"What makes the lamb love Mary so?" "O, Mary loves the lamb, you know," AUL. What ails you, that you lie here on the ground? PAUL John. I have a complaint which keeps me from working. Paul. Poor boy! Your clothes are soiled and torn. Do you not earn enough to get decent clothes? John. I would like to earn money, but this complaint of mine seizes me just as I take up a spade or a hoe. Paul. How I pity you! Here is a cent for you. John. Be so good as to put it in my pocket. Paul. There! How weak you must be! John. If it were not for this complaint, I could do as good a day's work as any boy of my age. Paul. I am sorry for you. Here is one more cent. It is the last I have. John. I must trouble you again. My hand drops, you see, if I try to raise it. Please put the cent in my pocket. Paul. There! complaint? Have you never taken anything for this John. Yes; the schoolmaster gave me something for it. Paul. What did he give you? John. Something that he cut from a birch-tree. Paul. Did it cure you? John. No; every time I took up my book to study, the complaint would come on. It has kept me at the foot of my class. Paul. Poor boy! Have you never had a doctor to see you? John. Father has tried to doctor me once or twice. He kept me on bread and water for a week, and put something they call a cowskin on my back. Paul. What good did that do? John. It made me better for a time; but this warm day has brought on my complaint as bad as ever. Oh! Paul. What makes you yawn so? John. It is one of the signs of my complaint. Oh! Paul. It seems to me very much like a sign of laziness. John. That is it! That is all that ails me, laziness! Laziness is my complaint. Paul. Laziness is your complaint, is it? John. Don't strike me, sir, - don't! I shall have to run if you do. Paul. Well, sir, run! You shall earn those two cents by a good run, unless you prefer to feel the weight of this stick. Come, get up! John. I am up, sir. Must I run? Paul. You surely must run, and that before I count three. You have a complaint, you know; and, as I am a humane boy, I am going to try to cure you. Run! John. I would rather lie here on the grass, than run. THE ANT AND THE CRICKET. A SILLY young Cricket, accustomed to sing [spring, Through the warm, sunny months of gay summer and Began to complain, when he found that at home His cupboard was empty, and winter was come. On the snow-covered ground; Not a leaf on a tree; “O! what will become," says the Cricket, "of me?" At last, by starvation and famine made bold, To see if to keep him alive he would grant Him shelter from rain, A mouthful of grain. He wished only to borrow, If not, he must die of starvation and sorrow. Says the Ant to the Cricket, “I'm your servant and friend, But we Ants never borrow, we Ants never lend.. But tell me, dear sir, did you lay nothing by When the weather was warm? " Said the Cricket, "Not I! My heart was so light, That I sang day and night, For all nature looked gay." 66 You sang, sir, you say? Go then," says the Ant, "and dance winter away." Thus ending, he hastily lifted the wicket, And out of the door turned the poor little cricket. Though this is a fable, the moral is good; If you live without work, you must go without food. 3 BR LOVE OF COUNTRY. REATHES there a man with soul so dead, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, From wandering on a foreign strand ? THE MAKE A BEGINNING. HE first weed pulled up in the garden, the first seed put in the ground, the first dollar put in the savings bank, and the first mile travelled in a journey, are all very important things; they make a beginning, and thereby a hope, a promise, a pledge, an assurance, is held out that you are in earnest in what you have undertaken. How many a poor, idle, hesitating, erring outcast is now creeping, crawling his way through the world, who might have held up his head and prospered, if, instead of putting off his resolutions of amendment and industry, he had made a beginning. A beginning, and a good beginning too, is necessary. Had not the base been laid by builders wise, |