How did the woman feel the boy?

How do you think his own er would have felt if sh seen him?

Can you think of any reaso this boy was the gayest group?

"Hailing the sn

John Townsend Trowbridge (1827- ), an American writer, l in Cambridge. He and Lucy Larcom were for a time editors of "" Young Folks' Magazine." Trowbridge first saw a flying-machine si years after he wrote "Darius Green." He was then eighty-th years old.

ck One

woman feel toward

hink his own mothave felt if she had

of any reason why s the gayest of the

re'-cent

ailing the snow"

ACHINE

an writer, lives litors of "Our machine sixty eighty-three

Darius Green and His Flying Machine

Take a soaring leap from post or rail,
And wonder why

He couldn't fly,

And flap and flutter and wish and try—
If ever you knew a country dunce

Who didn't try that as often as once,
All I can say is, that's a sign

He never would do for a hero of mine.

2

An aspiring genius was D. Green:
The son of a farmer,-age fourteen;
His body was long and lank and lean,-
Just right for flying, as will be seen;
He had two eyes, each bright as a bean,
And a freckled nose that grew between,
A little awry, for I must mention
That he had riveted his attention
Upon his wonderful invention,

Twisting his tongue as he twisted the strings,
Working his face as he worked the wings,
And with every turn of gimlet and screw
Turning and screwing his mouth round, too,
Till his nose seemed bent

To catch the scent,

Around some corner, of new-baked pies,
And his wrinkled cheeks and his squinting eyes
Grew puckered into a queer grimace,

That made him look very droll in the face,
And also very wise.

3

And wise he must have been, to do more

Than ever a genius did before,

Excepting Dædalus of yore

5

And he said to himself, as he tinkered and planned:

"But I ain't goin' to show my hand.

To mummies that never can understand
The fust idee that's big an' grand.
They'd 'a' laft an' made fun

O' Creation itself afore 't was done!"
So he kept his secret from all the rest,
Safely buttoned within his vest;

And in the loft above the shed

Himself he locks, with thimble and thread
And wax and hammer and buckles and screws,
And all such things as geniuses use;-
Two bats for patterns, curious fellows!
A charcoal-pot and a pair of bellows;
An old hoop-skirt or two, as well as
Some wire and several old umbrellas;
A carriage-cover, for tail and wings;
A piece of harness; and straps and strings;
And a big strong box,

In which he locks

These and a hundred other things.

6

His grinning brothers, Reuben and Burke
And Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk

59

Around the corner to see him work,

Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk,

Drawing the waxed end through with a jerk, sit on sit
And boring the holes with a comical quirk

Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. at 1 ablua?!
But vainly they mounted each other's backs, sar T
And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks;
With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks
He plugged the knot-holes and calked the cracks;
And a bucket of water, which one would think
He had brought up into the loft to drink