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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dick and His Cat and Other Tales, by Various
+
+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.org
+
+
+Title: Dick and His Cat and Other Tales
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Edith Carrington
+
+Illustrator: F. M. Cooper
+
+Release Date: March 18, 2009 [EBook #28351]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICK AND HIS CAT AND OTHER TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by R. Cedron, Diane Monico, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ANIMAL LIFE READERS
+
+EDITED BY
+EDITH CARRINGTON AND ERNEST BELL
+
+WITH PICTURES BY
+HARRISON WEIR
+AND OTHERS
+
+
+
+
+DICK AND HIS CAT
+AND OTHER TALES
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+DICK AND HIS CAT
+AND OTHER TALES
+
+ADAPTED BY
+EDITH CARRINGTON
+
+AUTHOR OF "WORKERS WITHOUT WAGE," "A NARROW, NARROW WORLD,"
+"A STORY OF WINGS," ETC., ETC.
+
+_WITH PICTURES BY F. M. COOPER_
+
+LONDON
+GEORGE BELL AND SONS
+YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN
+1895
+
+
+
+
+_This Series is published by Messrs. Bell for the Humanitarian League._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                   PAGE
+
+DICK AND HIS CAT                                     1
+
+TRUSTY. By Roger Quiddam                            29
+
+OUT IN THE COLD. By Roger Quiddam                   50
+
+THE STORY OF A FLY. By Maria Jacob                  67
+
+BETTY AND SNOWDROP                                 106
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In the Section of the Code for 1894-5, dealing with Reading Books,
+occur the words "Passages impressing on the children the duty of
+gentleness and consideration for others, and that of the humane
+treatment of animals may also be widely introduced."
+
+It is in the hope of encouraging that humane treatment of animals,
+which in the hands of a sympathetic teacher may so easily and naturally
+be made the first step towards the "gentleness and consideration for
+others," that this series has been prepared. It is hoped now that the
+teaching of humanity has received official recognition, that those who
+have charge of the young will recognize its importance, and will
+realise that unless the cultivation of the heart runs _pari passu_ with
+that of the head, the spread of education may become a curse instead of
+a blessing.
+
+The Editors are much indebted to the R.S.P.C.C. for permission to
+reprint "Trusty" and "Out in the Cold."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+DICK AND HIS CAT.
+
+
+1. UP TO LONDON.
+
+1. In the reign of the famous king Edward the Third, there was a little
+boy named Dick Whitt-ing-ton, whose father and mother died when he was
+very young.
+
+2. He knew nothing about them, and he was left, a poor little ragged,
+dirty fellow, to run about the streets of a small country village.
+
+3. As poor Dick was not old enough to work, he was in a sad state; he
+got but little for his dinner, and often had nothing at all for his
+supper. For all the people in the village were very poor.
+
+4. They could often spare him nothing more than an old crust of bread,
+or some scraps that even a dog would not have liked. One day a man who
+was driving a waggon came through the village.
+
+5. He had eight fine large horses to pull it, and, as he walked by
+their side, he spoke kindly to them, and never whipped them. This made
+Dick think that he must be a good man.
+
+6. "If he is kind to the horses," said Dick to himself, "perhaps he
+will be kind to a poor lad like me." So Dick went up to speak to the
+carter and asked him to let him walk along by the side of his waggon.
+
+7. The two began to talk, and the man, hearing from poor Dick that he
+had no parents, and seeing how ragged his clothes were, took pity on
+him. He told Dick that he was going with the waggon to London town.
+"And," added the man, "you may come with me if you like.
+
+8. "I do not think that you can be much worse off there than you are
+here; and perhaps you may be better off in the great city. You may ride
+in the waggon if you please."
+
+9. Dick was glad enough to do this, and the good driver took care to
+share his food with him on the way. He took as much care of the horses
+and of Dick as he did of himself. Dick got safe to London.
+
+[Illustration: SETTING OFF.]
+
+10. Now before he had seen the streets of London, Dick had thought that
+they were made of gold, for an old man in the village at home had told
+him so. But the old man had only been in joke. He meant that folks
+often became rich there.
+
+11. So Dick ran away from the waggon in a great hurry, to find the
+golden pavements. But he saw nothing except mud and dirt, and a crowd
+of people all looking very busy, who took no heed of him.
+
+12. Instead of being able to pick up little bits of gold from the
+streets when he wanted money, Dick now found that he could not find
+even a penny to buy a loaf for himself, and no one gave him one either.
+
+13. He stayed all night in the streets, and, next morning, he got up
+and walked about, asking those whom he met to give him something to
+keep him from starving.
+
+14. Hardly any man or boy whom he asked gave him a copper. But at last,
+a woman, seeing his pale face, drew out two pence and put them into
+Dick's thin hand.
+
+15. Being almost too tired and weak to buy food, Dick laid himself down
+on the doorstep of a big house. He almost wished to die, for he felt so
+lonely and forlorn in that great town, where no one had time to think
+about a poor little ragged boy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Dick went to London with a man. When he was there, he could
+get no food. A kind woman gave him two pence.
+
+     Questions: 1. In what king's reign did Dick Whittington
+     live? 2. In what kind of place was he born? 3. Whom did he
+     meet going through the village? 4. How did Dick know that
+     the driver was a good man? 5. What did he do when he first
+     reached London? 6. What did the kind woman give to Dick?
+
+
+2. THE STRAY CAT.
+
+1. As Dick was hiding his face in his hands and thinking these sad
+things, he felt something very soft rubbing gently against his neck,
+which was close to the hard cold stone step, and he heard a pleasant
+sound at his ear.
+
+2. It was the purring of a poor little stray cat, which was trying to
+make friends with him. Dick sat up, and stroked puss. "Why, you are
+just like me!" said Dick. "I believe that you have no home and no
+friends either, you poor little thing."
+
+3. When the cat heard Dick speak so kindly to her, she crept into his
+lap, looking into his face as if to say, "Are you going to let me
+come, or will you drive me away, as all the rest of the world does?"
+
+4. Finding that Dick put one arm round her she curled herself up,
+purring loudly, and seemed to think that she had found a home with him
+on the doorstep.
+
+5. "Poor pussy!" said Dick, "how thin you are, and how rough your coat
+is! Come, I will go and get something for us both to eat." Dick ran
+along the street with the cat in his arms.
+
+6. She could not do enough to thank him for taking care of her. For she
+had been hunted through the streets for many days. The people with whom
+she had lived were gone away and left poor puss behind to starve in an
+empty house.
+
+7. They went to a shop and bought milk and bread. It was a fine feast
+for them both, and I do not know which of them liked it best.
+
+8. The rude boys in the street laughed at Dick for running along with a
+cat in his arms. But he was too brave a boy to care for that. He only
+hugged his cat the tighter, and laughed at them in return. So they
+soon left off.
+
+[Illustration: BOTH IN NEED.]
+
+9. That night, Dick had again no place to sleep in but the doorway of a
+big house. He made himself and his cat as snug as he could, and had
+just fallen asleep when he heard a cross voice say, "What are you doing
+here, you lazy scamp?"
+
+10. This was a cook, who was just coming out. And at the same moment
+her master came out behind her. He, too, saw Dick, and said: "Why do
+you lie there, my lad? You seem big enough to work. I fear that you
+must be idle."
+
+11. "No, indeed, sir," said Dick. "I would work with all my heart, but
+I know no one to give me work, and I think that I am ill from want of
+food and a dry, warm bed."
+
+12. "Poor fellow!" said the rich merchant, who was master of the house.
+"Come here to me. Let us see what is the matter with you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ A poor little stray cat came to Dick. He spoke kindly to her
+and went to buy bread and milk for both. They liked the food very much.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Dick feel as he lay on the doorstep?
+     2. What did he say to the stray cat? 3. What did he buy for
+     them both? 4. Who came out of the door as Dick was sleeping
+     on the step? 5. Who came out after the maid? 6. What did the
+     master of the house say to Dick?
+
+
+3. THE CROSS COOK.
+
+1. As Dick came up to the merchant, his knees trembled under him, and
+he looked very ill and weak. He had put the little cat under his
+jacket, so that the merchant did not notice her.
+
+2. "You seem half starved," said the merchant. And he told the cook to
+give Dick a good meal at once, make him up a bed in the garret, and let
+him stay with them.
+
+3. He might do what dirty work in the kitchen he could for the cook.
+Little Dick would have been very happy now, but for the cross cook, who
+was finding fault and scolding all the day long.
+
+4. She would rush at poor Dick with her broom, and hit him hard on the
+head. And what was worse, she chased his poor little cat right out of
+the house, and said she would have no cats there.
+
+5. Dick found his pussy again, and took her up into his own bare and
+empty garret, where she was safe, for the cook never went there. And
+pussy was his only friend at that time.
+
+6. Dick was careful to carry food to his cat, of which there was always
+plenty to be had in that house. But things became worse and worse in
+the kitchen.
+
+7. The temper of the cross cook was tried more and more by the little
+mice, which ran over all her nice pies and puddings, and spoilt them as
+fast as she made them.
+
+8. She flew into a passion with Dick twenty times a day, but it was of
+no use to do this. She set traps for the mice, but they soon found out
+the trick, and would not go near them.
+
+9. The cunning little things laughed at cook and her clumsy traps, and
+made merry all night long over the floor of her room, running races,
+and keeping her awake.
+
+10. So she grew crosser and crosser, till at last Dick felt as if he
+could not stand it much longer. But his master was always kind, and he
+thought that he would never leave him if he could help it.
+
+11. He thought that things might mend and he tried to be patient. And
+his cat was always ready with a loving greeting for Dick when he came
+to his room.
+
+12. At last one day Dick's master called all his servants upstairs into
+his room. He said that a ship of his was going to sail for a foreign
+land in a few days.
+
+13. He asked them if any of them would like to send some things out in
+the ship to be sold. In those days much money was to be made by selling
+English goods in other lands.
+
+14. All said that they would like to send something. But poor little
+Dick said not a word. He had nothing in the world but the clothes he
+had on, and his cat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Dick was told that he might do work for the cook. But she was
+very cross to him and to his cat. He kept puss in his own room and took
+care to feed her.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did the merchant say about Dick? 2. What
+     did the cook say about the cat? 3. Where did Dick keep her?
+     4. What was he careful to carry up for his cat? 5. What did
+     the merchant ask his servants? 6. Why did Dick say nothing
+     when all the rest spoke?
+
+
+4. WHAT THE BELLS SAID.
+
+1. Now the merchant had a little daughter, called Alice. And she was a
+kind little girl. She looked at the sad face of poor Dick, and she said
+in a whisper to her father, "Why does not that little boy speak like
+the rest?"
+
+2. "You had better ask him," said the father, giving his little girl a
+kiss before he went out of the room.
+
+3. So Alice went up to Dick and asked him why he had not sent some
+small thing that could be sold for much money in the foreign land,
+though it cost only a little here.
+
+4. "All the rest are going to send," said little Alice, "and when the
+ship comes back they will get the money. Why do you not send something
+in the ship too?"
+
+5. "I have nothing to send," said poor Dick, looking very sad. "I am a
+poor boy. The cook is unkind to me, and I have nothing of my own but a
+cat."
+
+6. "I have got some money in my purse, I will give it to you," said
+little Alice. But Dick said that he should not like to take money from
+the little girl.
+
+[Illustration: ALL DICK HAD.]
+
+7. Just then the merchant came back into the room. He had heard what
+Dick said about having nothing but a cat.
+
+8. "Fetch your cat, boy, and let her go," said he. "I heard the
+captain of the ship say that he wanted a cat to clear the ship of mice.
+He will give you money for her."
+
+9. "Oh no, sir," cried Dick, "I could not give up my poor cat. She
+loves me, and I love her. She has grown such a beauty, sir, and she can
+almost talk. I could not get on without her, please, sir."
+
+10. "Well, if you cannot be parted, why not go too?" "So I could, sir,"
+said Dick. "Well, you are a smart boy, and we will see. The captain
+lives near. You had better run and ask him what he thinks."
+
+11. Dick was not long in fetching his cap. He almost flew along the
+streets, and as he did so he heard Bow bells begin to ring.
+
+12. He felt so full of high spirits at the thought of ending his hard
+life in the kitchen, with the cross cook, that the bells seemed to be
+singing a merry tune to him.
+
+13. Dick stopped for a moment to listen, and as he did so, their chime
+came to his ears like the sound of his own name. They seemed to say:
+
+    "Turn again, Whittington,
+    Lord Mayor of London."
+
+14. "This must be my fancy," said Dick, as he ran on to the house of
+the captain. "But it is very pleasant to be spoken to kindly, even by
+the bells. And I wonder whether good fortune is in store for me at
+last?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Dick could not part with his cat. So his master said that he
+might go with her in the ship. He went to ask the captain.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Alice ask Dick? 2. What did Dick
+     answer? 3. What did his master say when he came into the
+     room? 4. What was Dick's reply? 5. Where did he run? 6. What
+     did he hear the bells say?
+
+
+5. THE KING'S DINNER.
+
+1. The ship, with Dick and his cat on board, was soon at sea. But Dick
+began to think that worse luck than ever was going to befall him.
+
+2. For there was a heavy storm, and the ship was nearly wrecked on the
+coast of a land then unknown to the English. This land was filled with
+black people called Moors.
+
+3. When the captain and his men, with Dick and the cat, landed on this
+shore, the natives came in great numbers to gaze at them. They had
+never seen people with white faces before.
+
+4. As they came to know the captain and his sailors better, these black
+men would go on board the ship. The English sailors showed them all the
+goods which they had brought from England.
+
+5. The black men wished to buy them. As they had gold in great lumps
+and heaps, they were willing to give a high price for what the servants
+had sent out from the merchant's house.
+
+6. The captain, seeing how much pleasure the things gave, sent some of
+the goods to the king of the country. He was so much pleased with them
+that he sent for the captain and his friends to the palace.
+
+7. As Dick and his cat had been very useful on the voyage, the captain
+took them with him, and they soon reached the palace.
+
+[Illustration: THE DINNER TABLE.]
+
+8. Here they sat on cushions and carpets made of rich silk and worked
+in gold and silver. And the king and queen being seated at the upper
+end of the table, the dinner was brought in.
+
+9. But no sooner were the dishes set in front of them, in plates of
+gold and silver, than a rushing sound was heard. In an instant a whole
+army of mice and rats came running in.
+
+10. They were so bold that they leaped on the table and began to devour
+the food from the king's own plate. In a few minutes nothing would have
+been left.
+
+11. The guests had to drive them away, and snatch a few hasty morsels
+before they came back again. But the creatures seemed to care for
+nothing, for they ran back as fast as they were made to go.
+
+12. The captain was full of surprise. "Are not these mice and rats a
+great trouble to you?" he asked the king. "Oh yes, they are indeed!"
+said he.
+
+13. "They not only eat up almost all we have, but they disturb us even
+in our own bedrooms. We are sadly afraid that there will be a famine
+next year, for they are eating up all the seed and corn in the land."
+
+14. The captain was ready to jump for joy when he heard this, for he
+called to mind the cat, which Dick had left in the ship.
+
+15. As it was not far off, he bade Dick run and fetch her at once. "I
+think we can help you," he said to the king; but he only shook his
+head, for he had tried all ways to get rid of the rats and mice,
+without success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The captain sold the goods for a good price. He went to see
+the king of that land. He found that there were many rats and mice at
+the palace.
