14. "Didn't you?" replied the mule. "Why, I have lived on these things, as you call them, ever since I left the wagons. I am going back on the Oregon trail, and I sha'n't see you again. Accept my thanks for breakfast. Good-by." And he moved off to the other end of the valley, and disappeared among the rocks.

"Well!" exclaimed the Pine-Tree, "that's something, at all events." And he shook down a number of cones on the He was really happier than ever he had been before, and with good reason, too.

srow.

XLVII.—THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

1. After a while there appeared three people. They were a family of Indians, a father, a mother, and a little child. They, too, went straight to the tree. "We'll stay here," said the father, looking across at the snow-covered bed of the stream, and up at the Pine-Tree. He was very poorly clothed, this Indian. He and his wife and the child had on dresses of hare skins, and they possessed nothing more of any account, except a bow and arrows, and a stick with a net on the end. They had no lodge-poles, and not even a dog. They were very miserable, and hungry.

2. The man threw down his bow and arrows not far from the tree. Then he began to clear away the snow in a circle, and to pull up the sage-bushes. These, he and the woman built into a round, low hut, and then they lighted a fire within it. While it was beginning to burn, the man went to the stream, and broke a hole in the ice. Tying a string to his arrow, he shot a fish which came up to breathe, and, putting it on the coals, they all ate it half-raw. They never noticed the Pine-Tree, though he rattled down at least a dozen more

cones.

3. At last night came on, cold and cheerless. The wind blew savagely through the valley, and howled at the PineTree, for they were old enemies. O, it was a bitter night! but finally the morning broke. More snow had fallen, and heaped up against the hut, so that you could hardly tell that

it was there. The stream had frozen tighter than before, and the man could not break a hole in the ice again. The sagebushes were all hid by the drifts, and the Indians could find none to burn.

4. Then they turned to the Pine-Tree. How glad he was to help them! They gathered up the cones, and roasted the seeds on the fire. They cut branches from the tree, and burned them, and so kept up the warmth in their hut.

5. The Pine-Tree began to find himself useful, and he told the hare so, one morning, when she came along. But she saw the Indians' hut, and did not stop to reply. She had put on her winter coat of white, yet the Indian had seen her in spite of all her care. He followed her over the snow with his net, and caught her among the drifts.

6. Poor Pine-Tree! She was almost his only friend, and when he saw her eaten, and her skin taken for the child's mantle, he was very sorrowful, you may be sure. He saw that, if the Indians stayed there, he, too would have to die, for they would in time burn off all his branches, and use all his cones; but he was doing good at last, and he was

content.

7. Day after day passed by,—some bleak, some warm,— and the winter moved slowly along. The Indians only went from their hut to the Pine-Tree now. He gave them fire and food, and the snow was their drink. He was smaller than before, for many branches were gone, but he was happier than ever.

8. One day the sun came out more warmly, and it seemed as if spring was near. The Indian man broke a hole in the ice, and got more fish. The Indian woman caught a rabbit. The Indian child gathered sage-bushes from under the fast-melting snow, and made a hotter fire to cook the feast. And they did feast, and then they went away. 9. The Pine-Tree had found its mission. to save three lives.

It had helped

In the summer, there came along a band of explorers, and one, the botanist of the party, stopped beside our Pine-Tree. "This," said he, in his big words, "is the Pinus monophyllus, otherwise known as the Bread Pine." He looked at the deserted hut, and passed his hand over his forehead.

ter.

10. "How strange it is," said he : this Pine-Tree must have kept a whole family from cold and starvation last winThere are few of us who have done as much good as that." And when he went away, he waved his hand to the tree, and thanked God in his heart that it grew there. And the Bread-Pine waved his branches in return, and said to himself, as he gazed after the departing band, "I will never complain again, for I have found out what a pleasant thing it is to do good, and I know now that every one in his lifetime can do a little of it."

XLVIII. THE ADOPTED CHILD.

FELICIA HEMANS.

1. "Why wouldst thou leave me, O gentle child?
Thy home on the mountain is bleak and wild,
A straw-roofed cabin, with lowly wall—
Mine is a fair and a pillared hall,

Where many an image of marble gleams,

And the sunshine of pictures forever streams."

66

2. Oh! green is the turf where my brothers play, Through the long bright hours of the summer day; They find the red cup-moss where they climb,

And they chase the bee o'er the scented thyme,

And the rocks where the heath-flower blooms they know

Lady, kind lady! O, let me go."

3.

Content thee, boy! in my bower to dwell,
Here are sweet sounds which thou lovest well;
Flutes on the air in the stilly noon,

Harps which the wandering breezes tune,
And the silvery wood-note of many a bird,
Whose voice was ne'er in thy mountains heard."

4. "Oh! my mother sings, at the twilight's fall, A song of the hills far more sweet than all;

She sings it under our own green tree,
To the babe half slumbering on her knee;
I dreamed last night of that music low—
Lady, kind lady! O, let me go."

5. "Thy mother is gone from her cares to rest,
She hath taken the babe on her quiet breast;
Thou wouldst meet her footsteps, my boy, no more,
Nor hear her song at the cabin door.

Come thou with me to the vineyards nigh,

And we'll pluck the grapes of the richest dye."

gone

6. "Is
from her home away?
mother
my
But I know that my brothers are there at play-
I know they are gathering the foxglove's bell,
Or the long fern leaves by the sparkling well;

Or they launch their boats where the bright streams flow

Lady, kind lady! O, let me go."

7. "Fair child, thy brothers are wanderers now,
They sport no more on the mountain's brow;
They have left the fern by the spring's green side,
And the stream where the fairy barks were tried.
Be thou at peace in thy brighter lot,

8.

For thy cabin home is a lonely spot."

"Are they gone, all gone from the sunny hill?
But the bird and the blue-fly rove o'er it still ;
And the red deer bound in their gladness free,
And the heath is bent by the singing bee,
And the waters leap, and the fresh winds blow—
Lady, kind lady! O, let me go."

XLIX.-LITTLE BY LITTLE.

LUELLA CLARK.

1. While the new years come, and the old years go,

How, little by little, all things grow!

All things grow—and all decay—

Little by little passing away.

Little by little, on fertile plain
Ripen the harvests of golden grain,
Waving and flashing in the sun,

When the summer at last is done.
Little by little they ripen so,

As the new years come, and the old years go.

2. Low on the ground an acorn lies—
Little by little it mounts to the skies,—
Shadow and shelter for wandering herds,
Home for a hundred singing birds.
Little by little the great rocks grew,
Long, long ago, when the world was new;
Slowly and silently, stately and free,
Cities of coral under the sea

Little by little are builded—while so

The new years come and the old years go.

3. Little by little all tasks are done—

So are the crowns of the faithful won

So is heaven in our hearts begun.

With work and with weeping, with laughter and play,

Little by little, the longest day

And the longest life are passing away,

Passing without return-while so

The new years come, and the old years go.

L.-LAWRENCE'S LESSON.

J. T. TROWBRIDGE.

1. It was June when Lawrence came to the pond-side to live. His uncle's house stood on a high green bank; and his aunt gave him an attic room with a window that looked out upon the water. The winding shores were fringed with flags and willows, or overhung by shady groves; and all around were orchards and gardens and meadows.

2. A happy boy was Lawrence, for he was passionately fond of the water, and he had never lived so near a pond before. The scene from his window was never twice the same.