A dog once chose to make his bed in a manger full of hay. Now this manger was the feeding place of a pair of oxen who worked hard in the fields all day.
When the tired beasts came for their evening meal, the dog growled and showed his teeth. He could not eat the hay himself, and he would not let the oxen have so much as a mouthful of it.
--aeSOP.
A WISE INDIAN
lazy angry observe stool pa.s.ses owner answered short
An Indian boy sees many things which a white boy pa.s.ses by without seeing. Can you tell why?
The Indian boy is taught to look at things closely, and to think about everything he sees. He learns to observe. Here is a good story of an Indian who was trained to use his eyes when he was young.
An old Indian once lived in a village among white people. His little hut was near the woods. A white man lived alone in a cabin near by.
One night the white man came home late from his work in the fields. He had left a bag of corn hanging in his cabin. Some one had taken it.
He was very angry. "That lazy Indian who lives in the hut has stolen my corn," he told his neighbors.
"Send for the Indian and let him speak for himself," said one of the neighbors.
When the Indian came he said, "I did not take your corn."
"If you did not take my corn, who did?" asked the angry man.
"I can not tell you his name," the Indian answered. "I have never seen him, but I can tell you something about him.
"Your corn was stolen by a white man. He is an old man, and he is a short man."
One of the neighbors had seen a little old man. He was going to the woods with a bag on his back.
They went out to hunt for him. Soon he was found, and the bag of corn was returned to its owner.
How could the Indian tell who had taken the corn? Every one wanted to know.
"I will tell you," said the Indian. "I knew that the thief was an old man from the heavy mark of his feet in the earth. A young man"s step is much lighter.
"I knew he was a white man because he turned his toes out when he walked. An Indian does not walk in that way.
"Did you not see that he stood on a stool to reach the bag of corn?
This shows that he was a short man."
"Now see," said the neighbors. "If you had kept your eyes open as the Indian keeps his open, you would not have said that he stole your corn."
CLOVERNOOK
group cottage repeating sugar hymns daughter sweetbrier cellar merry gathered old-fashioned saucer
One summer morning, a merry group of children was helping to make hay in one of the Clovernook hay fields.
Not far away stood a little brown house in the cool shade of cherry trees and apple trees. A sweetbrier clambered over the windows, and in the dooryard grew bushes of large red roses.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Near the house was a deep well of clear, cold water. An old-fashioned well sweep was used to draw up the water, as you see in the picture.
This was the Clovernook home. Here lived the merry children who were helping in the hayfield, and there were nine of them. What if the house was small? There was the barn in which they could play, and there were the fields and woods in which they could wander.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "He liked to gather his children around him."]
They thought their gentle, blue-eyed mother the most beautiful woman in the world. Their father was one of the kindest of men. Every child loved him, and the horses and the cows followed him all over the farm.
He loved books, and went about his work repeating fine old hymns and lines from grand poems. In the long winter evenings he liked to gather his children around him before the open fire. Then he told them wonderful stories of the olden time.
The Clovernook children learned to know the flowers and the trees by name, and to tell the birds by their songs. In the spring they boiled sap for maple sugar. In the fall they gathered nuts, and helped store away the apples in the cellar.
There were two daughters of the Clovernook household who liked nothing so well as their books. They went to school when their mother could spare them from the work of the home. At night they often wished to study, but they had no lamp. So they put some lard into a saucer and used a piece of cloth for a wick.
Year after year these two girls spent all their spare moments in reading and study. What they did when they were older, and how they came to be called the Poet Sisters, you shall soon learn.
THE POET SISTERS
Alice Clovernook postoffice print Phbe Cincinnati newspaper parties
The Clovernook cottage was the home of the Cary family, and the Poet Sisters were Alice Cary and Phbe Cary.
While the sisters were still little girls, they began to write verses.
Phbe was but fourteen years old when she sent her first poem to a newspaper. She told no one, not even her sister Alice, what she had done.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Alice Cary.]
At last her father brought the paper from the postoffice. When Phbe saw her poem in print she was so happy that she laughed and cried.
After that, she did not care if her clothes were plain, or if she could not go to school as much as she wished.
The Clovernook home was near Cincinnati, Ohio. When Alice and Phbe grew older they left the home of their childhood and went to live in New York city.
They were now able to earn money by writing stories and poems for books and papers. At last they could make their home beautiful with the books and pictures which they had so long wished for.