+
+     Questions: 1. What misfortune happened to the ship? 2. What
+     sort of people did the captain find on the coast where he
+     landed? 3. What did they give instead of the goods? 4. Where
+     did the captain go with his friends next? 5. What went on at
+     the king's dinner-table? 6. What did the captain tell Dick
+     to fetch?
+
+
+6. THE QUEEN AND THE KITTENS.
+
+1. Taking puss in his arms, Dick was surprised to find that she tried
+to get away from him again, and to run down to the cabin below. This
+was the first time that she had done so, and he could not make it out.
+
+2. She struggled to get away each time that Dick tried to carry her out
+of the ship, making an odd sort of "miew," and trying to coax him to
+come where she led him.
+
+3. At last he ran after puss, down the cabin steps, and at the bottom,
+in a dark corner, he found that puss had hidden five pretty little
+kittens!
+
+4. She was purring with all her might over them, and she tried to say,
+"Did you ever see five such sweet little things? How could you ask me
+to leave them? They would die if I did. Though I love you dearly I
+cannot go away."
+
+5. So Dick found a warm piece of flannel, and wrapping the baby pussies
+up in it, he took the whole lot with him. Puss was ready enough to come
+when she saw this.
+
+6. He made as much haste as he could. Soon he came into the palace with
+the kittens under one arm and their proud mother purring under the
+other.
+
+7. No sooner did Dick enter than the cat began to sniff the air. Then
+she caught a glimpse of the rats and mice, which were still feasting on
+the table. The cloth was black with them.
+
+8. In one instant she sprang from his arms. She laid a dozen rats and
+mice dead at the king's feet in half a minute, and all the rest were
+scared out of their wits, and ran away.
+
+[Illustration: SWEET LITTLE THINGS.]
+
+9. They had never seen a cat before, for there were none in that land.
+The king had never seen one either; and his queen did not know what
+sort of beast puss was at all. But she thought her very pretty.
+
+10. "What is this strange, useful creature; what is it called?" said
+the king, "and where did you get it? I will give all I have to buy it
+from you, rather than be left without one."
+
+11. But though the king sent for a great sack of gold, so heavy that it
+took three men to bring it into the room, Dick would not hear of
+selling his friend.
+
+12. "What is that bundle under your arm?" said the captain to Dick. And
+then the boy showed him the kittens.
+
+13. "Why these are even more pretty than the beast itself," said the
+queen, and she wished to have all the kittens in her lap. Poor woman!
+she had never before nursed a kitten in her life!
+
+14. "You had better sell these to the king," the captain said in a
+whisper to Dick. "Tell him that some day they will grow up to be cats
+like yours, and in due time will have little ones of their own."
+
+15. "But it would be cruel to take them all away from their mother,"
+said Dick, for he had seen how quickly his cat had run to the queen to
+beg for her little ones.
+
+[Illustration: THE KING AND THE QUEEN.]
+
+16. The cat was not afraid to stare even into the face of a king, and
+ask him bravely to put down the little kit which he had taken into his
+royal hands.
+
+17. Puss had at last taken all her treasures to a mat near the door,
+where she was busy washing their faces. She did not care to have so
+many folks pulling them about.
+
+18. "You must leave one for the mother, and sell the rest," said the
+captain. "She will not fret long if you leave her one child. And we
+cannot take them all five back on the ship. There would be too many."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Dick found that his cat had five little kits. He took them
+with him to the house of the king. The queen was pleased; she had never
+seen a kitten before.
+
+     Questions: 1. What was Dick surprised to find when he took
+     up his cat? 2. Where did she try to lead him? 3. What had
+     puss got in a corner? 4. How did Dick manage to bring the
+     kittens to the palace? 5. What did his cat do when she got
+     there? 6. What did the queen wish?
+
+
+7. THE END OF PUSSY.
+
+1. "But I should like them to stay little always," said the queen,
+after she had been told that the kittens would soon grow big enough to
+catch mice.
+
+2. "That is a foolish remark, my love," said the king. "They are here
+to kill mice, and the sooner they get big, the better.
+
+[Illustration: PUSSY'S GRAVE.]
+
+3. "And you forget that they will have kittens by-and-by," added the
+king. "In time we shall have,--what is their name? oh, cats.
+
+4. "Well, we shall have cats enough to keep the whole land free from
+mice and rats." And he was ready to dance and clap his hands. Only
+that would not have been proper for a king.
+
+5. The end of it was that Dick and the captain set sail for England
+with a shipload of gold, and puss went with them, with her one baby.
+She did not miss the rest much after a time.
+
+6. When Dick reached London again, he was very rich indeed. But as he
+grew older he learned that money cannot make people happy, unless they
+do good to others with it.
+
+7. He gave his friend the captain a handsome present of gold, and he
+did not forget one of his old friends at home. To each one he gave what
+they most needed.
+
+8. Even the cross cook was not passed over, for Dick thought that her
+bad temper might be made better by a gift, and so it was.
+
+9. But there was one above all to whom he showed the greatest care.
+This was his cat. Of course she did not live so long as Dick did, for
+the lives of cats do not often last more than about sixteen years.
+
+10. By the time that Dick was the father of some dear little children,
+his faithful old puss was very very old and weak. Alice was now his
+wife.
+
+11. Pussy spent all her time by the warm fire, and she had all she
+wanted. No one was ever unkind to her, and though she was not able to
+catch mice any more, she was treated with great honour.
+
+12. One day, as Dick, now a fine rich man in good clothes and in a
+grand house, was sitting in his arm-chair, his old puss dragged herself
+slowly up to his feet.
+
+13. She begged to get on his lap once more. Dick, who knew well what
+she meant, though she could not speak, stooped and lifted her up.
+
+14. Pussy purred, as she lifted her dim eyes to his face, gave one
+sigh, and lay quite still. She was dead, and Dick buried her himself,
+under a laurel tree in his garden.
+
+15. "If it had not been for her I might have died in the streets
+myself," said he. "It was puss who made my fortune, and I am certain
+of this one thing: those who show mercy and love, will have the same
+shown to them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Dick sold his kittens for gold. But he let the mother-cat keep
+one. At last his cat died of old age. Dick was kind to her to the end
+of her life.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did the Queen want the kittens to do? 2.
+     What did Dick find out about money as he grew older? 3. To
+     whom did he show the greatest care? 4. What about the cross
+     cook? 5. What did the old cat do one day? 6. What did Dick
+     say that he was quite certain of?
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TRUSTY.
+
+
+1. HUNGRY.
+
+1. "I think that we shall have a heavy fall of snow before long," said
+the landlord of the little wayside inn, at which I had called to get a
+morsel of bread and cheese.
+
+2. "Very likely it will snow," said I, giving a glance at the dark
+heavy clouds, and stopping to listen for a moment to the moaning wind.
+
+3. "And in that case the sooner I start the better, for I have a long
+distance to go, and the light will fail early, in such weather as
+this."
+
+4. The landlord turned and looked at me, as I began putting on my
+great-coat. "Do you think that it is wise of you to venture across the
+moor, when it is likely to be so stormy?" said he.
+
+5. "It is a rough road at the best of times, but on a bleak night with
+snow there is real danger. The trap will take you over in no time when
+it comes in, or as soon as it is light in the morning."
+
+6. "My friend," said I, "do not think of such a thing. I would not be
+away from home to-morrow for all the world. It is the birthday of my
+only little girl, and she would think the day quite spoilt if her
+father were not there.
+
+7. "I shall step out briskly, and be at home long before dark. It is
+not three o'clock yet," I added, pulling out my watch.
+
+"Well, I wish you a safe journey, sir," said the landlord. "And also,
+many happy returns of to-morrow."
+
+8. "Thank you, landlord," replied I, in the same hearty tone. I shook
+hands with him, for his face was a beaming and kindly one, and I had
+known him since I was a boy.
+
+9. As I went towards the outer door, the landlord just behind me, his
+man darted forward from a dark corner, and began to bustle out in front
+of me.
+
+10. "Get out, you brute!" he said, in an angry voice, as he made a
+savage kick at something which was crouching in the shadow of the
+doorstep.
+
+[Illustration: POOR DOGGIE.]
+
+11. An instant after, with a dismal yelp of despair, a forlorn dog
+slunk away from the door, and ran to hide under an empty waggon which
+stood in the middle of the road.
+
+12. "Get out! Be off!" again shouted the man, and he made a pretence of
+stooping with great fury to pick up a stone. The wretched dog, wild
+with terror, left his hiding-place.
+
+13. With his drooping tail between his legs, he crept to the gate of
+the yard, where he again lay down and blinked his great sad eyes at us,
+licking his hungry mouth as if to beg for food.
+
+14. I was deeply touched at the sight of this poor creature's distress,
+and I could not help thinking how warm and well fed I was myself, as
+well as the other two men, while this wretched dog, for no fault of his
+own, was starving.
+
+15. "Poor thing!" I said, and turning to the landlord, added, "Do pray
+let some one bring him a few scraps and bones from the kitchen. I will
+gladly pay for one good meal for him."
+
+16. "Oh no, oh dear no!" cried the landlord and the man, both in a
+voice of horror. "If we gave him food in this yard we should never get
+rid of him.
+
+17. "We should have a bother with starving dogs here, all the year
+round, sir. Pray do not give him food here, I beg."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ A man saw a hungry dog at an inn. He wished to feed him, but
+the landlord said that he should never get rid of the dog if he had
+food there.
+
+     Questions: 1. What sort of weather was it when the man was
+     at the inn? 2. What did the landlord advise him to do? 3.
+     What did the man answer? 4. What did the traveller see
+     outside the inn door? 5. What did he wish to do for the
+     starving dog? 6. What did the landlord and his man say?
+
+
+2. A KIND MAN.
+
+1. I now felt that this landlord was not a truly good and kind man, or
+he would have taken pity on the outcast dog. As I passed through the
+gate, the poor creature huddled close against the wall.
+
+2. He had been taught to expect a kick or a blow from each person who
+passed. I stopped for a moment to look at him, and said, "Poor fellow!"
+in a gentle tone.
+
+3. In an instant all the love and grief in his doggish heart welled
+over, and with a sharp cry of pain, which was like a prayer to me, he
+drew himself along the ground to my feet, yelping and wagging his tail
+at the same time.
+
+4. He began to lick and fondle my feet, and made the shining polish on
+them quite dim with his muddy paws.
+
+"Poor old fellow!" I said again. "Come, you shall have one good meal if
+money can buy it."
+
+5. I walked out into the street, and called him to follow. He thought
+it was too good news to be true, and only came for a few steps, then
+stopped to look with a timid gaze into my face as if to question me.
+
+6. "Come along, doggie," I replied, "do not be afraid. I shall not hurt
+you. I mean to be good to you, though you can hardly believe it. Come
+and get some dinner."
+
+7. Made bold by my tone and manner, the dog stuck close to me, and we
+went along the High Street. All the shops were gay and smart, but at
+first I could not see one which the dog would have thought a good shop.
+
+8. At last I found one where food of all kinds was sold, and I walked
+in, my humble friend at my heels giving a joyful sniff at the pleasant
+smells.
+
+[Illustration: TRUSTY'S MEAL.]
+
+9. Whole crowds of men and women were eating at the little tables of
+which the shop was full. I pushed my way up to a counter, and said to
+the master of the shop,
+
+10. "Just look at this poor dog. I want him to have a good meal of
+meat. Give him plenty of scraps, and I will pay you for them."
+
+11. The man looked at me as if he doubted what I meant, and he seemed
+to think that I must be crazy to wish to buy a dinner for a dog.
+
+12. But when he saw that I was in earnest, he quickly fetched a great
+heap of scraps and bones, which he put down outside the door.
+
+13. Upon these my dog friend fell, as if he had been a starving wolf,
+but he did not forget to glance up at me before he began with such a
+grateful look, and to give his tail one quick wag of thanks.
+
+14. I could not wait to see him eat as much as he liked. "I must be
+off," said I to the man.
+
+15. "Here Johnny," called the master of the shop, when I was going
+away, "just come here, and keep your eye on this stray dog; see that he
+is not driven away till he has eaten all he wants, and fetch him a drop
+of water."
+
+16. I thanked the man for his kindness and paid for the meat, and I did
+not forget to leave a penny for the little boy who was keeping guard
+over the poor dog.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The poor dog was taken to a shop and well fed. The kind man
+who bought him a meal took care that he was not driven away till he had
+eaten it.
+
+     Questions: 1. How did the landlord show that he was not a
+     truly kind and good man? 2. What did the poor dog do when
+     the traveller passed out at the gate? 3. Where did the kind
+     man take the dog? 4. What did he give the dog in the shop?
+     5. Why could not he wait to see the dog eat? 6. Who watched
+     while the dog ate his meal?
+
+
+3. LOST ON THE MOOR.
+
+1. As I went along, more than one person who passed me on the way said,
+"We shall have a wild night, sir, I advise you to hurry into shelter."
+
+2. As I set foot upon the first part of the wide, open moor, where the
+narrow path could hardly be seen in the twilight, a few flakes of snow
+began to fall.
+
+3. For a moment I began to wonder whether it would not be better, even
+now, to turn back and stay in the town for that night.
+
+4. But thinking that my wife and dear little girl would be both sorry
+and anxious when I did not appear, I put a stout heart into the matter,
+and strode boldly forward.
+
+5. The snowflakes came down thicker and faster, my beard and the front
+of my coat were quite white, the great brown moor changed first to a
+grey, and then to pure dazzling white too.
+
+6. The whirling flakes blinded me, I felt giddy from the cold. The
+storm was now upon me with full fury, the wind almost lifted me from my
+feet.
+
+7. I trusted that the sudden gale would soon pass over, and folding my
+arms close to my body, tried to struggle forward still. But so far from
+getting better, the weather grew worse each moment.
+
+8. With a dreadful feeling of despair, I found that I could no longer
+find my way. I did not know where my home lay, nor how I must turn my
+face in order to reach it. I cried to God for mercy.
+
+9. I now felt that I had been very foolish in trying to get across the
+moor on such a night. Perhaps I might never see my wife and dear child
+again.
+
+10. The bitter wind seemed to pierce through my clothes, I was fast
+getting drowsy and ready to fall down. Then the snow would soon have
+buried me, and no one would have seen me alive again.
+
+11. A groan broke from my lips as I looked around at the waste of snow,
+but I was at the same instant startled to hear a low, plaintive whine
+close at hand.
+
+12. I turned and saw a large, thin, starved-looking dog sitting close
+behind. He gazed in a troubled way into my face, when I turned round.
+It was my poor fellow of the inn door!
+
+13. As he crept along over the snow to my feet, he seemed with the same
+humble love to say, "Do not send me away, let me come with you. You are
+the only person who has shown me mercy."
+
+14. I stooped and patted him on the head. "Good dog!" I said, "have you
+found me out? Come now, I wish you could show me the way home, or else
+I am afraid we shall both be frozen to death."
+
+15. He seemed to know what I meant in some strange way, and just then I
+heard far off a church clock strike, which I knew must be in the town I
+had left behind.
+
+16. This was a help, for I now knew that if I turned my back on the
+place from which the sound came, I should be right in keeping straight
+on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The storm grew worse. When the man had lost his way on the
+moor, he saw the dog which he had fed at the inn sitting behind him.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did more than one person say as the man
+     began his walk? 2. As he began to cross the moor, what did
+     he see? 3. Did the weather grow any better? 4. What did he
+     see sitting close to him when he turned round? 5. What did
+     the dog seem to say? 6. What did the traveller hear far off?
