid­ly de­cay­ing. The peach-​tree is one of this kind.

Oth­er trees live to a great age. An elm-​tree has been known to live for three hun­dred years; a chest­nut-​tree, six hun­dred years; and oaks, eight hun­dred years.

The baobab-​tree of Africa lives to be many hun­dred years old. There is a yew-​tree in Eng­land that is known to be over two thou­sand years old.

The “big trees” of Cal­ifor­nia are the largest in the world, al­though not of so great an age as some that have been men­tioned. The tallest of these trees that has yet been dis­cov­ered, mea­sures over three hun­dred and fifty feet in height, and the dis­tance around it near the ground is al­most one hun­dred feet. The age of this tree must be be­tween one thou­sand five hun­dred and two thou­sand years.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Let, pupils pro­nounce in con­cert and singly, the fol­low­ing words: _corn, stalks, im­por­tant, form, tall, wal­nut, hors­es_.

In the fifth para­graph on page 199, why are _some_ and _oth­ers_ em­phat­ic?[12]

Mark _in­flec­tions_ of _oak, ash, wal­nut_, and _pine_; and of _beech, ap­ple_, and _birch_.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Place _dis_ be­fore each of the fol­low­ing words, and then give the mean­ing of each of the words so formed.

ap­pear cov­ered able like be­lieve

[12] See fifth para­graph from the end of the les­son.

* * * * *

LES­SON XLII.

flush, _bright red col­or_.

low'ing, _the bel­low­ing or cry of cat­tle_.

rang'ing, _wan­der­ing_.

in tent', _de­ter­mined_.

striv'ing, _mak­ing great ef­forts_.

pre serve', _keep in safe­ty_.

re flect'ed, _shin­ing back; thrown back, as by a look­ing-​glass_.

pro ceed'ed, _went for­ward_.

checked, _stopped_.

blasts, _sounds made by blow­ing_.

* * * * *

A FOR­EST ON FIRE.

PART I.

We were sound asleep one night, when, about two hours be­fore day, the snort­ing of our hors­es and low­ing of our cat­tle, which were rang­ing in the woods, sud­den­ly awoke us.

I took my ri­fle and went to the door to see what beast had caused the hub­bub, when I was struck by the glare of light re­flect­ed on all the trees be­fore me, as far as I could see through the woods.

My hors­es were leap­ing about, snort­ing loud­ly, and the cat­tle ran among them in great con­fu­sion.

On go­ing to the back of the house I plain­ly heard the crack­ling made by the burn­ing brush­wood, and saw the flames com­ing to­ward us in a far-​ex­tend­ed line.

I ran to the house, told my wife to dress her­self and the child as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, and take the lit­tle mon­ey we had, while I man­aged to catch and sad­dle two of the best hors­es.

All this was done in a very short time, for I felt that ev­ery mo­ment was pre­cious to us.

We then mount­ed our hors­es, and made off from the fire. My wife, who is an ex­cel­lent rid­er, kept close to me; and my daugh­ter, who was then a small child, I took in one arm.

When mak­ing off, I looked back and saw that the fright­ful blaze was close up­on us, and had al­ready laid hold of the house.

By good luck there was a horn at­tached to my hunt­ing-​clothes, and I blew it, to bring af­ter us, if pos­si­ble, the re­main­der of my live-​stock, as well as the dogs.

The cat­tle fol­lowed for a while; but be­fore an hour had passed they all ran, as if mad, through the woods, and that was the last we saw of them.

My dogs, too, al­though at all oth­er times eas­ily man­aged, ran af­ter the deer that in great num­bers sprung be­fore us as if ful­ly aware of the death, that was so rapid­ly ap­proach­ing.

We heard blasts from the horns of our neigh­bors as we pro­ceed­ed, and knew that they were in the same un­for­tu­nate con­di­tion that we were in our­selves.

In­tent on striv­ing to the ut­most to pre­serve our lives, I thought of a large lake, some miles off, where the flames might pos­si­bly be checked, and we might find a place of safe­ty.

Urg­ing my wife to whip up her horse, we set off at full speed, mak­ing the best way we could over the fall­en trees and the brush heaps, which lay like so many ar­ti­cles placed on pur­pose to keep up the ter­rif­ic fires that ad­vanced with a broad front up­on us.

