16

THE FAIRY QUEEN.

Faster! faster! round we go,
While our cheeks like roses glow;
Free as birds upon the wing,
Dancing in a fairy ring.

READING AND SPELLING COLUMNS.

a

Build, to make.

Twig, a very small branch.
Mount, to fly up.

ONE day Willy had very long lesson to learn. He did not sit down and do his best to learn, but he ran out of the house, and sat down on a grassy plot in a park. A bird flew by, and Willy thought he would like to be a bird, and

have no lessons to learn, and no work to do. In this he was wrong; for the bird did not fly on, but came to the ground, and tried to carry off a long twig to help to build its nest.

Each time the bird rose the twig caught its wing, and it fell on the ground. It took hold of the twig first this way, and then that way, but it could not mount with it. After having lost its hold five or six times, it at last took it by the right place, and carried it off with ease to its nest.

18

THE BOY AND THE BIRD.

Willy said to himself, "May I not take a lesson from this poor bird, and try again?" So he went back into the house, took his book, and soon learned his lesson.

Where did Willy sit down? to the ground? How often did What did he see? What was it fall? How did the bird at it doing? For what purpose? last succeed? What lesson does What made the twig always fall the bird teach?

WRITE-He took his book, and soon learned his lesson.

GLAD to see you, little bird,

'Twas your pretty chirp I heard ;

What did you intend to say?

"Give me something, this cold day"?

That I will, and plenty too;

All these crumbs I saved for you,
Don't be fright-ened-here's a treat:
I will wait and see you eat,

Frost and snow have made you bold,
I'll not hurt you, though I'm told
There are many reasons why
Every sparrow ought to die.

Thomas says you steal his wheat,
John complains his plums you eat,
Choose the ripest for your share,
Never asking whose they are.
Shock-ing tales I hear of

you;
Chirp, and tell me are they true?
Rob-bing all the summer long
Don't you think it very wrong?

Yet you seem an honest bird;
Don't be vexed at what I've heard:
Now, no grapes and plums you eat;
Now, you cannot steal the wheat.
So I will not try to know
What you did so long ago;

There's your break-fast, eat away;
Come and see me every day.

READING AND SPELLING COLUMNS.

ONE day the fox asked the stork to dinner.. The fox is a funny fellow, and he wished to play a trick on the stork. So when the stork came, she found nothing on the table but soup, in wide shallow dishes, so that she could only dip in the end of her long bill, and could not appease her hunger. The fox lapped it up very quickly, now and then asking the stork how she liked her dinner, hoping that it was to her mind,