+
+
+4. TRUSTY FINDS THE WAY.
+
+1. I pointed out to the dog the way I wished to go, and with a wag of
+his tail, the wise creature trotted on slowly in front. He seemed to
+feel that he had the charge of me and had been trusted.
+
+[Illustration: A BITTER NIGHT.]
+
+2. We had not gone far before he gave a whine, and coming quite close
+to me, stared in my face, and changed his course. He seemed to beg me
+to turn aside to the right.
+
+3. I went as he asked me, and as I was going, I tried with my stick to
+poke the ground from which the dog had wished to turn. I wanted to know
+why he was not willing to let me tread just there.
+
+4. I found that a deep pond, over which a slight cover of ice and snow
+were spread, was close beside us. It was an old pit in which water had
+frozen.
+
+5. Had I set my foot on it I must have sunk down and I never could have
+risen. "A few inches closer to the edge and I must have been drowned!"
+cried I aloud, and did not forget to thank God for the escape.
+
+6. The dog now stopped a few feet off as if to watch whether I was
+coming, and again trotted forward as I praised him and began to follow.
+
+7. Soon he gave a second whine, and again seemed to wish me to turn
+aside. I trod in his footprints, and again was safe. I was now nearly
+ready to faint from cold.
+
+8. "Go on, good dog," said I to my faithful guide, "lead me home
+quickly, or I shall die." He gave a hoarse bark in reply, as if to bid
+me keep a good heart.
+
+9. I was just falling down, for I could walk no further, when he gave a
+short, eager bark of joy; at least it seemed like joy, I thought, but
+my ears were deaf, and my eyes dim.
+
+10. I gave one last hopeless glance around, and saw something large and
+dark in front. It was a wooden shed, the black inside of which showed
+plainly against the whiteness all around.
+
+11. I knew that it must be one of the huts which the men used who were
+digging peat on the moor, and the thought filled me with terror, for I
+knew that these huts were very far away from my home.
+
+12. But all other feelings went from me now; I had a strong wish to
+rest, and that was all. I crept into the hut and lay down, thinking
+that I would wait there till the storm was over.
+
+13. The dog came in after me, and laid himself down close to my side. I
+felt more sleepy than I had ever done in my life before, my eyes ached,
+and bright lights seemed to be flashing in front of them.
+
+14. I thought of my home, wife, and child, and then sleep stole upon
+me. Once I woke with the hoarse bark of the dog ringing in my ears. He
+was doing his best to wake me from the sleep which must end in death
+out there on the bitter moor.
+
+15. A second time he roused me, and I felt that he had now crept very
+close to my breast, and with his fore paws resting on my shoulders, was
+licking my face with his warm tongue.
+
+16. In the act of stroking him and speaking a kindly word, I again sank
+to sleep, and after that I forgot all about the dog, the shed, and the
+cold moor. I dreamt of home, my little girl, and my dear wife.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The dog led the man to a hut. On the way there he saved him
+from falling into a deep pit. The dog did his best to keep the man from
+falling asleep.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did the man point out to the dog? 2. What
+     did he do to take care of the man on the way? 3. Where did
+     he lead the man? 4. What did the man feel before he was in
+     the hut? 5. How did the dog try to keep him awake? 6. If he
+     had been allowed to sleep in the snow what would have
+     happened to the man?
+
+
+5. SAVED BY TRUSTY.
+
+1. I knew nothing more about myself until I slowly waked in a warm
+room, and saw many strange faces round me.
+
+[Illustration: CALLING FOR HELP.]
+
+"Oh, thank God!" cried a voice near me, "the poor man is getting
+better."
+
+2. "What is the matter?" said I, for I seemed not to know what all the
+fuss was about.
+
+"Here, my dear sir, drink this," said a voice, and a cup of steaming
+hot coffee was placed at my lips.
+
+3. I drank it slowly, and then all that I had gone through rushed into
+my mind. "What is the time?" I asked of the person who had given me the
+hot coffee. He held my pulse, and I thought that he was a doctor.
+
+4. "Within ten minutes of midnight," was the answer. "And it has taken
+hours to bring you round. I was almost giving you up for dead."
+
+"You found me on the moor?"
+
+5. "Yes, half buried in the snow. You may thank your dog for your
+life."
+
+"My dog? I have no dog," said I, for I did not think of my poor friend
+at the moment.
+
+6. "Yes; if it had not been for his faithful barking and howling, we
+should not have set out to seek you. My wife heard him, and she said
+that some one must be lost on the moor.
+
+7. "The dog guided us to the shed. He had kept your face clear of snow
+by licking it, and had kept a little warmth in your body by lying on
+it; if he had not, you would now have been dead. We dug you out, and
+brought you here."
+
+8. I thanked the doctor for his goodness, but my mind was chiefly fixed
+on that other friend, who was not dumb, for he had spoken for me after
+his own plan.
+
+9. How great a reward he had given me for a few bones and a friendly
+word!
+
+"Where is he now?" I asked in an eager tone.
+
+"Who?--the dog? Oh, he is tied up in the stable.
+
+10. "He was so much in the way, and did so much to hinder us by his
+attempts to show his fondness for you, that we had to shut him up.
+Hark! Do you hear him?"
+
+11. As the doctor spoke, a long, doleful howl was borne past the
+windows of the room. It seemed to speak of pain, longing, reproach: all
+feelings that a dog who had been ill repaid for his love could put into
+the sound.
+
+12. "Oh, let him out, please! let him out, do!" cried I. "I cannot bear
+to hear him howl like that."
+
+I then told them the story of the dog. And in the midst of the surprise
+which all felt at hearing it, he came in.
+
+13. At a word from me, he jumped up by the side of the bed, and barked
+out all his joy at seeing me again. You may be sure that the dog was
+not left behind when I started that next day for home.
+
+[Illustration: GRATEFUL FRIENDS.]
+
+14. And you may guess what my wife and little girl thought of him. They
+gave him the name of Trusty, which he had well earned.
+
+15. He had a share of the birthday feast, which took place a day later
+than the right one. No one at the table enjoyed a taste of each dish
+more than Trusty.
+
+16. The fruit was the only thing which he did not care for. His looks
+improved day after day. He is my friend and the dearly loved playmate
+of my little girl.
+
+17. I often look back with a most thankful heart to the day that I met
+him at the inn-door, and my wife has always a pat, a loving word, and a
+treat in the shape of some nice bone, for our Trusty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ When the poor man waked from his sleep he found himself in a
+room. The dog had been tied up in a stable, but was soon let loose.
+
+     Questions: 1. Where did the poor man find himself when he
+     woke? 2. Where had the dog been tied up? 3. What did the man
+     say when he heard the dog howling? 4. What did the doctor
+     tell him about the dog? 5. When was the birthday feast held,
+     and who enjoyed a taste of each dish? 6. What did the dog
+     become, and what was he named?
+
+
+
+
+OUT IN THE COLD.
+
+
+1. POOR OLD BROWNIE.
+
+1. "What a sharp night it is, Peter, to be sure!" said a pale woman to
+her husband, as she sat rocking her baby in its cradle by the fire.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+2. She had been but poorly, and had felt the cold very much. "Very
+sharp, indeed!" said her husband. "I feel pains in all my poor old
+bones."
+
+3. "If you and I feel cold here," said he, "by the warm fire, after our
+good supper, what must it be outside, for those poor souls that have
+nothing to eat, and no fire?"
+
+4. "Ah, bad indeed!" said his wife. "And for the poor dumb beasts, too.
+How glad I am that we had that nice dry house made for the cow this
+summer, and the new place for the cocks and hens!
+
+5. "They would have been half frozen under that broken roof as it used
+to be when we first came here."
+
+6. Her eldest child, a little-girl, looked up from her knitting. "The
+hens are all quite snug, mother, Fluffy and Biddy and the rest. I
+peeped in just now, after they were gone to roost."
+
+7. "You are always a kind little one to the dumb things," said her
+father, stroking the soft brown head of Mercy, who had just spoken.
+"And so is my little Nelly, too," he added, looking fondly at the
+second child, who sat on his knee.
+
+8. "It is getting late for the children, Peter," said his wife. "Shall
+Mercy read a bit, before we go to bed?" So Mercy, who was a good
+scholar, took the Bible from the shelf and read aloud a few verses
+which her father found for her.
+
+9. They told of the manger, and of how the ox and the ass stood by one
+bitter night like this, when the infant Christ was laid in it long ago.
+"Thank you, dear," said her mother, when Mercy had done. "Now run up to
+your warm bed."
+
+10. "Oh look, Mercy, how nice!" cried little Nelly, "we have got a new
+blanket!" "That is because the squire sent it to mother; a big new
+thick one," said her sister. "How warm we shall be!"
+
+11. Nelly began to make great haste, while Mercy went to the window and
+looked out.
+
+"How thick the snow is!" she said. "And how white it looks in the
+moonshine!
+
+12. "But what is that dark thing standing by the old shed?" Nelly ran
+up and pressed her little face against the window to peep out too.
+"Why, it is a donkey!" she cried. "How did it get there?"
+
+13. "I tell you what," said Mercy, "it is our poor old Brownie, that
+father sold last week to Mr. Smith, that he might pay the doctor's bill
+with the money.
+
+14. "He had spent all we had in getting things for mother when she was
+ill, you know, and in bread for us. So poor Brownie had to go."
+
+15. "Why does he not go into the shed? How stupid of him to stand
+there! And why did he not stay with Mr. Smith, I wonder?"
+
+"I suppose he could not help thinking about us, and that is why he came
+back," said Mercy. "Perhaps Mr. Smith has no little girls to pet him,
+and maybe he is not so good to him as father was."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Two little girls went to their warm beds. As they looked out
+at the window they saw a donkey. It stood out in the cold.
+
+     Questions: 1. What sort of night did Peter think it was? 2.
+     What was his wife so glad to think of? 3. What did Mercy say
+     about the hens' house? 4. What did the children see when
+     they looked out at the window? 5. What did Mercy think was
+     the reason why the donkey had come back?
+
+
+2. A KIND ACT.
+
+1. Mercy and her little sister watched at the window for a minute or
+two more, but the creature did not move.
+
+2. And Mercy cried out, "Oh, I quite forgot! Of course, the shed door
+is shut! Father has put his tools there, his spade and rake.
+
+3. "When Brownie was sold the straw which was his bed was taken out,
+and some sacks of corn and barley were kept there instead.
+
+4. "Poor Brownie! I dare say he wonders why his nice old house is shut
+up so that he cannot get in!"
+
+5. "I will give him some bread from my breakfast in the morning,
+because it is Christmas Day," said little Nelly. "He will like that,
+won't he?"
+
+6. Her sister made no answer, but, moving from the window, she took
+down from a peg her hat and thick jacket. She put them on.
+
+7. "Why, Mercy!" said Nelly, who looked with much surprise at what her
+sister was doing; "what are you doing? You cannot be going out now in
+the snow?"
+
+8. "Do not make a noise," said Mercy. "You know that mother is not
+well, and perhaps she is just dropping off to sleep. I cannot bear to
+leave him freezing out there all night,--Christmas Eve and all!
+
+[Illustration: OUT IN THE COLD.]
+
+9. "I could not creep under the warm blanket and forget him. No one
+will see him but us, for only our window looks this way. So I am just
+going to run out and get the shed open for him."
+
+10. "Oh, sister, you will be so cold! Cannot you ask father to go?"
+
+"Oh, you heard him say that he had pains in all his bones. Now be a
+good child, Nelly, and get quick into bed. I shall soon be back."
+
+11. With these words Mercy tied on a great scarf which was once her
+father's round her neck, crept down stairs without making the least
+noise, and out at the back door.
+
+12. Once out of shelter of the house, it was, as she thought with a
+shiver, "a bitter night." The snow was no longer falling, but a keen
+wind swept over the white face of the earth and stirred up the snow.
+
+13. It piled heaps of it up into strange shapes. The frost was so hard
+that the feet of the child did not sink into it as she ran along.
+
+14. Very soon she reached the shed, outside of which the donkey stood,
+a picture of patient despair. She plunged through a great heap of
+drifted snow and reached its side. She patted his rough coat.
+
+15. "Oh, Brownie," she cried, "how cold you are! I must get this door
+open for you somehow." She pulled it, she jerked it, she kicked it, she
+shook down showers of snow on herself, and that was all.
+
+16. It was in vain to try. It was frozen hard, and do what she would,
+she could not stir it an inch. It was hopeless. "Oh, what can I do for
+you, Brownie?" she thought, ready to cry with grief.
+
+17. "I do so wish you were not so big, and I could take you up the
+stairs into our bed-room!" And Mercy half laughed at the idea of taking
+the donkey to bed with her.
+
+18. She gave one last, hard hit and a rattle at the unkind door. "I
+cannot get it open, Brownie, and I must go home again. It will not do
+you any good if I stay out here with you."
+
+19. Slowly the child moved away. If it had seemed cold when she first
+came out, it seemed ten times colder now. And she saw the sad look
+which the poor beast cast after her when she left him. Mercy could not
+forget it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Mercy went out into the cold that she might open the shed
+door. She wished to let the donkey in. But she could not open it.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Mercy remember about the shed? 2.
+     What did she put on? 3. Where did she go? 4. What was the
+     weather like outside the house? 5. What did she find on
+     trying to open the shed door? 6. What was it that Mercy
+     could not forget?
+
+
+3. THE OLD SHED.
+
+1. All of a sudden, as Mercy had quite made up her mind to leave
+Brownie, and was half way across the yard to her own door, a thought
+struck her.
+
+2. There was an old shed which had once been the stable of a donkey,
+quite at the far end of the garden.
+
+3. Her father had turned it into a pigsty; but he had left off keeping
+pigs for some time. It was a clean place, for Peter did not let his
+pigs live in a dirty sty as some people do.
+
+4. Some dry straw was in it, and some roots stored for the winter. It
+would be just the place if only she could get Brownie there.
+
+5. In a moment she turned back to hurry again over the heap of snow to
+the place where the donkey still stood. He could do nothing for himself
+to make things better.
+
+6. All that he could do was to bear them without any complaint. Poor
+thing! He was stiff with cold, and seemed not to wish to move. But
+Mercy knew what was for his good.
+
+7. She meant to do what was best for poor Brownie, whether he knew it
+or not. So she talked to him, patted him, and coaxed him till at last
+he let her lead him down to the old shed at the bottom of the garden.
+
+8. "This is lucky for you, Brownie," cried she, feeling very proud at
+her success. There was a bundle of hay in one corner, of which she
+shook down a nice soft armful.
+
+9. And then she gave Brownie one good brisk rubbing with some of the
+straw, to warm them both. She made him a bed of straw too.
+
+10. Brownie was glad to nibble a mouthful while this was being done.
+Then she took some fine carrots from a shelf, and put them in front of
+him. Oh, how Brownie did munch those fresh juicy roots!
+
+11. Lastly, she found a bucket of clean water which had not long been
+drawn from the well, and which had only a thin coating of ice on the
+top.
+
+12. It had been set in the shed ready for making some mortar, with
+which father was going to plaster up the cracks in the wall.
+
+13. Brownie seemed almost more glad of the water than of the food. He
+took a long drink, and turned to thank Mercy with his great deep dark
+eyes.
+
+14. "Now, poor old fellow, I think you will do," said the child. "I
+could not bear to leave you out this bitter night, and now I must be
+getting home, for the snow has soaked through my boots."
