lying here and there, almost dead, upon the cold ground.

I saw that not a moment was to be lost! At once, I dug a snug little bed, and put the babies in it, covering them up warm. I next helped you little fellows out of your cradles. Then I took the honey and fed the poor starving ones. I ran from one to another, as fast as I could go; and I saved all the lives that were left to be saved.

Not long after, the giant set us free, and let us go back home. Since that time, your father and mother, and all the tribe of red ants, have been very kind to me. I am head nurse, and every one shows me great respect. There! the babies are waking up! Run away, now, little Red-coats, to your play!

Much of the surface of Holland lies so

low that the tides of the ocean would

overflow it, if the waters were not kept back by great banks of earth.

Late one evening, a little boy noticed the water trickling through a very small opening in one of these dikes.

He stopped to examine it, and the thought came to him at once, that if the opening were not closed, a terrible disaster would happen.

He had often heard his father tell of the sad disaster which had come from just such a small beginning as this.

How, in a few hours, the little opening grew larger and larger, until the whole bank was washed away.

How the rolling, roaring, angry sea rushed in upon the land, and swept on to the nearest villages.

How houses and people were carried away upon the bosom of the floods, and many lives were lost, and much property destroyed.

Should he run home and get some one to help him?

It would be dark before he could come back to the spot; and this hole, even

then, might have become so large that they could not close it.

What should he-what could he do to prevent such a terrible disaster-he, only a little boy?

He sat down on the side of the bank, stopped the opening with his hand, and patiently waited for some one to pass to or from the village. But no one came.

Hour after hour went by. There sat the brave boy, in cold and darkness, wet and tired, but still pressing his hand against the water that was trying to pass the dangerous opening.

He thinks of his brother and sister,
Both asleep in their safe, warm bed;
He thinks of his father and mother,
Of himself as dying-and dead:

And of how, when the night is over,

They must come and find him at last: But he never thinks he can leave the place, When duty holds him fast.

His mother in the cottage

Is up and astir with the light, For the thought of her little Peter Has been with her all the night.

And now she watches the pathway,

As yester-eve she had done;

But what does she see so strange and black Against the rising sun?

Her neighbors bearing between them
Something straight to her door;
Her child is coming home, but not
As he ever came before!

"He is dead!" she cries; "my darling!” And the startled father hears,

And comes and looks the way she looks, And fears the thing she fears:

Till a glad shout from the bearers

Thrills the stricken man and wife"Give thanks, for your son has saved our land,

And God has saved his life!"

So there in the morning sunshine
They knelt about the boy,
And every head was bared and bent

In tearful, reverent joy.

'Tis many a year since then; but still, When the sea roars like a flood,

Their boys are taught what a boy can do Who is brave. and true, and good.