My youth is but a summer's day:
Then like the bee and ant I'll lay

A store of learning by;

And though from flower to flower I rove,

My stock of wisdom I'll improve,

Nor be a butterfly.

Adelaide O'Keefe

THE BUTTERFLY AND THE BEE

Methought I heard a butterfly

Say to a laboring bee,

"Thou hast no colors of the sky
On painted wings like me."

"Poor child of vanity! those dyes,
And colors bright and rare,"
With mild reproof, the bee replies,
"Are all beneath my care.

"Content I toil from morn till eve,
And, scorning idleness,

To tribes of gaudy sloth I leave
The vanity of dress."

William Lisle Bowles

THE STORY OF LITTLE SUCK-A-THUMB

One day, mamma said: “Conrad dear,
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don't suck your thumb while I'm away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys that suck their thumbs;

And ere they dream what he's about,
He takes his great sharp scissors out

And cuts their thumbs clean off, and then,
You know, they never grow again."

Mamma had scarcely turned her back,
The thumb was in, alack! alack!
The door flew open, in he ran,

The great, long, red-legged scissors-man.
Oh, children, see! the tailor's come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.
Snip! snap! snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out-"Oh! oh! oh!"

Snip! snap! snip! They go so fast,
That both his thumbs are off at last.

Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
"Ah!" said mamma, "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb.”

From the German of Heinrich Hoffman

DIRTY JIM

There was one little Jim,

'Tis reported of him,

And must be to his lasting disgrace

That he never was seen

With hands at all clean,

Nor yet ever clean was his face.

His friends were much hurt

To see so much dirt,

And often they made him quite clean;

But all was in vain,

He got dirty again,

And not at all fit to be seen.

It gave him no pain

To hear them complain,

Nor his own dirty clothes to survey;

His indolent mind

No pleasure could find

In tidy and wholesome array.

The idle and bad,

Like this little lad,

May love dirty ways, to be sure; But good boys are seen,

To be decent and clean,

Although they are ever so poor.

Jane Taylor

THE PIN

"Dear me! what signifies a pin,
Wedged in a rotten board?
I'm certain that I won't begin,
At ten years old, to hoard;
I never will be called a miser,
That I'm determined," said Eliza.

So onward tripped the little maid,
And left the pin behind,
Which very snug and quiet lay,

To its hard fate resigned;
Nor did she think (a careless chit)

'Twas worth her while to stoop for it.

Next day a party was to ride,

To see an air balloon;

And all the company beside

Were dressed and ready soon;

But she a woeful case was in,

For want of just a single pin.

In vain her eager eyes she brings,
To every darksome crack;

There was not one, and yet her things
Were dropping off her back.
She cut her pincushion in two,
But no, not one had fallen through.

There's hardly anything so small,
So trifling or so mean,
That we may never want at all,
For service unforeseen;

And wilful waste, depend upon't,

Brings, almost always, woeful want!

Ann Taylor

JANE AND ELIZA

There were two little girls, neither handsome nor plain, One's name was Eliza, the other's was Jane;

They were both of one height, as I've heard people say, And both of one age, I believe, to a day.

'Twas fancied by some who but slightly had seen them,
There was not a pin to be chosen between them;
But no one for long in this notion persisted,
So great a distinction there really existed.

Eliza knew well that she could not be pleasing,

While fretting and fuming, while sulking or teasing;
And therefore in company artfully tried,

Not to break her bad habits, but only to hide.

So, when she was out, with much labor and pain,
She contrived to look almost as pleasant as Jane;
But then you might see that, in forcing a smile,
Her mouth was uneasy, and ached all the while.

And in spite of her care it would sometimes befall
That some cross event happened to ruin it all;

And because it might chance that her share was the worst,
Her temper broke loose, and her dimples dispersed.

But Jane, who had nothing she wanted to hide,
And therefore these troublesome arts never tried,
Had none of the care and fatigue of concealing,

But her face always showed what her bosom was feeling.

At home or abroad there was peace in her smile,
A cheerful good nature that needed no guile.
And Eliza worked hard, but could never obtain
The affection that freely was given to Jane.

Ann Taylor

MEDDLESOME MATTY

One ugly trick has often spoiled
The sweetest and the best;
Matilda, though a pleasant child,
One ugly trick possessed,
Which, like a cloud before the skies,
Hid all her better qualities.

Sometimes she'd lift the tea-pot lid,

To peep at what was in it;