+
+15. She stopped fondling and stroking the donkey, but he would follow
+her, rubbing his soft nose against her hand. "Oh, go back again, do,
+dear Brownie!" she said.
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD SHED.]
+
+16. "You really must not come out with me!" Shutting the little gate,
+which had once been the front door of the pigsty, she ran back to the
+cottage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ At last the little girl thought of a shed. It was at the end
+of the garden, and it was a clean place. She put the donkey there and
+fed him well.
+
+     Questions: 1. What thought struck Mercy as she was going
+     back? 2. What sort of shed was it? 3. What did she do for
+     Brownie first? 4. What did she give him to lie on? 5. What
+     did she find for him to eat? 6. What did she give him
+     besides food?
+
+
+4. A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.
+
+1. But when she came to the back door at which she had come out, Mercy
+found a great trouble. She lifted the latch, but the door did not open.
+
+2. She gave a pull, a second pull, and then a tug with all her might;
+but it still held fast. "Why," she thought, "I am as badly off as the
+donkey. I shall have to go into the pigsty with him!"
+
+3. She had been out much longer than she thought. And while she had
+been taking care of Brownie her father had turned the big key in the
+door and gone to bed.
+
+4. What was to be done? It would never do to wake up poor tired
+father, and bring him out in the cold too. So she stood there trying to
+puzzle out some plan for getting in.
+
+5. The bright moonlight showed her a way to do it. The cottage was a
+low one, and just under the window of the room where she and Nelly
+slept, was a bench.
+
+6. Standing on tiptoe upon this, Mercy found that she could reach the
+branches of an old vine tree, which grew over the walls of the little
+house.
+
+7. She could climb up into this, and so get near the bedroom window. It
+was easy enough to scramble up in summer time, but not so easy now.
+
+8. The boughs were a sheet of ice, and her fingers so cold that they
+could hardly take hold of them. At last, after many slips and frights,
+she was safely up.
+
+9. But what would little Nelly think of seeing her sister outside the
+window, asking to be let in, as their pussy cat often did?
+
+10. She was sound asleep too, and had to be wakened by many hard taps
+at the glass. First, Nelly felt fear at seeing a face looking in at
+her.
+
+11. But she soon knew who it was. "Oh Mercy," cried Nelly, "how long
+you have been! What have you been at? And why did you come back this
+way?"
+
+12. "Get into bed again, there's a dear," said Mercy, "and I will tell
+you all about it." Nelly kept awake to listen, as Mercy told her the
+story.
+
+13. And she could not help clapping her hands to think of how snug poor
+old Brownie was now. Mercy knelt down to say her prayers before she got
+into bed.
+
+14. She felt very thankful that she had been able to do one kindness to
+a creature like that ass which once stood in the stall beside the
+"new-born King."
+
+15. Next morning, as soon as the house was tidy, Mercy ran out to see
+the donkey. More snow had fallen in the night, and had filled up all
+her footmarks, so that she might have thought it all a dream.
+
+16. But just as she reached the pigsty she heard a loud bray, which was
+Brownie's way of saying "A Merry Christmas" to his friends.
+
+17. "You did quite right, my child," said her father, when Mercy told
+him of her work the last night. "I think that Smith does not treat him
+well.
+
+18. "And I will tell you what, children, I am going to-morrow to see
+Mr. Smith and buy our Brownie back again. I cannot get on without him,
+I find.
+
+19. "Now that your mother is well again we shall do better, and last
+week I put by the money for Brownie. So you need never say good-bye to
+him again."
+
+20. You may be sure that there was a happy Christmas at the cottage for
+Peter and his wife, and for the children, as well as for poor Brownie.
+
+21. "How very glad I am that I went out to him that night!" said Mercy
+to her father. "It was not much to do, only it was Christmas Eve, and I
+thought--"
+
+22. "You thought what?" said her father.
+
+"Only," she said, in a low voice, "I could not forget that Christ let
+the ox and the ass be with Him in the stable. And I thought that He
+would not be pleased if we left poor Brownie out in the cold."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Mercy was forced to get in at the window. She got up by the
+vine tree. Her little sister let her in. Peter said he should buy the
+donkey back.
+
+     Questions: 1. What trouble did Mercy find at her door? 2.
+     How did she get up to the window? 3. What was Nelly doing?
+     4. What did Peter say when his child told him what she had
+     done for the donkey? 5. What did he say about Mr. Smith? 6.
+     What did he mean to do for Brownie?
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE STORY OF A FLY.
+
+
+1. ROSE.
+
+1. The first time that I ever used my wings was in flying from behind a
+red curtain. It was in a warm nice breakfast-room. The master of it was
+called Mr. Sutton.
+
+2. I settled on a pretty white cap on the head of his wife. She was
+just making the tea, and her husband was sitting on the other side of
+the table.
+
+3. "Well," said Mr. Sutton, "when I talk of lazy folks, of course I do
+not suppose that any person thinks himself idle.
+
+4. "Some people think that so long as they are doing something or
+other they are busy. I suppose that I am an idle old fellow myself, for
+spending time in reading the paper.
+
+5. "The right thing to think is, have I been doing what is of any use,
+eh?" said the old man, pushing up his glasses and looking at his little
+grandchild.
+
+6. "Have you done a single thing that is of any use this morning,
+Rose?" Rose hung her head for a moment. Then she lifted her face
+brightly, and said, "Only one little thing, grandpa."
+
+7. "What was it, dear?"
+
+"I am not quite sure that it was a real good thing," Rose went on, "but
+I found a poor little butterfly that had fallen into a pool in the
+garden, where the rain had come.
+
+8. "Its wings were wet, and it could not fly up. So I took it up and
+put it in the sun on the wall, and soon it was well."
+
+9. Mrs. Sutton looked at Rose in a loving way. "I am quite sure that it
+was a 'real good thing' if you are not," said the old lady. "And so
+that was partly why you were late?"
+
+10. "Yes, granny."
+
+"Well, the little butterfly is all the better, though you were the
+worse for having cold toast. But that is not much to bear for the sake
+of saving a little life, is it?"
+
+11. And all this time I had been feasting on the sweet white lumps of
+sugar. No one took any notice of me, and so I went on, till one lump
+began to grow quite small.
+
+12. "Look, here is a little house-fly!" said Rose. "He is standing
+quite still on a lump of sugar. What is he doing, granny?"
+
+"He is eating it, dear."
+
+"Can he bite it up?"
+
+13. "Bite it up! No," said Mr. Sutton, putting down his paper and
+coming up to us. "The fly has no teeth, he has a trunk. He sends down
+some juice through his trunk on to the sugar.
+
+14 "This juice melts it, and then he sucks it up again."
+
+"How clever!" said Rose. "I wish he would let me touch him." And she
+put out one finger very softly towards me.
+
+15. Now though I am a brave fly now, I could not bear at that time to
+see the hand of any person come near me. Though I would perch on the
+top of it, I did not like to be touched by it.
+
+16. So I flew up in a great hurry, and pitched on some dark stuff which
+smelt like new hay, and which stood on the side table in a box. Rose
+did not see where I went. "Oh, how fast he went off!" she said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Rose saved the life of a butterfly. She found it in a little
+pool. She set it in the sun to dry its wings. It was a useful thing to
+do.
+
+     Questions: 1. What had Rose found in the garden? 2. What did
+     she do for the little butterfly? 3. How did the fly eat
+     sugar without any teeth? 4. What did Rose wish to do? 5.
+     What did the fly think about being touched? 6. What did he
+     do when he saw the hand of Rose near him?
+
+
+2. IN THE TEA-CADDY.
+
+1. "Now, granny," said Rose, when the breakfast was done, "I will not
+forget, to-day at least, to lock up the tea-caddy."
+
+2. So she took up the sugar-basin, fitted it into a little place made
+for it inside the box where I sat, and, before I had any idea of what
+she was doing, she shut down the lid.
+
+3. I was now, for the first time, left in the dark. And I began to
+think what a pleasant thing the sunshine was, and to wonder when I
+should be let out again.
+
+4. But I must say that I found the sugar a great comfort. I went on
+eating it as long as I could. If I was to be locked up at all, I could
+not have been locked into a better place.
+
+5. The sugar-basin was full and there were enough lumps in it to last a
+fly of my size all his life. But of course one might get tired of it,
+in time.
+
+6. But I was not tired yet. So I ate and ate, until I began to feel my
+legs ache and my wings very heavy. Just then I heard a loud noise, and
+a light broke into my prison.
+
+7. It was Rose turning the key in the lock and lifting the lid of the
+tea-caddy. "Oh, granny!" cried she, "here is a poor fly that can hardly
+move."
+
+8. "I am afraid, dear, that the poor fly must thank himself for that,"
+said Mrs. Sutton, looking closely at me. "He has been a little glutton,
+I fear, and has eaten so much sugar that he can hardly move."
+
+9. "Poor little fellow," said Rose, "I will not hurt him. He shall go
+out of doors on to the cool grass and get well again.
+
+10. "I dare say that, though he is not quite so pretty as a butterfly,
+he likes to be alive." So Rose took me up between her finger and thumb
+as gently as she could, but oh, what great big hands they seemed to me!
+
+11. And my poor sides were pinched black and blue. That is the reason
+why I cannot bear one of the great hands which belong to men and women
+to catch hold of me.
+
+12. You see we tiny flies are made so lightly, and we are so small. A
+mere touch will crush our dainty wings, or break our slender legs, or
+hurt our eyes.
+
+13. How thankful I am that we have eyes that can see behind and all
+round us as well as in front!
+
+14. We are able to get away, thanks to these eyes, when we see a great
+hand coming to catch us. Even a baby's hand seems like that of a giant
+to us.
+
+[Illustration: ROSE DID HER BEST FOR ME.]
+
+15. But dear Rose did her best for me, and put me in a spoon to carry.
+At the same time I did wish that the sugar had not been quite so nice,
+and that I had not taken so much of it.
+
+16. The fresh air of the garden, the sunshine, and the flowers did me a
+great deal of good, after being shut up in the tea-caddy. At night I
+slept in a lily bell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The fly was shut into a tea-caddy by mistake. He ate so much
+sugar that he could hardly fly. Rose put him out of doors to get well.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Rose do after breakfast? 2. What did
+     the fly do inside the tea-caddy? 3. What did Rose say when
+     she opened it again? 4. What did her grandmother say? 5.
+     What did Rose do for the fly? 6. Why does not the fly like
+     to be touched?
+
+
+3. I FALL INTO THE CREAM.
+
+1. The next morning I flew in at the window. Rose had soon done her
+breakfast, and she locked up the caddy again, with me outside this
+time.
+
+2. Though I did not fancy any sweets on that morning, I saw something
+in a small jug on the table which I thought looked even nicer. It was
+yellow and rather thick.
+
+3. I went down to see what sort of stuff it was. It could not hurt me,
+at any rate, to dip one of my feet in, or the tip of my trunk, and see
+whether cream was better and more wholesome than sugar.
+
+[Illustration: SOMETHING IN A SMALL JUG.]
+
+4. I slid with care down the sides of the jug, holding firmly on with
+the little soles of my feet, which, I am thankful to say, have suckers
+on them which make it easy for me to run where I like without falling.
+
+5. I tasted cream for the first time In my life. What a happy moment it
+was! I tasted it a second time, a third, and a fourth time, and after
+that I became so greedy for more that I lost my balance and in I went
+plump!
+
+6. At first I kicked about as hard as I could, and tried to keep my
+wings clear. But they soon got cold, and stuck to my sides.
+
+7. And then I could only go round and round the place, looking with
+despair at the steep sides of the cream-jug, which seemed far larger
+and steeper than they had done before my sad mishap.
+
+8. I was growing tired of the struggle, my body began to sink in the
+cream, and even my eyes were dimmed by it, so that I could hardly see
+where I was going.
+
+9. Thomas the servant came in to take away the breakfast things, and
+the jolt he gave the cream-jug in moving it closer to the tea-pot
+nearly drowned me. I was half dead.
+
+10. But Rose was again my friend, though she did not mean to do what
+she then did. Rushing into the room to fetch a book which she had left
+on the window seat, she ran against Thomas, and pushed his elbow.
+
+11. This jerked the cream-jug so that it upset and I was upset with it.
+I felt myself crawling along in a great white flood over the
+table-cloth, but still I had land under my feet.
+
+12. "My dear Rose," said Mrs. Sutton, "how often I have begged you not
+to rush into the room in that rough way. You nearly knocked down
+Thomas, and see how his sleeve is messed with greasy cream!"
+
+13. "I am very sorry, granny," said Rose, "but I forgot this book, and
+Miss Bush is waiting."
+
+"I am sorry too," said Mrs. Sutton, "and so is Thomas, I dare say."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The fly wished to taste cream. He fell into the jug and was
+nearly drowned. Rose pushed the servant, the jug upset, and the fly
+crawled out.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did the fly wish to taste next? 2. What
+     had he on his feet which helped him to walk? 3. What became
+     of him after the fourth sip of cream? 4. Who came into the
+     room to fetch the breakfast things? 5. Who came in next? 6.
+     What happened to the cream-jug and to the fly?
+
+
+4. SWEET AS HONEY.
+
+1. Rose had to go away, to finish her lessons, and Thomas also went out
+of the room to get a cloth to wipe up the spilt cream.
+
+2. I was in danger of being swept away by this, but, just as Rose was
+going out at the door, she saw me still in the midst of the cream.
+
+3. In an instant I found myself nearly drowned again in a spoonful of
+it, and the next moment I was again placed on the grass of the lawn.
+
+4. Rose had scooped me up in the spoon and carried me there. I really
+think that she had a liking for me. How thankful I felt to be in the
+grass!
+
+5. I hid myself under a daisy flower and took a good rest, for I felt
+very tired after my struggles. A good shower of rain came on, and I
+was quite glad to hear it patter on the leaves.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+6. For I still felt a trifle sticky, and was glad to get my legs moist,
+so that I might wash myself all the better. At this time the sun was so
+warm, that I lived out of doors for some days.
+
+7. I think that three days passed before I sat again on the white cap
+of Mrs. Sutton. But one morning, when she sat at the open window, I
+thought I should like to pay my old friend a visit.
+
+8. It was breakfast time again. Mr. Sutton was reading the paper
+through his new glasses, and Rose was busy eating her breakfast.
+
+9. As I had had nothing but a few tastes of dew, and such small meals
+as were to be had from the flowers, for three days, I was rather
+hungry.
+
+10. I thought that Rose would spare me a bit of what was on her plate.
+But, as I was on the way to it, I had to pass a pot of something which
+had a better smell than what she was then eating.
+
+11. It was honey. It made me forget all about Rose, and her bread and
+butter. I pitched on the honey-pot, and began to feast as hard as I
+could.
+
+12. But before I had eaten much, I saw Rose take some and spread it on
+a piece of bread. At the same moment Mrs. Sutton rose and put the honey
+into a cupboard.
+
+13. "The flies will get at this, if it is left without a cover," she
+said. "I cannot think why Thomas has brought it in to table without
+one."
+
+14. Now I thought this a most unkind speech. They were all eating
+twenty times as much as I could do in a week at each mouthful. Yet the
+honey was put into a dark cupboard out of my reach!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The fly was glad to clean his wings and legs. He came back to
+the room and sat on the cap of the old lady. He was pleased to get some
+honey.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Rose do for the fly in the cream? 2.
+     What did the fly do in the garden? 3. What did the fly find
+     on the breakfast-table? 4. Where did he pitch next? 5. What
+     did the old lady do with the honey-pot? 6. What did the fly
+     think of what she said?
