Chapter I. "The truth is, John," said Mr. Wilson to his brother, "I am troubled about my boy. Here it is the first of July, and he can't go back to school until the middle of September. He will be idle all that time, and I'm afraid he'll get into mischief. Now the other day I found him reading a wretched story about pirates. Why should a son of mine care to read about... more...

It was a terrific storm. The wind swept down the river, raising a ridge of white water in its path. The rain came down harder, so the boys thought, than they had ever seen it come down before, and the glare of the lightning and the crash of the thunder were frightful. "What luck it is that we got the tent pitched in time!" exclaimed Joe. "We're as dry and comfortable here as if we were... more...

BABY, BEE, AND BUTTERFLY. BY MARY D. BRINE. aby, Bee, and Butterfly,Underneath the summer sky. Baby, bees, and birds together,Happy in the pleasant weather; Sunshine over all around,In the sky, and on the ground; Hiding, too, in Baby's eyes,As he looks in mute surprise At the sunbeams tumbling overMerrily amid the clover, Where the bees, at work all day,Never find the time for play. Happy little... more...

"Bal-loon! balloon! Oh, Charley! where are you, Charley? There's a balloon a-comin'." Charley's big brother Harry came running excitedly down the road, and vaulted the farm-yard fence in a state of great excitement. "Oh, Charley, come out quick and see the balloon." Charley was nowhere to be found. He had wandered off hours before to his favorite rock by the brook to have... more...

"Hurrah! hurrah! Now for a long play-day; the school-master's a witch, and we are free;" and some twenty boys came flocking and tumbling out of the school-house door, and went swarming up the street. Not much like the boys of to-day, except for the noise, were these twenty youngsters of nearly two centuries ago, who skipped and ran up the streets of Boston, dressed in their long... more...

A CHILDREN'S PARADISE. In one corner of the Bois de Boulogne is a pretty zoological garden known as the Jardin d'Acclimatation. The Bois de Boulogne is the pleasure-ground of Paris, and is one of the most beautiful parks in the world. It comprises about twenty-five hundred acres of majestic forests and open grassy meadows, through which flow picturesque streams, tumbling over rocky cliffs in... more...

CHAPTER I.—THE MOOR. Crimson and gold. As far as one could see across the moor it was one broad expanse of purply heather, kindled into a glowing crimson by the blaze of ruddy sunshine, and lighted here and there by bright patches of the thorny golden rod. Dame Nature had evidently painted out of her summer paint-box, and had not spared her best and brightest colours. Crimson-lake, children; you know... more...

"Look you, Duncan," Elsie exclaimed, when they had walked on some way in silence, "I've made up my mind to go, and what's the use o' waitin'? The sooner the better, for it may turn cold any day now. We shouldn't be long if it was fine, but if 'twas wet we might have to wait up in places. I must sit down an' see if I can find out the way to go from the... more...

ROB'S NAVY. BY W. O. STODDARD. The tide was just out on the Staten Island shore, and the water in the little cove below Mr. Drake's residence was as smooth as a pan of milk with the cream on. Nothing in the shape of a ship ought to have tipped over in such water as that. So Rob Drake had thought, but every time he shoved his new ship away from the flat rock at the head of the cove, over she... more...

Although in the remote and dreary ice regions of the extreme North a variety of game, including bear, whale, walrus, seal, reindeer, foxes, wolves, ptarmigan, ducks, and geese, is found and pursued by the hardy Esquimau, or Innuit, it is upon the capture of the seal that he expends the most time and labor. The seal is everything to him, and without it life could hardly be sustained. In the words of... more...