By this time we were suf­fer­ing great­ly from the ef­fects of the heat, and we were afraid that our hors­es would be over­come and drop down at any mo­ment.

A sin­gu­lar kind of breeze was pass­ing over our heads, and the glare of the burn­ing trees shone more bright­ly than the day­light. I was sen­si­ble of a slight faint­ness, and my wife looked pale.

The heat had pro­duced such a flush in the child's face that, when she turned to­ward ei­ther of us, our grief and anx­iety were great­ly in­creased.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--What tone of voice should be used in read­ing the les­son?

Should the rate of read­ing be slow or rapid?

Point out two para­graphs re­quir­ing a some­what dif­fer­ent rate.

Should the feel­ings ex­pressed in the les­son be ren­dered in a qui­et or loud tone?

Dif­fer­ent in­flec­tions are some­times used, sim­ply to give va­ri­ety to the read­ing and not for em­pha­sis.

In the first para­graph, mark _in­flec­tion_ of _night, day, hors­es, cat­tle, woods, us_.

* * * * *

LES­SON XLI­II.

de voured', _eat­en up greed­ily, as by wild an­imals_.

por'cu pine, _a kind of an­imal_.

smold'der ing, _burn­ing slow­ly; smok­ing_.

in suf'fer a ble, _not to be borne_.

shift'ed, _moved about; changed po­si­tion_.

sti'fling, _stop­ping the breath_.

dis­mal, _gloomy; cheer­less_.

un grate'ful, _not thank­ful_.

rem'e died, _re­lieved; cured_.

* * * * *

A FOR­EST ON FIRE.

PART II.

Ten miles are soon gone over on swift hors­es; but yet, when we reached the bor­ders of the lake we were quite ex­haust­ed, and our hearts failed us. The heat of the smoke was in­suf­fer­able, and sheets of blaz­ing fire flew over us in a man­ner be­yond be­lief.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

We reached the shore, how­ev­er, coast­ed the lake for a while, and got round to the shel­tered side. There we gave up our hors­es, which we nev­er saw again.

We plunged down among the rush­es, by the edge of the wa­ter, and laid our­selves down flat, to await the chance of es­cap­ing from be­ing burned or de­voured. The wa­ter great­ly re­freshed us, and we en­joyed the cool­ness.

On went the fire, rush­ing and crash­ing through the woods. Such a morn­ing may we nev­er again see! The heav­ens them­selves, I thought, were fright­ened.

All above us was a bright, red glare, min­gled with, dark, threat­en­ing clouds and black smoke, rolling and sweep­ing away in the dis­tance.

Our bod­ies were cool enough, but our heads were scorch­ing; and the child, who now seemed to un­der­stand the mat­ter, cried so as near­ly to break our hearts.

The day passed on, and we be­came hun­gry. Many wild beasts came plung­ing in­to the wa­ter be­side us, and oth­ers swam across to our side, and stood still. Al­though faint and weary, I man­aged to shoot a por­cu­pine, and we all tast­ed its flesh.

The night passed, I can­not tell you how. Smol­der­ing fires cov­ered the ground, and the trees stood like pil­lars of fire, or fell across each oth­er.

The sti­fling and sick­en­ing smoke still rushed over us, and the burnt cin­ders and ash­es fell thick around us.

When morn­ing came, ev­ery thing about us was calm; but a dis­mal smoke still filled the air, and the smell seemed worse than ev­er. What was to be­come of us I did not know.

My wife hugged the child to her breast, and wept bit­ter­ly; but God had pre­served us through the worst of the dan­ger, and the flames had gone past, so I thought it would be both un­grate­ful to Him and un­man­ly to de­spair now.

Hunger once more pressed up­on us, but this was soon reme­died. Sev­er­al deer were stand­ing in the wa­ter, up to the head, and I shot one of them. Some of its flesh was soon roast­ed, and af­ter eat­ing it we felt won­der­ful­ly strength­ened.

By this time the blaze of the burn­ing for­est was be­yond our sight, al­though the re­mains of the fires of the night be­fore were still burn­ing in many places, and it was dan­ger­ous to go among the burnt trees.