+
+
+5. A NEW MISHAP.
+
+1. This vexed me, I must say, so I went and buzzed against the window
+panes for a little while, to see if that would do me any good.
+
+2. At the end of that time I heard Rose say, "Granny, I do not want
+this bread and honey now. May I keep it for my lunch?"
+
+3. "Yes, dear," said her granny. It seemed a wonder to me that Rose
+should wish to leave her bread and honey till some hours later, when
+she might have had it at once.
+
+4. Mr. Sutton got up and went away to his study. His wife rose too, and
+she told Rose to put the plate of bread and honey on the sideboard,
+that Thomas might take it away till lunch time.
+
+5. But Rose forgot to tell Thomas, and he did not seem to see the
+plate, so there the tempting dish was left all the morning. The sun
+began to shine upon it, and I sniffed and sniffed many times.
+
+6. At last I left the white cap where I was sitting, and went towards
+it. I settled upon something far nicer now than either sugar or cream.
+I sipped and sucked away for some time.
+
+7. At last I thought that I had eaten enough and had better tear myself
+away before I had taken more than was good for me. But, to my horror, I
+found that when I tried to lift up my legs I could not stir them!
+
+8. In my other troubles I had at least been able to move a little. I
+could climb up and down the mountains of sugar, and I could swim about
+in the ocean of cream.
+
+9. But now I was fixed fast, either to be eaten by Rose without her
+knowing it, or to die a wretched death in the kitchen if she did not
+choose to finish me off.
+
+10. I had never thought very much of my out-door cousins, the bees. It
+seemed to me that they made a great fuss and took a lot of trouble for
+nothing, in making honey for men and women to take away.
+
+11. How much better to eat it straight from the flowers! And now I
+thought worse of the bees than ever, because I was sticking fast in
+their stuff.
+
+12. I tried in vain to drag out one front leg after the other, and next
+my middle and back legs. It was just as a man would feel if he were
+stuck in a bog.
+
+13. The sound of the lunch bell went to my heart. The sight of the nice
+bread and honey, which Rose had left at breakfast, would be sure to
+make her feel hungry. She very soon saw me!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The fly stood on a plate of bread and honey. He stuck fast and
+felt as a man might do in a bog. Rose took him out and set him free.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Rose do with her bread and honey? 2.
+     What did the fly do when he smelt it? 3. What happened to
+     him when he settled on the honey? 4. What did he try to do
+     in vain? 5. What did he soon hear? 6. What did Rose very
+     soon see when she came to lunch?
+
+
+6. THE FLY'S EYE.
+
+1. I feel sure that she did not know me, for she cried out, "Oh,
+granny! here is a nasty fly on my bread and honey. I dare say that the
+horrid thing has been crawling all over it!
+
+2. "I wish a spider would come and catch it!" went on Rose, quite
+crossly, "for I do not like to kill it myself!" And here she gave me a
+little poke with a fork. But not hard enough to hurt me.
+
+3. "Why, Rose, what is the matter?" said her granny. "I thought that
+you were fond of the little, busy, useful flies that come to dance and
+play in the house?"
+
+4. "Well, I cannot see what good they do," said Rose, "getting into the
+cream and sticking on to the bread and honey." Something had put little
+Rose out of temper. But I felt sure it would not last long.
+
+5. "I wish he would not get on to my plate," said she, bending down her
+face to hide it, for she began to feel ashamed. "But I will not hurt
+him."
+
+6. And she took one of her granny's knitting needles in her hand. I
+shook with fear when I saw this great spear coming; but Rose used it in
+a most gentle and kind way.
+
+7. She lifted my body out after setting my legs free, and though I felt
+strained and tired after it, I left nothing behind me, no, not even any
+of the brushes and combs on my feet.
+
+8. "I will put him out into the garden," said she. But, as my wings had
+got no honey on them, I saved her the trouble, by flying away.
+
+9. If Rose had only known half the trouble I had in washing my feet
+after the honey, she would have been ready to forgive me for tasting
+her lunch.
+
+10. "I am glad you did not go on feeling cross with the poor little
+fly, Rose," said Mrs. Sutton. "We should miss them much if we had none,
+for they help to keep our houses sweet and clean.
+
+11. "No maid with her broom could get at all the tiny cracks and
+corners where the flies go. The eyes of no woman in the world could see
+what the fly can.
+
+12. "Do you know that his round ball of eye is made up of many hundreds
+of bits, and that each bit can see a new way?"
+
+13. Rose clapped her hands. "Then can the fly see a hundred ways at
+once?" said she. "Oh, how I wish I could do that!"
+
+14. "You can move your eyes about," said her granny, "which does just
+as well. The fly cannot move his. And you would not like to be born in
+the kitchen sink, would you?"
+
+15. "Is that where flies are born?" said Rose, drawing near to her
+granny and looking into her face.
+
+16. "Yes," said Mrs. Button, "the fly is born in a sink, or in any
+place where dirty stuff is found. The young flies eat the dirty stuff
+and get rid of it. I will tell you some day how the little things come
+into the world."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ After being set free from the honey the fly went off. He
+cleaned his legs and went back to the old lady. She told Rose that
+flies were of great use.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Rose use to lift the fly up? 2. In
+     what way did she use the knitting-needle? 3. What did the
+     fly feel when he saw the knitting-needle coming? 4. What can
+     the fly do to keep a house clean? 5. What sort of eye has
+     the fly? 6. Tell me where flies are born?
+
+
+7. BABY FLIES.
+
+1. "Could you not tell me now?" said Rose, for she wanted to hear about
+the little flies. And I too felt very glad to hear more about my
+childhood. So I sat still to listen.
+
+2. "Perhaps you think that the child of a fly looks just like itself;
+only smaller," said Mrs. Sutton. "But the house-fly lays a great many
+little eggs.
+
+3. "She finds some old dirty rubbish, like rotten cabbage or stuff that
+is left by careless cooks lying about. In this she puts her eggs, and
+then she dies. Little grubs are born from them.
+
+4. "They begin to eat as soon as they are born, and very soon they turn
+into flies, after going to sleep for a while first in a kind of little
+hard skin or shell. They change into flies while they are inside this
+shell."
+
+5. "What do the flies do when they cannot find any dirty rubbish?" said
+Rose.
+
+"Then they go to look for it in other places," said her granny. "So you
+see, if we do not wish to have flies in our houses we must have no
+rubbish."
+
+6. "Then the flies are little servants to us, granny?"
+
+"Yes, to be sure."
+
+"I wish I could see a baby-fly," said Rose.
+
+7. "You would not think it at all pretty," said Mrs. Sutton. "It is a
+whitish maggot. But some ugly looking things are very useful to us."
+
+"I like pretty things best," said Rose.
+
+8. "Well, the fly is pretty enough when he is grown up. He has to wait,
+you see." I was pleased to hear the kind old lady say this, and I
+nodded my head and washed my face with my feet.
+
+9. "And so it is your birthday on Monday, Rose," went on her granny.
+"And I suppose it is time to be thinking about the party and the fun we
+are to have?"
+
+10. Rose looked up, beaming with delight at these words. Though she had
+not been born as a grub in a sink, I thought that she looked pretty
+too.
+
+11. "We must get Miss Bush to write the letters for us, Rose, and ask
+the little girls, and boys to come and spend the day with you. Run now
+and see if she will be so good as to do it now."
+
+"Oh, very well," said Rose. And she went out with a skip.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ A house-fly is born in the sink. The egg from which it comes
+is laid in dirt and rubbish. The grub which creeps out eats up the
+dirty stuff.
+
+     Questions: 1. Where does the house-fly lay its eggs? 2. What
+     are the young flies like at first? 3. What do they do as
+     soon as they are born? 4. What do they eat? 6. If we do not
+     wish to have many flies, what must we do? 6. What treat was
+     Rose going to have?
+
+
+8. SAVED AGAIN.
+
+1. I heard a little girl say, "Oh, Rose, there is a fly in your glass
+of wine."
+
+"Poor thing!" said the little girl next her, "take it out!"
+
+"No, no!" said her brother; "let it alone. Let us see how he swims."
+
+2. All this time I felt very bad. I was drowning, yet this boy could
+look on and talk like that.
+
+3. Something seemed to take away all my breath and strength. I heard
+the boy say, "If I fell into a pond I could not swim so well."
+
+4. "Why, no," said Rose, "the fly has not a coat and trousers, as you
+have. But I do not think it is fun to see him drowning, so I will take
+him out." And she pushed the handle of a spoon with care under me.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+5. I could hardly crawl when I got on to the table-cloth. She saw it
+and placed me on a green laurel leaf outside. I sat there half dead,
+and yet I heard what they were all saying inside the summer-house.
+
+6. "Lucy," said Rose to the little girl, "you would have been glad if
+you could have been lifted out like that poor fly, when you fell into
+the pond at home, would you not?
+
+7. "You went to the bottom before any person came to help you. Were you
+in a great fright? How did you feel?"
+
+8. "Why," said Lucy, "I was in a great fright when I first fell in, but
+after that I think that I must have been asleep, for I forgot it all. I
+knew nothing after my tumble down the bank, till I heard my mother near
+me.
+
+9. "She was saying, 'God bless you, darling,' and then I found myself
+lying in bed."
+
+"Ah," said her brother Tom, "Neptune, our dog, had a famous supper that
+night."
+
+10. "Why?" asked a little boy, from the other end of the table.
+
+"Oh, did you not know that it was Neptune who pulled my sister out of
+the water?" said Tom.
+
+11. "He saw her go in, and without being told, he got her out. She
+would have been drowned without him. She had been told not to go near
+the pond, but she ran down to it, without leave, when no one was
+looking."
+
+12. The other little girl here grew very red. "You need not have said
+that, Tom," said she. But Tom was a bit of a tease. He only laughed and
+said that his sister was always doing what she was told not.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Rose took the fly out of her glass. She put him on a leaf to
+get dry. Tom told them about his big dog. It saved the life of Lucy.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Rose do for the fly in her glass? 2.
+     What did the dog do for Lucy? 3. What did Tom say that his
+     dog could do? 4. What else would he bring out from the
+     bottom? 5. What did Neptune have on the night when he saved
+     Lucy's life?
+
+
+9. GRANNY'S CAP ON FIRE.
+
+1. I did not feel much desire to taste any food next morning. The long
+swim on the day before had taken away my wish for eating and drinking.
+
+2. I nearly flew down to the flower which Rose had put in water, but I
+changed my mind. On the whole I prefer the smell of jam to that of
+roses.
+
+3. I felt that a little walk would do me good, so I went round the tray
+once or twice, and then I tried to do the same thing on the tea-urn,
+but it was too hot for my feet.
+
+4. I left that quickly enough, and after running across the toast on
+Mr. Sutton's plate, and crawling up his paper, only to be driven away,
+I went to the window.
+
+5. Here I was so lucky as to meet a few of my friends, and we had a
+little dance in the sunshine, which quite brought back my health and
+spirits.
+
+6. The day thus passed by, and it was very warm indeed later on. After
+tea Mr. and Mrs. Sutton were seated in the drawing-room, one on each
+side of a little table, with a candle between them.
+
+7. The old lady was knitting, and her husband was reading aloud the
+paper to her. I think he was reading to amuse himself more than his
+wife.
+
+8. I could feel, as I sat on her cap, that her head was nodding now and
+then, as if she were dozing. Mr. Sutton at last saw this. And laying
+down the paper he said, two or three times, "You are sleepy, my dear."
+
+9. Each time that he said this, granny woke up, sat very upright, and
+said, "Oh no, not at all, my love." But she went off again to sleep as
+soon as the reading began.
+
+10. At length she was in so sound a nap that she did not notice when
+Mr. Sutton put down the paper, after reading a long, dull account of
+something or other.
+
+11. He took off his glasses, laid them on the folded paper, and saying
+something to himself about resting his eyes, fell fast asleep too.
+
+12. Granny's head now nodded lower and lower. First she gave a nod, and
+then her husband gave a bow, just as if they were being most polite to
+each other in their sleep.
+
+13. Her cap was very near the wax candle once or twice, and there was a
+smell of burning. She now began to nod sideways, and each time that she
+did so there was a great smoke and a frizzling noise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Rose went to spend the day with Lucy. The fly sat on the cap
+of the old lady. She fell asleep and the cap caught on fire.
+
+     Questions: 1. Where did Rose go? 2. Where did the fly stay?
+     3. What were Mr. and Mrs. Sutton doing that evening? 4. What
+     did Mr. Sutton say when his wife's head nodded? 5. What did
+     he do himself? 6. What happened to the old lady's cap?
+
+
+10. A NARROW ESCAPE.
+
+1. I was afraid of losing my perch, her nice white cap, on which I had
+now grown to feel quite at home. It seemed as if it were turning into
+ashes like those in the grate, and it felt too hot.
+
+2. I flew up, for I could sit there no longer. And then I pitched on
+the top of Mr. Sutton's head, just in the bald place, and stamped with
+one foot as hard as I could.
+
+3. I also ran about and tickled him a good deal. He woke up in a great
+hurry, for he raised his hand to drive me away, and in doing so, gave
+himself a smart tap.
+
+4. This roused him. And he awoke just in time to save the cap and the
+hair of his wife from being in a blaze of fire.
+
+5. "Dear, dear, dear!" said he. "Why, my love, what an escape you have
+had!"
+
+"Nonsense, my dear," said the old lady, "I have not been asleep, I
+assure you." But it was of no use for her to say and think this.
+
+6. There was the burnt cap on her head. "I was not quite asleep," said
+she. "Oh no, neither was I," said her husband, laughing.
+
+7. And then, looking grave, he said, "You were in great danger though,
+my dear. I read only a day or two ago, of an old lady who had been
+burnt to death from setting her cap on fire."
+
+8. I had been in great danger too, though no one seemed to think of
+that. What between the flames, and the knock that Mr. Sutton aimed at
+me, I might have been killed.
+
+9. Thomas was now heard coming up the gravel walk. He had been sent to
+fetch Rose home. She was full of news to tell, about all the things she
+had seen and heard that day.
+
+10. "It is a great mercy, my dear, that you have a bit of your granny
+left," said Mr. Sutton. "If it had not been for a fly, which tickled
+the top of my head, your granny's cap would have been on fire."
+
+11. "Well, well, Mr. Sutton," said the old lady, who, somehow or other,
+did not seem to like hearing about the cap being on fire.
+
+12. "You see here I am, without even being singed. And I was not half
+so sound asleep as you were, my dear. Depend upon it I am too old and
+too wise to let my cap catch fire."
+
+13. Mr. Sutton did not say any more about the cap, since it seemed to
+vex his wife.
+
+"Ah," said Rose, "if I had been at home you would not both have fallen
+asleep."
+
+14. "That is very likely," said granny, smiling. "Well, and how did
+you enjoy yourself?" Rose said that she had been very happy.
+
+15. She had seen Neptune dive, and she had been drenched by the shaking
+which the big doggie gave himself when he came out of the water.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The fly pitched on the head of the old man. He gave a stamp
+with his foot to wake him up. The old man put out the fire.
+
+     Questions: 1. Where did the fly pitch on leaving the cap? 2.
+     What did he do to the old man's head? 3. What did Mr. Sutton
+     do when he woke up? 4. What did he say to his wife? 5. Who
+     came home with Thomas? 6. What sort of day had Rose spent?
+
+
+11. A GLASS TO MAKE THINGS BIG.
+
+1. "What shall I look at next?" said Rose, who had a glass thing in her
+hand, next day. "Oh, this fly!"
+
+2. The lunch was on the table, and I was just making a hearty meal on a
+pat of butter. I knew that Rose would not hurt me. So I stood quite
+still.
+
+3. "How very strange!" said the little girl. "He looks as big as a
+horse. His wings are like shining lace, and he has hairy brushes on his
+feet.
+
+4. "Now he is cleaning his head with one of them. I am glad that flies
+are not really so big as he seems now.
+
+5. "What a buzzing we should have, and what should we do when such huge
+things flew about the room or walked on the ceiling!
+
+6. "There would be no room for us to move, and the house would be too
+small. Fancy having such a creature as this fly looks now jumping and
+prancing over one's bread and jam!"
+
+7. I was not pleased with this speech; I knew that my colour was rather
+dingy, but I had always thought my shape to be light and graceful, and
+this Rose had taken no notice of.
+
+8. Neither had she so much as looked at my trunk, of which I am truly
+proud. So I flew away in a pet from under the glass, and settled on the
+loaf in the middle of the table, out of her reach.
+
+9. "But for you, dear grand-father, I should never have thought such
+tiny creatures worth taking any notice of. Why, they are made just as
+well as big ones, or better."
+
+[Illustration: WHAT SHALL I LOOK AT NEXT?]
+
+10. "Not better, dear, but quite as well. They are all the work of
+God's hand, and so all must be alike good. Do you know that you owe the
+pretty crimson sash that you have on to a very little creature?"
+
+11. "Oh yes, the silkworm," said Rose.
+
+"Yes, and the red colour was made from the dead body of an insect too.
+There is a sort of blight which gives this red colour after it is dead.
+
+12. "Merchants bring them from abroad, after they have been taken from
+the plants on which they live. As they kill the coffee plants they must
+be swept off, and they are made into dye."
+
+13. Grand-father would have said much more, but just then Rose saw Tom
+and Lucy walking up the lawn to the open window.
+
+14. Behind them walked gravely Neptune the dog, with his master's stick
+in his mouth, which he thought it a great honour to carry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Rose saw the fly through her glass. She felt glad that the fly
+was not so big as he looked then. He was as well made as if he were
+large.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Rose look at through her glass? 2.
+     What did she think about the fly? 3. What did Mr. Sutton say
+     about great and little creatures? 4. Whom did Rose see in
+     the garden? 5. Who walked behind carrying his master's
+     stick?
+
+
+12. A LONG SLEEP.
+
+1. About this time I began to feel a chill in the air. I did not like
+this, for it made me feel drowsy. So I kept in the warmth of the
+drawing-room all day.
+
+2. But I was shocked to see that many of my friends began to get quite
+unfit to run or fly about. Their wings seemed heavy, and some of them
+crept into holes where they went to sleep.
+
+3. One day I went down to the table and found one of the gayest flies I
+had ever known, lying on his back upon the cloth.
+
+4. He was cold and stiff. Nearly all the friends I had made that summer
+were dying or dead around me, or else they had crept into corners out
+of sight.
+
+5. I knew that something must be done, or I too should one day be found
+lying on my back with my legs in the air, and Thomas would sweep me
+away, as he did the other flies.
+
+6. I made up my mind to choose the best place I could, and there seemed
+none better than the old red curtain from which I had first come out
+into that pleasant room.
+
+7. I therefore ran about on the wall behind it for some time, looking
+for a proper hole. I found just the nook I wanted, where a bit of the
+wall paper was peeling off.
+
+8. I had hardly crept into it when I was fast asleep. To my good sense
+and quickness I owe my life. If I had not been a clever fly, I should
+have died, I dare say, like the rest.
+
+9. As it is, here I am, alive and merry. When I woke the next warm
+spring day, there was little Rose and Mr. and Mrs. Sutton sitting at
+breakfast just as they had done when first I saw them.
+
+10. Rose was perhaps a little taller, and the bald place on her
+grand-father's head may have been a wee bit wider.
+
+11. But the jam was just as good, the honey and sugar as sweet, and the
+white cap just as clean and nice to sit on. The flowers in the garden,
+too, smell as fresh as ever--still I prefer the jam.
+
+12. If I might say one word at parting, it would be this. Do not forget
+that there is room in this big wide world for a poor little fly as well
+as for boys and girls.
+
+13. And if you enjoy life and like a good game at play,--why, so do we!
+So let us have our harmless games and do our tiny bit of work for you
+in peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ As soon as it felt cold the fly went to sleep. He did not wake
+up till the next spring. There is room in the world for flies as well
+as for boys and girls.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did the fly now begin to feel? 2. What
+     did he see on the table? 3. Where did he hide himself? 4.
+     When did he wake from his sleep? 5. What change did he see
+     in Rose? 6. What does the fly say as a parting word?
+
+
+
+
+BETTY AND SNOWDROP.
+
+
+1. PEEP! PEEP!
+
+1. There was once a young hen. She had led a very quiet life in a
+village until she was nearly one year old. Then, all at once, she found
+that people began to make a great fuss about her.
+
+2. You will never guess why, and so, as I think you may like to hear
+all about her, I will begin at once and tell you. Betty,--that was the
+name of this hen,--was one of ten fluffy little yellow chicks.
+
+3. She was dressed in soft bright down when she first crept out of her
+egg-shell. She had a sharp beak and bright clever black eyes.
+
+4. One morning, as her mother was strutting about the yard with all her
+children behind her, crying "cluck, cluck!" as she scratched up bits
+for them among the straw, Gip, the little pet dog, ran up.
+
+5. He was only a puppy, and he meant nothing but play. Perhaps he
+mistook the small round chicks for a lot of little balls rolling about.
+At any rate he snatched up Betty, who was the finest of them, in his
+mouth.
+
+[Illustration: THE FARMYARD.]
+
+6. With a roguish look at their fat old mother, he began to scamper off
+with her. "Cackle, cackle!" screamed the old hen. "Put the baby down
+this moment, sir!" And the mother flew at Gip before he had gone six
+yards.
+
+7. She jumped upon his back, and began to flap his head with her wings
+as hard as she could, while she made digs at his back with her beak.
+
+8. The pretty dog, finding himself treated in this way, soon dropped
+the chicken out of his mouth. Little Betty rolled out from between his
+white teeth and fell flop! to the ground.
+
+9. She was not a bit hurt, for she toddled back to join her brothers
+and sisters, who were all crying "peep! peep!" in a great fright. They
+were afraid of seeing her eaten up alive.
+
+10. But though her child was none the worse, the mother-hen began to
+batter and beat poor Gip as if he had maimed it for life. And she never
+forgave the little dog after that day.
+
+11. When she saw him coming, even at a distance, she pushed out her
+head, stuck all her feathers on end, and spread out her tail like a
+bush.
+
+12. Perhaps it was the dreadful fright which Betty felt while she was
+in the jaws of Gip, which made her so grave and thoughtful a chicken
+as she soon became. She walked better than the rest.
+
+13. She held herself upright, and her mother was never heard to say,
+"heads up!" as she did to the other chickens. Her mistress said one
+morning that Betty was "the pride of the brood."
+
+14. Her two brothers were very greedy chickens, I am sorry to say. And
+as they grew older, they began to fight sadly for each worm or grain of
+corn which they found.
+
+15. Though Betty and the rest of the chickens grew up white as snow,
+one of these young cocks had a speckled breast, and the other had two
+black feathers in his tail. This spoilt their look.
+
+16. They were both taken away one day by a strange man, in spite of all
+that their mother could say. She bustled up and tried to rescue her
+sons. Although they were both in the habit of eating too much, she
+loved them in spite of all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ A little chick was picked up by a puppy. He did not kill it,
+but put it down when the hen came after him. The chicken was not hurt.
+
+     Questions: 1. How many brothers and sisters had Betty? 2.
+     What did the puppy do one day? 3. What did the old hen do?
+     4. What did Betty's mistress call her? 5. What sort of
+     chickens were the two brothers? 6. What became of them?
+
+
+2. BETTY IS SPOILT.
+
+1. Time passed on, and Betty grew fast in size and beauty. Her mistress
+made up her mind to send her to the Poultry Show at the Crystal Palace.
+
+2. The cook and all who saw her said that Betty ought to go, her beauty
+was so great. She was quite a perfect pattern of what a white hen of
+her sort ought to be.
+
+3. She would be certain to win a first prize of the first class, they
+all thought. Poor Betty! From the day that it was settled for her to go
+to the Poultry Show her troubles began.
+
+4. When first it was made known in the yard she became rather vain, in
+spite of all that her mother could say. The fact was that the old hen
+felt proud of it herself, and Betty knew it.
+
+5. She would be always pluming the feathers of her daughter, cackling
+loudly, and calling to strange chickens to come and admire the lovely
+back and smooth wings of her child.
+
+[Illustration: COCK-A-DOODLE-DO!]
+
+6. The young cocks from next door sat on the railings to chatter, and
+even forgot to quarrel. They stared at Miss Betty as she walked with
+her beak in the air, and they made rude remarks.
+
+7. "Why don't you grow a pair of spurs and learn to crow?" they called
+out. When Mrs. Dorking, Betty's mother, heard these speeches from the
+young cocks she flew into a great passion.
+
+8. "I will set the dog at you, you young scamps, if you do not be off
+this moment," cried she. So they dropped off one by one, for they did
+not know that the old hen was not able to carry out her threat.
+
+9. As Betty became vain she became idle too. Instead of making her
+mother and sisters happy with her pretty playful ways, and making
+herself useful and pleasant at home, she grew pettish.
+
+10. And instead of working to help earn her own living, by catching
+flies, scratching up worms, and watching under the old oak tree for
+cock-chafers, she would lose patience, and call loudly to the cook to
+bring her food.
+
+11. And, strange to say, the cook would come too, and, not content with
+waiting on Betty, would drive away each fowl and chick that came up to
+share what she had brought.
+
+12. She let none of them have a bit till Betty had eaten all that she
+pleased. Was not this enough to spoil any young hen? Betty was fast
+getting pert. All this was because of her good looks and her five toes.
+
+13. You will see after a while that she would have been more happy if
+she had been born ugly, or with four toes, like her sisters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Betty was to go to a show. She grew vain when she heard this.
+And as she became vain she grew idle too. She was spoilt.
+
+     Questions: 1. Where did Betty's mistress think of sending
+     her? 2. What did they all think that she would get at the
+     show? 3. What made her grow proud? 4. What did she do
+     instead of earning her living? 5. What did the young cocks
+     say? 6. What answer did the old hen make to them?
+
+
+3. SOAP AND WATER.
+
+1. After a little more time had passed, Betty was taken out of the
+yard. They did not let her stay with her sisters and the other fowls
+any longer, but she was placed in a large room by herself.
+
+2. Here she was fed on all sorts of dainties. She had chestnuts, minced
+liver, new milk, and fresh lettuce. Life was now a feast to Betty, but
+she found it rather dull.
+
+3. "I would rather have one worm or a spider," said she, with a sigh.
+How she longed for a good scamper with her sisters! "I am sure that we
+should never squabble now," said the poor, lonely little thing.
+
+4. But this time alone did not last long. One morning a worse thing was
+done to her. She was taken by the cook and plunged into a warm bath. It
+was not of the least use for her to kick and scream.
+
+5. The cook did not care. She rubbed Betty gently with a soaped
+flannel, talking to her in a soothing way all the time, and then set
+her down before the fire to dry.
+
+6. But Betty's fright was soon over, and she was not at all hurt, of
+course. Yet she might have caught her death of cold, and all this
+because of the show! that her feathers might look fine.
+
+[Illustration: A WARM BATH.]
+
+7. If the cook had let Betty alone to clean them, she would have done
+it better. The soap was bad for them, so was the water.
+
+8. Betty felt very pleased when the cook went to call all the other
+servants. She wished them to admire the snowy whiteness of her
+feathers. "If she does not win a first prize I will eat my head!" said
+the cook.
+
+9. "You will have a fine big meal, then," said the housemaid, "and I
+should not wonder if you have not spoilt her feathers for ever by
+washing them. You never ought to have done it, and the poor thing may
+get ill."
+
+10. But thanks to the care taken of her, Betty did not get ill, though
+the nasty soap made her feel sick; and the cook saw that she had made a
+mistake in washing Betty.
+
+11. "All creatures can clean themselves," said the housemaid,
+"leastways all birds can, at any rate, and we do harm by meddling."
+
+12. "I think we ought to keep her under a wash-tub or in a basket until
+the day for the show," said the cook. "She will be sure to get dirty
+again in that barn."
+
+13. When a nice new hen-coop was turned over her, Betty began to think
+about her mother. "What a horrid time she must have spent when we were
+little, and she had to stay in a coop!" said the young hen to herself.
+
+14. "And yet I think that I am even worse off than she was, for I have
+to stay here without any little chickens to amuse me, or to run under
+my wings."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The young hen was washed. It was bad for her and made her
+feathers rough. She grew tired of being shut up though she was well
+fed.
+
+     Questions: 1. Where was Betty placed alone? 2. What did she
+     say to herself about her food? 3. What did the cook do to
+     her? 4. What did the housemaid tell her? 5. Where was Betty
+     put next? 6. What did she think about in the coop?
+
+
+4. AT THE SHOW.
+
+1. "No, I have nothing to amuse me," said Betty, "but the thought of
+how handsome I am. It is nice to think of that, and yet I am almost
+tired of hearing it."
+
+2. Betty would have given one of the best feathers in her tail for a
+good race after a beetle, or for a good scratch for grubs down by the
+manure heap, which was the best place.
+
+3. But she had hardly yet begun her trials. On the next day, the
+coachman took her in a hamper to the show. Betty screamed as she was
+put into it, for she did not like it at all.
+
+4. "I will behave well, no matter what happens," said poor Betty. But
+she felt afraid of the noise, the pushing, and the crowd of people and
+poultry at the Palace.
+
+5. There were Spanish cocks and hens, who were lofty and silent. There
+were little silver bantams who chuckled. Some hens were tiny dwarfs
+like the bantams, others were giants like the Cochin China fowls.
+
+6. There were gamecocks, too, looking like fierce soldiers. Among all
+the smart poultry Betty found herself passed over and called "only a
+pullet."
+
+7. All the other fowls were called "loves" and "dears," while hardly
+any people took notice of her plain white dress and rosy head-dress.
+But one gentle lady came by, who stopped near Betty.
+
+8. She pointed Betty out to a child who was with her, saying that she
+was one of the best hens of her kind which she had ever seen.
+
+9. The lady added, "No fowls lay better eggs than these pretty
+Dorkings.
+
+"They make the best mothers, they are English in their habits, and
+therefore stronger than birds from foreign lands."
+
+[Illustration: THE PRETTY DORKING.]
+
+10. The air at the Crystal Palace was hot and close. Betty began to
+wish herself at home again. She could not eat, though food was there.
+
+11. And though her feathers were all ruffled and in a mess, she did
+not feel able to put them to rights. Yet she knew that she ought to
+tidy herself.
+
+12. One of the hens near began to mock at her. She said with a pretence
+of being polite: "May I put your tail tidy for you, madam, since it
+seems too much trouble for you to do it yourself?"
+
+13. And then the sly thing gave a tweak and pulled out Betty's longest
+feather.