Af­ter rest­ing for some time, we pre­pared to com­mence our march. Tak­ing up the child in my arms, I led the way over the hot ground and rocks; and af­ter two weary days and nights of suf­fer­ing, dur­ing which we shift­ed in the best man­ner we could, we at last suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing the hard woods, which had been free from the fire.

Soon af­ter we came to a house, where we were kind­ly treat­ed. Since then I have worked hard and con­stant­ly as a lum­ber-​man; and, thanks to God, we are safe, sound, and hap­py.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--Point out, breath­ing-​places in the last para­graph of page 207.[13]

Name the _em­phat­ic words_ in the last sen­tence of the les­son.

Mark _in­flec­tion_ in the last line of the les­son.

Pro­nounce care­ful­ly the fol­low­ing words: _dark, march, hard, calm, hearts_.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils de­fine the fol­low­ing words: _com­plete, at­tract, lo­cate, in­tent, pro­cras­ti­nate, sep­arate_; then add to each word as a stem, the end­ing _ion_, and de­fine the words so formed.

Point out the omis­sions of let­ters nec­es­sary in join­ing the stems and end­ings.

Let pupils make out an _anal­ysis_ in six parts for the last two lessons, and use it in writ­ing or telling the sto­ry in their own words.

[13] See third para­graph from the end of the les­son.

* * * * *

LES­SON XLIV.

peas'ants, _those who work on farms_.

hedge'rows, _rows of shrubs or trees used to in­close a space_.

tow'ers, _very high build­ings_.

an ces'tral, _be­long­ing to a fam­ily for a great many years_.

mon'arch, _king; ruler_.

roy'al ty, _kings and queens_.

gifts, _things giv­en; presents_.

* * * * *

COM­MON GIFTS.

The sun­shine is a glo­ri­ous thing, That comes alike to all, Light­ing the peas­ant's low­ly cot, The no­ble's paint­ed hall.

The moon­light is a gen­tle thing, Which through the win­dow gleams Up­on the snowy pil­low, where The hap­py in­fant dreams.

It shines up­on the fish­er's boat Out on the lone­ly sea, As well as on the flags which float On tow­ers of roy­al­ty.

The dew­drops of the sum­mer morn Dis­play their sil­ver sheen Up­on the smooth­ly shaven lawn, And on the vil­lage green.

There are no gems in monarch's crown More beau­ti­ful than they; And yet you scarce­ly no­tice them, But tread them off in play.

The mu­sic of the birds is heard, Borne on the pass­ing breeze, As sweet­ly from the hedgerows as From old an­ces­tral trees.

There are as many love­ly things, As many pleas­ant tones, For those who dwell by cot­tage hearths As those who sit on thrones.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--This les­son should be read with a full and clear tone of voice. The thoughts ex­pressed are not of a con­ver­sa­tion­al na­ture.

In the first stan­za, in the con­trast be­tween _peas­ant's low­ly cot_ and _no­ble's paint­ed hall_, the in­flec­tions are _ris­ing cir­cum­flex­es_ and _falling cir­cum­flex­es_.

The _ris­ing cir­cum­flex_ con­sists of a down­ward turn of the voice fol­lowed by an up­ward turn; the _falling cir­cum­flex_, of an up­ward turn fol­lowed by a down­ward turn.

Let pupils mark the in­flec­tions in the last two lines of the po­em.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils ex­press the mean­ing of what is giv­en be­low in dark type, us­ing a sin­gle word for each ex­am­ple.

For _those who dwell by cot­tage hearths_

As _those who sit on thrones_.

* * * * *

LES­SON XLV.

re quest', _a wish that is ex­pressed; de­sire_.

har'bor, _a shel­tered place where ships can an­chor_.

lo'cate, _place; choose as a place to live_.

both'er, _trou­ble_.

beach, _the shore of the sea_.

knack, _an easy way of do­ing any thing_.

in dulged', _gave way to, as to ap­petite_.

ban'quet, _a very good din­ner or oth­er meal_.

rheu'ma tism, _a painful trou­ble in the mus­cles or joints_.

* * * * *

A GHOST STO­RY.