+
+14. A hen near gave a dab with her beak at Betty's pink comb, and made
+it bleed. And though she said after that she did not mean to hurt her,
+that did not heal the sore place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ At the show Betty found it hot and close. She did not care to
+eat. The other hens played tricks with her. She wished herself at home.
+
+     Questions: 1. When Betty was in the coop what did she long
+     for? 2. When she got to the show what did she see? 3. How
+     did she feel? 4. How did the other hens behave to Betty? 5.
+     What did the lady say about her? 6. What happened to her
+     comb?
+
+
+5. A SAD MISHAP.
+
+1. After a time Betty felt better. The other fowls left off teasing
+her. They had only been in rough play, and did not mean to worry her
+too much.
+
+2. She dipped her bill into a dish of water which was there, picked a
+bit of lettuce, and said to herself that she would make the best of a
+bad job.
+
+3. Betty was still as vain of having five toes on each foot as any fine
+young lady could be of wearing new shoes. She was always holding up one
+foot or else the other. No doubt she meant to show off.
+
+4. There was a great cackling and noise in some of the pens after a
+while, and Betty heard that the judges were coming. These were the
+people who were to give the prizes, and she felt now more vain than
+ever.
+
+5. She made up her mind to present her foot to the judges, and even to
+push it out between the wires of her pen, as far as she could. "They
+cannot help giving me a prize when they see my five toes!" she said to
+herself.
+
+6. But just as she had thrust her toe right out between the wires,
+after much trouble, she heard an odd voice from the next pen say,
+"Hullo, what's that? Is it a grub?"
+
+7. A queer big bird with a long neck had caught sight of the foot, and
+he gave a great snap at it as he saw it move. Betty tried to pull her
+toes back, but the big bird would not let go.
+
+8. At last it ended by his pecking off the nail and first joint of poor
+Betty's middle claw. She was in much pain and screamed loudly.
+
+9. Up rushed a man, the keeper, who took Betty out in a great hurry.
+"We must have no wounded or sick birds here for the judges to see," he
+said.
+
+10. And he put poor Betty quickly away into one of the pens which had
+been used for bringing fowls to the show. It was empty but for two or
+three poor hens who were either dead or dying.
+
+11. These were fowls which had been hurt on the way, by being shaken or
+roughly used. They had been put into baskets too small for them, or had
+been badly used in some other way. It is bad for birds to travel.
+
+12. Here Betty sank down on the ground. At first she could do nothing
+but think of her poor toe; she pushed it into some soft stuff which lay
+on the floor, and this stopped the bleeding.
+
+13. How sad she felt! All her fine hopes of a prize were gone. She was
+a cripple now for life, and no one would care for her fine looks any
+more.
+
+14. "I wonder what is the use of shows?" thought Betty. "Why do people
+want other people to tell them that their cocks and hens are pretty?"
+
+15. After the bustle and fuss of the day were over, one of the keepers
+came with a boy to look after the dead and dying.
+
+16. "She was as great a beauty as ever I did see," said the man. "A
+perfect pullet!--that she was. But, dear me! she is not perfect now
+that her toe is gone.
+
+17. "She is good for nothing now but to lay eggs and bring up chicks.
+She was worth a couple of pounds; now she would only fetch a couple of
+shillings.
+
+18. "Here, Jack, tie a bit of rag round the stump, and give her food
+and water in that spare box. I cannot bear to wring her neck, as we are
+forced to do with many, to put them out of pain."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Poor Betty had her toe bitten off. She was put into a place
+out of sight. Here she was in great pain, and had lost all hopes of a
+prize.
+
+     Questions: 1. After a time how did Betty feel? 2. What did
+     she do with her foot? 3. What happened to one of her toes?
+     4. Where was she put after her toe was bitten off? 5. What
+     was the boy told to do for Betty? 6. What did the man say
+     that she was fit for now?
+
+
+6. A NEW HOME.
+
+1. Poor Betty had plenty of time to think over all her troubles. But
+after two or three days she heard a sound which made her feel very
+happy.
+
+2. It was the voice of her old friend the coachman, who had come to
+fetch her away. She cackled to him in a most loving way; but, alas! the
+coachman had nothing to say to her.
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW HOME.]
+
+3. He was cross and sulky because Betty had not won a prize.
+
+"Poor thing!" said the cook when Betty got home, "what an object she
+looks to be sure! She is as light as a feather.
+
+4. "The mother that hatched her won't know her again. I declare that I
+don't believe this is our Betty at all, but some old rubbish of a bird
+they have sent us instead!"
+
+5. "Oh yes," said her mistress, coming up to look, "it is our Betty.
+But I beg of you to get rid of her at once. I cannot bear the sight of
+her after thinking she would get a prize."
+
+6. "Shall I step out and do it at once?" said the cook, calmly.
+
+"No, no!" said the mistress. "Do not kill her. Give her away. She will
+be a useful hen to some one else, and is sure to lay plenty of eggs."
+
+"Very good, ma'am," replied the cook.
+
+7. There was no washing this time before Betty was sent away. That was
+one comfort. She was huddled, just as she was, into a hamper, and sent
+as a present to a friend of the cook.
+
+8. This friend was the wife of a farmer, and she was such a kind, good,
+rosy, happy, pleasant woman, that it was quite a treat to look at her.
+She lived about five miles from Betty's old home.
+
+9. The large farm-yard into which Betty now stepped from her hamper,
+was like a new world to her. She began at once to dig with those of her
+sharp claws which were left.
+
+10. And finding chalk like that which had been under the soil at home,
+she nodded her head and chuckled, for she was pleased. No hen can be
+happy without chalk, after she is old enough to lay eggs.
+
+11. She knew that the yard in which she now was, would be a fine place
+for her young brood. They would not be likely to get the cramp or catch
+colds.
+
+12. The fowl-house was built on a gentle slope, and below, at some
+little distance, was a pond with two or three green islands in the
+middle of it. Here some water birds, such as Betty had never seen
+before, were paddling about.
+
+13. She could not think how they did it. The yard had good shelter from
+rough, cold winds, for a fir wood was at the back of it. And the
+houses for cattle and horses stood with their backs to it on two sides.
+
+14. The houses where the hens were to sit on their eggs, were sprinkled
+with chalk laid over dry coal ashes. This was to keep the floor clean
+and wholesome.
+
+They were swept out often. The perches for roosting were not thin
+sticks, but nice stout boughs of trees, so that the feet could clasp
+them without slipping.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The new home to which Betty was sent pleased her. She thought
+that she should soon forget her sorrows. The fowl-house was nice and
+clean.
+
+     Questions: 1. To whom was Betty sent? 2. What sort of woman
+     was the farmer's wife? 3. When Betty stepped out of her
+     hamper what did she begin to do? 4. What did she find? 5.
+     What was the hen-house like?
+
+
+7. TWELVE LITTLE CHICKS.
+
+1. Her friends at the old home had all walked on dry land. But here she
+found many ducks and drakes, besides odd-looking fowls with feathers
+down their legs.
+
+2. Spring came, and Betty paced the yard with twelve fine chickens
+behind her. All of them had five toes on each little foot, as their
+mother had when she was born. So they were all right.
+
+3. Down the velvet back of each chick were stripes of dark brown, which
+was the proper pattern for their first short coats. After a time they
+would put off baby-clothes, and be dressed in pure white like their
+mother.
+
+4. As her chicks slept under her wings, or chirped with their merry
+little voices, she forgot all else but her darlings. What did it matter
+having one claw too few, now that she had her dear babies?
+
+5. Betty took care to keep her children neat, and to teach them good
+manners. "You may gobble up a worm, children, as fast as you like, when
+you find it, so that no one else may get it," said she.
+
+6. "But don't let me see two of you having a fight, or both tugging at
+the same worm. You must not ruffle up your feathers at each other, or
+fight, though you may do so if you meet a rat."
+
+7. As Betty was such an anxious and watchful mother herself, she could
+not help feeling quite vexed at the way in which Snowdrop, one of the
+ducks, went on.
+
+8. This big white duck did not seem to mind a bit whether her children
+were a credit to her or not. "See!" said this good hen, pointing to her
+twelve clean little chicks. "Where will you find such children as mine?
+
+9. "I spend all my time in teaching them how to behave themselves. I
+show them how to walk nicely, and how to pick up their meals in a
+proper way.
+
+10. "I show them how to keep their feathers combed and brushed. But
+you, bad mother that you are, allow your poor little yellow ducklings
+to shuffle in the mud up to their wings.
+
+11. "And twice I have seen them at the very edge of the pond. It made
+me shudder! It will be a wonder if they do not get drowned, or catch
+their death of cold. How thin and pale they look!"
+
+12. As Betty said these words to Snowdrop, the old duck shook her bill,
+and after a few more quacks turned her back and waddled off.
+
+[Illustration: BETTY'S CHICKS.]
+
+13. Soon after this, a magpie came down to tell all the fowls in the
+yard that one of Snowdrop's ducklings had been eaten by a rat, and that
+a second had been stolen by a hawk.
+
+14. Two more of them had run away under the gate and had strayed
+towards a tent where some gipsies lived. As they never came back, it
+was thought that the gipsies had taken them off.
+
+15. A fifth of the brood, which had been weakly from birth, had caught
+cold in a bitter wind and died. And the last had pined away from
+feeling lonely after losing all its brothers and sisters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The hen had now twelve chicks. She took more care of her
+children than the duck did of hers. Betty thought Snowdrop a bad
+mother.
+
+     Questions: 1. What other creatures did Betty see in the
+     yard? 2. How many chickens had she? 3. What did she teach
+     them? 4. What was the name of the duck? 5. What sort of
+     mother was she? 6. What did Betty say to her?
+
+
+8. A VISIT TO SNOWDROP.
+
+1. As Betty's brood was now grown old enough to go into the world, she
+had plenty of time to pay Snowdrop a visit. So she went off one fine
+morning and found her near the brink of the pond.
+
+2. Snowdrop was using her orange bill as a shovel to catch leeches in
+the mud. Betty told her that she had come to have a chat with her. She
+wished to speak about the way in which she had brought up her children.
+
+3. "I am sure, my dear Snowdrop," said Betty, "that cold water was the
+death of all your lost ducklings, no matter what you or any other bird
+may say.
+
+4. "You are a strong duck, and so it has not hurt you yet. But you see
+that your frail little ones are all gone. It is all through your
+careless habit of letting them dabble in the mud all day and get their
+feet wet."
+
+5. "Nonsense!" said Snowdrop, as, with an eye dark and bright as that
+of Betty, she glanced at her own orange legs and webbed feet.
+
+6. "Nonsense! It is all nature, and runs in the blood," she said. "My
+mother before me, and her mother before that, knew that water never
+hurts a duck. It hurts us to be kept dry!
+
+7. "And as for catching cold or getting fits, or cramp, or the pip--can
+you do this?" And as she spoke, Snowdrop waddled down the steepest
+part of the bank.
+
+8. She set her breast for a moment against the tiny ripples of the pond
+until she was in water deep enough to swim in. Then, all of a sudden,
+she turned herself upside down.
+
+9. Her head went below, and nothing of her could be seen above but a
+tail, and two yellow legs. She stayed so long like this, grubbing for
+water-snails, that Betty began to fear she should never see her head
+again.
+
+10. But she popped it out again in a few minutes, and came sailing with
+a saucy quack back again to the bank. "Do I look any the worse?" said
+she.
+
+11. Betty held her tongue. She still thought, as she had done before,
+that no matter what Snowdrop did, cold water was bad for ducklings.
+
+12. A young Bantam hen, who was standing by, said to Betty, "Where can
+you have come from, and what sort of egg did you creep out of, not to
+have seen a duck swim before?" said the Bantam.
+
+13. "All the yard knows that they are the best sailors in the world!
+But for you and me, our ruffles are too well starched for such a way of
+life."
+
+[Illustration: UPSIDE DOWN.]
+
+14. Here was a new wonder to Betty. Though a shower of rain soaked all
+her fine feathers through, and made them limp as old rags, Snowdrop
+came out of the pond dry and warm, her plumes crisp and neat.
+
+15. Not a trace of water was to be seen on her. Well, to be sure! Betty
+could not make it out. After all there must be a thing or two which
+even the wisest hen does not know.
+
+16. "I advise you to carry oil in your feathers when you learn to
+swim," said Snowdrop, as she skimmed off again over the pond. "That is
+my plan, but ducks are too wise to boast about it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ Betty went to see the duck. She felt much surprise at seeing
+her swim and dive. But she still thought that water was not good for
+ducklings.
+
+     Questions: 1. Where did Betty find Snowdrop? 2. What did
+     Betty say to her? 3. What did the Bantam hen say? 4. What
+     did Snowdrop do to show Betty? 5. What did Betty still think
+     about ducklings? 6. How was it that the duck's feathers were
+     not wet?
+
+
+9. SNOWDROP'S NEST.
+
+1. Weeks went by. Snowdrop thought that it was time for her to bring
+some more little ducklings into the world, instead of those which she
+had lost.
+
+2. So, down among the green rushes at the very brink of the pond, she
+made a nest. It was not much more than a bundle of straws which the
+wind had swept into that place but it did very well.
+
+3. Snowdrop had poked the straws into a heap with her beak. She trod
+them down with her feet, made a round hole with her breast in the
+middle, and put a few feathers inside.
+
+4. In this rough nest she laid seven pale green eggs, and very pretty
+they looked. Betty no sooner heard of this, than she ran as fast as she
+could to the spot. She had a kind thought in her head.
+
+5. She had now no little ones of her own; and somehow, though she laid
+an egg each day in the wicker nest, it was always gone before night. So
+she had nothing to sit on.
+
+6. And so it had come into her good heart that she would offer to sit
+on Snowdrop's eggs for her. "I promise you to do it well," said she to
+the duck.
+
+7. "If you trust me with your eggs I will treat them just as if they
+were my own. And when the young are hatched I will nurse the dear
+little things, teach them, and bring them up better than you could do
+yourself."
+
+8. The duck, who just then saw her drake bowing his head to her as he
+swam along, thought that she would like to join him on the pond.
+
+9. Snowdrop loved pleasure. Why should she sit cooped up on a nest for
+four weeks, when she might be having fun on the pond? Betty was willing
+to do it for her.
+
+10. She liked hunting for slugs and worms, or swimming races with her
+drake, better than sitting still. So she said "yes" to Betty's offer
+and marched off.
+
+11. The good little hen climbed as well as she could on to the nest;
+but she did not half like the look of it. Why, the eggs were ready to
+roll out at the sides! And her body was not so big as that of Snowdrop,
+neither were her wings so wide.
+
+12. It was a great job for her to keep the large eggs under cover at
+all, but she shook out her feathers and spread out her wings as far as
+they would go, though it made them ache.
+
+13. Then she felt nervous because the pond was so near. "It is bad for
+eggs to get damp!" she said to herself. "What could make that foolish
+Snowdrop choose such a place? And I dare say that I shall get the cramp
+too."
+
+14. But she sat on bravely for all that. Betty never left the eggs of
+which she was taking care, except for a few moments when she was forced
+by hunger to run to the yard.
+
+15. The good farmer's wife saw her racing there one day. She watched
+her pick up some corn in a great hurry and then rush off. She went
+after Betty and saw her get into the nest of the duck, to sit there
+after her hasty meal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The hen wished to sit on the eggs of the duck. She did not
+leave them except to get food when she was hungry. The wife of the
+farmer found the eggs.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did Snowdrop make among the rushes? 2.
+     How many eggs did she lay? 3. What did the hen offer to do?
+     4. What did Snowdrop say? 5. How did Betty get food? 6. Who
+     saw her running back to the eggs?
+
+
+10. THE WEE DUCKS.
+
+1. "Pretty dear!" said the farmer's wife to Betty, as she saw her climb
+gently on to the eggs and spread out her small wings as far as she
+could.
+
+2. "This will never do," she went on. "If you want to hatch them, my
+pretty, you had better do it in your own nest."
+
+3. So she stooped down, stroked Betty's white back softly, and then,
+with a firm, gentle hand, pushed her aside while she took all the seven
+eggs into her apron.
+
+4. At first Betty did not like it. She did not know what Snowdrop would
+say, and besides, she had a longing inside her to finish the job. She
+wanted to see the dear little things come from the shells.
+
+5. "I shall love them as my own," said she, "unless the farmer's wife
+takes them from me." But she was quite happy when she saw the eggs
+placed safely in her own snug dry nest.
+
+6. Betty sat on the eggs for three long weeks. She knew that was the
+proper time to wait for her own broods. But still no sign of the young
+ones was to be seen.
+
+[Illustration: HER OWN SNUG NEST.]
+
+7. "I do believe that cold water has killed them before they are born!"
+said poor Betty, "for they never ought to have been laid so near a
+pond."
+
+8. She sat on and on, for a fourth week. And, at the end of that time,
+she had her reward. There was a little faint tapping sound inside the
+shells.
+
+9. The baby ducks were trying to get out of prison. She helped them by
+picking away bits of the shell as it broke, to let the light in at
+their tiny windows.
+
+10. At last seven little yellow things as soft as satin cried, "peep,
+peep!" in a pretty whisper round her feet. Their bills and their feet
+were rather flat, it is true, but what of that? Betty loved them as if
+they were her own chicks.
+
+11. "Of course I do not expect that they will be quite so handsome, so
+clever, or so good as if born from my own eggs," said she.
+
+12. "They will be poor weak little things. I can see that they are
+rather stupid, even now, from their staying in the shells a week longer
+than they ought.
+
+13. "But I must take a little extra care with them!" Very proud was
+Mother Betty, but in spite of all her fondness, the young ducks gave
+her much trouble.
+
+14. They would not come when they were called. And they would play in
+the gutter. They dabbled with their little yellow feet in the black
+mud, as often as ever they could.
+
+15. They liked digging in a dirty ditch for worms better than feeding
+from a nice clean plate. And they will gobble snails, shells and all,
+no matter what Betty said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ It was four weeks before the eggs were hatched. Betty found
+that the young ducks did not like to feed as chicks did. They loved to
+dabble in the mud.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did the farmer's wife say when she saw
+     Betty climb into the nest? 2. Where did she put the eggs? 3.
+     How long did Betty sit on them? 4. Where did the young ducks
+     want to play? 5. What did they wish to eat? 6. Why did Betty
+     think them stupid?
+
+
+11. AN AWKWARD LOT.
+
+1. But Betty was a hopeful hen. She did not give up trying to teach the
+young ducklings and bring them up well. She kept them with great care
+from speaking to any of their own kind.
+
+2. She would not let them play with other ducklings. They had never
+seen that dreadful pond yet. She would not let them waddle within sight
+of it.
+
+3. As to their bad manners, their love of dirt and snails and wet, she
+could only think that it came from their having once laid as eggs in
+that old straw cradle of theirs, among the green rushes.
+
+4. "Or else it is because their feet are the wrong shape," said Betty,
+as she looked down at the yellow boots of her foster-sons and
+daughters. On the whole they did not behave so very badly, she thought.
+
+5. They came up with the chickens at meal times, even if they did go
+straight back to that vile gutter the moment they had gobbled all they
+could get.
+
+6. "What a clever hen is Betty Dorking!" the others said. "She has
+brought up the duck's brood and will make chickens of them!" It is true
+that the wise old gander laughed at this notion.
+
+7. He said, "You never see a silk purse made out of any other thing but
+silk," and all his wives nodded their heads and cackled. They said it
+was witty, though they had no idea what the speech meant.
+
+8. As the golden ears were taken by heaps into the rick-yard, the birds
+felt as glad as the farmer and his wife did. The great sheaves were
+stacked and the fowls gleaned after them.
+
+9. Betty, as well as the rest, picked up plenty of loose grains. There
+was a little squabbling once, and the turkey-cock trod on one of
+Betty's ducklings.
+
+10. The great bird said nothing but "gobble gobble!" and did not even
+show that he was sorry. The peacock was not too proud to come walking
+in among the rest, in a dainty way, holding up his train.
+
+11. He liked wheat as much as any of them. But he could not bear
+soiling his dress. Betty now thought it was time to take her
+foster-children into the world, before winter came.
+
+12. They were grown to a fair size, and as yet no cold water had ever
+come near them, except a few splashes, which their nurse could not
+prevent.
+
+13. After a good deal of driving and shrieking to them, she got her
+brood into a small crowd, to see if they were neat. She smoothed their
+downy heads, she plumed their soft wings with loving care.
+
+14. Then she said, "My dears, you are all as tidy as you can be made. I
+am now going to take you on a visit to your own mother, whom you have
+never yet seen.
+
+15. "Behave well, and give me no cause to feel shame when she sees how
+I have brought you up. Now, Forward! March!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The young ducks had never seen a pond. Their foster-mother
+made them tidy. She wished to take them into the world and show them
+their mother.
+
+     Questions: 1. What did the other hens say of Betty and her
+     brood? 2. What did the gander say? 3. What bird came to pick
+     up wheat with the fowls? 4. What did the turkey-cock do? 5.
+     What did Betty say to her ducklings before taking them into
+     the world? 6. To whom did she wish to show them?
+
+
+12. THEIR OWN MOTHER.
+
+1. And where was Snowdrop to be found? At the pond, of course, swimming
+round and round with half-a-dozen other ducks and drakes as happy and
+careless as herself.
+
+2. She swam towards the brink when she saw Betty coming. The ducklings
+waddled as fast as they could lay their flat feet to the ground, as
+soon as they caught sight of the pond.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST SWIM.]
+
+3. Betty could not keep up with them, for she had never quite lost a
+limp, after having her toe bitten off. "See," she said to Snowdrop, as
+she hobbled up, "here are your children.
+
+4. "Look at them well! How unlike they are to any ducklings you ever
+brought up yourself! There are no ducks in the whole yard that can
+compare with them. Just watch how well they behave."
+
+5. "Quack!" said Snowdrop. "It is all because of the pains I have
+taken," said Betty.
+
+"Quack, quack!" said Snowdrop again.
+
+6. "They have never been tempted to go into horrid cold water. They
+have never even seen a pond till now. What do you say to that?"
+
+7. "Quack, quack, quack!" replied the snowy sailor, glancing her bright
+eye upon her little ones. The next moment the merry little ducks were
+sailing after her round the pond!
+
+8. They dived head foremost, they grubbed for leeches, they paddled
+with their flat feet as if they had done nothing else since they were
+out of the shell.
+
+9. Poor Betty with outspread wings danced round the pond crying at the
+top of her shrill voice, "Come back! come back! You will all be
+drowned."
+
+10. But it was useless. The little ducks would obey her no longer. They
+went on swimming about after their own lily-white mother.
+
+11. Snowdrop swam to the edge at last, and spoke thus to Betty. "I
+thank you for the good you meant to me and mine. But dry land will not
+give us your sharp toes to scratch with, any sooner than water will
+give you web-feet to swim with.
+
+12. "All that you have taught my children on dry land, I shall be
+pleased to repay by teaching the next brood you have to swim and dive."
+At this the gander stretched out his throat and laughed.
+
+13. "You should allow yourself more time to think," said old Dame
+Turkey, the wife of the turkey-cock, as she stood on one leg to listen.
+
+14. "You are always in a hurry and a bustle. Don't mind so much about
+the affairs of other people, and take things calmly, as I do. If you
+had been more like me, you would not have made this mistake about the
+duck."
+
+15. "We have not all the same habits,--the same nature," said Mistress
+Betty, softly. "And I see that it is of no use trying to make other
+folks' children like our own." Dame Turkey nodded her head in a very
+wise manner.
+
+16. She must have been a very clever old dame, for she knew when to
+keep silent. As for Betty, she grew to be a very modest, useful hen,
+with no pride or conceit about her.
+
+17. At the present time, though she is getting old, she is still a
+worthy fowl. She lives at the same farm, and would divide her last worm
+with a chicken or a friend. But she has never tried to turn ducklings
+into chicks again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Write:_ The little ducks saw the pond. They ran to it and went in. It
+was of no use for the hen to call them back. They went after their own
+mother-duck.
+
+     Questions: 1. Where was Snowdrop to be found? 2. What did
+     the ducklings do when they saw the pond? 3. What did the
+     guinea-hen call out? 4. What did Betty do? 5. What did Dame
+     Turkey say? 6. What sort of hen did Betty become?
+
+
+
+
+WORDS FOR SPELLING.
+
+
+DICK AND HIS CAT.
+
+1.
+
+fa'-mous
+Whit'-ting-ton
+walk'-ed
+pave'-ments
+in-stead'
+door'-step
+for-lorn'
+
+2.
+
+hid'-ing
+pleas'-ant
+ei'-ther
+
+3.
+
+emp'-ty
+pas'-sion
+laugh'-ed
+pa'-ti-ent
+greet'-ing
+for'-eign
+
+4.
+
+daugh'-ter
+whis'-per
+beau'-ty
+fetch'-ing
+may'-or
+
+5.
+
+wreck'-ed
+reach'-ed
+pal'-ace
+cush'-i-on
+leap'-ed
+mor'-sel
+fam'-ine
+
+6.
+
+sur-pris'-ed
+strug'-gled
+coax
+flan'-nel
+wrap'-ping
+caught
+glimpse
+feast'-ing
+in'-stant
+scar'-ed
+roy'-al
+trea'-sure
+
+7.
+
+Eng'-land
+learn'-ed
+hand'-some
+friends
+need'-ed
+great'-est
+faith'-ful
+treat'-ed
+purr'-ed
+laur'-el
+
+
+TRUSTY.
+
+1.
+
+land'-lord
+bread
+cheese
+ven'-ture
+beam'-ing
+bus'-tle
+crouch'-ing
+shad'-ow
+dis'-mal
+blink'-ed
+voice
+
+2.
+
+hud'-dled
+cra'-zy
+guard
+
+3.
+
+ad-vise'
+twi'-light
+anx'-i-ous
+daz'-zling
+whirl-'ing
+strug'-gle
+pierce
+starv'-ed-looking
+
+4.
+
+whine
+tread
+prais'-ed
+foot'-prints
+faith'-ful
+guide
+hoarse
+ea'-ger
+wood'-en
+white'-ness
+feel'-ings
+flash'-ing
+rous'-ed
+shoul'-ders
+tongue
+
+5.
+
+steam'-ing
+pulse
+bur'-i-ed
+howl'-ing
+guid'-ed
+dumb
+friend'-ly
+dole'-ful
+re-proach'
+birth'-day
+en-joy'-ed
+
+
+OUT IN THE COLD.
+
+1.
+
+froz'-en
+roost
+moon'-shine
+stu'-pid
+
+2.
+
+watch'-ed
+freez'-ing
+Christ'-mas
+stirr'-ed
+
+3.
+
+pig'-sty
+com-plaint'
+coax'-ed
+car'-rots
+jui'-cy
+mor'-tar
+soak'-ed
+
+4.
+
+puz'-zle
+tip'-toe
+scram'-ble
+sheet
+ice
+wak'-en-ed
+foot'-marks
+
+
+THE STORY OF A FLY.
+
+1.
+
+cur'-tain
+break'-fast-room
+pret'-ty
+mak'-ing
+la'-zy
+grand'-child
+grand'-pa
+house'-fly
+touch'-ed
+pitch'-ed
+
+2.
+
+tea'-cad-dy
+sug'-ar-ba-sin
+com'-fort
+ache
+glut'-ton
+seem'-ed
+dain'-ty
+
+3.
+
+yel'-low
+whole'-some
+gree'-dy
+bal'-ance
+des-pair'
+cream'-jug
+mis'-hap
+jerk'-ed
+crawl'-ing
+grea'-sy
+
+4.
+
+hon'-ey
+lawn
+scoop'-ed
+dai'-sy
+tri'-fle
+
+5.
+
+buzz'-ed
+side'-board
+tempt'-ing
+o'-cean
+wretch'-ed
+
+6.
+
+spi'-der
+a-sham'-ed
+knitt'-ing
+need'-les
+spear
+strain'-ed
+
+7.
+
+child'-hood
+list'-en
+ser'-vants
+mag'-got
+
+8.
+
+drown'-ing
+strength
+trow'-sers
+a-sleep'
+Nep'-tune
+tease
+
+9.
+
+gran'-ny
+seat'-ed
+doz'-ing
+po-lite'
+frizz'-ing
+
+10.
+
+rous'-ed
+blaze
+nei'-ther
+knock
+drench'-ed
+dog'-gie
+
+11.
+
+ceil'-ing
+pranc'-ing
+speech
+cof'-fee
+
+12.
+
+gay'-est
+Thom'-as
+en-joy'
+peace
+
+
+BETTY AND SNOWDROP.
+
+1.
+
+qui'-et
+guess
+scratch'-ed
+rogu'-ish
+scream'-ed
+todd'-led
+maim'-ed
+jaws
+bust'-led
+res'-cue
+
+2.
+
+spoilt
+beau'-ty
+crys'-tal
+cer'-tain
+plum'-ing
+ad-mire'
+rail'-ings
+quar'-rel
+pas'-sion
+catch'-ing
+cock'-chafers
+
+3.
+
+dain'-ties
+chest'-nuts
+minc'-ed
+squab'-ble
+plung'-ed
+soap'-ed
+flan'-nel
+sooth'-ing
+white'-ness
+house'-maid
+med'-dling
+
+4.
+
+bee'-tle
+ma-nure'
+poul'-try
+chuck'-led
+Dork'-ing
+for'-eign
+comb
+
+5.
+
+teas'-ing
+let'-tuce
+wear'-ing
+prize
+wound'-ed
+rough'-ly
+bleed'-ing
+cou'-ple
+
+6.
+
+cack'-led
+hatch'-ed
+hud'-dled
+chalk
+pad'-dling
+sprink'-led
+whole'-some
+boughs
+slip'-ping
+
+7.
+
+pat'-tern
+ba'-bies
+feath'-ers
+wad'-dled
+mag'-pie
+stray'-ed
+gip'-sies
+
+8.
+
+shov'-el
+leech'-es
+or'-ange
+wa'-ter-snails
+tongue
+soak'-ed
+skimm'-ed
+
+9.
+
+pok'-ed
+hatch'-ed
+ner'-vous
+
+10.
+
+re-ward'
+pris'-on
+ex'-tra
+ditch
+
+11.
+
+awk'-ward
+speak'-ing
+daugh'-ters
+laugh'-ed
+no'-tion
+rick'-yard
+sheaves
+glean'-ed
+squab'-bling
+pea'-cock
+daint'-ty
+shriek'-ing
+plum'-ed
+
+12.
+
+caught
+hob'-bled
+out'-spread
+calm'-ly
+mis'-tress
+si'-lent
+con-ceit'
+
+
+CHISWICK PRESS:--CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
+TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+Corrected minor punctuation errors.
+
+Moved some illustrations to avoid breaking up paragraphs of text.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Dick and His Cat and Other Tales, by Various
+
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