CHAPTER VI.

JUNE.

"Now come the rosy JUNE and blue-eyed hours,
With song of birds and stir of leaves and wings,
And run of rills and bubble of bright springs,
And hourly burst of pretty buds to flowers;
With buzz of happy bees in violet-bowers,

And gushing lay of the loud lark who sings
High in the silent sky, and sleeks his wings
In frequent sheddings of the flying showers;
With plunge of struggling sheep in plashy floods,
And timid bleat of shorn and shivering lamb,
Answered in far-off faintness by its dam;
And cuckoo's call from green depths of all woods;
And hum of many sounds, making one voice

That sweetens the smooth air with a melodious noise."
"Lyric Leaves," by Cornelius Webbe.

ADAM and his father were at their work very early every morning: they generally began to rise with the sun; and they could do so with pleasure to themselves, because they went to rest early, and eat but light suppers; therefore they were always in good health and excellent spirits. I know of nothing which will make a person more light-spirited than early rising. I think it would make even an ill-natured one pleasant and good-humored; whereas, I am sure I have seen some people of excellent tempers very peevish and cross, from a habit they have acquired of lying late in bed. Early rising clears the understand

ing and improves the memory. I have known some boys at school, whose memories were by no means good, able to repeat thirty or forty Latin lines after a very few times reading over. But then it was early in the morning, and they used to read them two or three times the last thing at night before going to sleep. The same boys could not have learned the same number of lines after breakfast in as short a time. This shows that the first hours in the morning are the time for study. Almost all the greatest men that ever lived were early risers! and if they had not been so they would not have been such eminent characters. I do not say that early rising will make a stupid man become a great genius, though it will improve him; but I know that lying late in bed will make a great genius become almost a stupid man." So Adam and his father were neither of them stupid, and they were very early risers.*

Adam was desired to give the cucumbers a little water, and during the day to tilt up the frames that they might have fresh air. His father desired him, however, not to forget on any account to close them again in the evening, for fear the coldness of the nights should check them. Adam likewise assisted in preparing and digging the trenches for transplanting the young celery plants. His father marked out the ground for him, and told him to observe his mode of digging, and making the trench look neatly. Then stretching the line from one end to the other, exactly in the centre, they both planted out the young plants a few inches apart,

This appeal in favor of early rising deserves the most serious consideration of all, but particularly of the young. If they wish for health, respectability, and happiness, they cannot safely neglect the precept so often repeated, to "rise with the lark and lie down with the lamb." -EDS.

84

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

and at equal distances. While they were thus employed, Adam did not forget, this month, to ask his father why it was called JUNE; who informed him that it was generally supposed to have been so named in honor of the renowned JUNIUS BRUTUS, the Roman who drove out the hateful family of the Tarquins. Adam said he remembered the story in Adams' Roman History, which he was then reading. He also asked his father to "tell him something" while they were at work. 66 'Well," said he, "but first let me, while I now think of it, desire you to remind me that I draw up the earth to these young celery plants every fortnight. And, now, what must I tell you? Something, I suppose, in natural history; or, shall it be an anecdote. Well, then, it has just entered my head, that you saw a wretch of a boy yesterday beating a poor ass; and though you did not think any one was looking at you, I was much pleased to hear you say that you wished the donkey would 'kick him down backwards.'* This reminds me, that many years ago, in another part of England, where your grandpapa lived, a boy was beating a poor ass most cruelly, and when some people scolded him for his brutality, he swore a horrid oath, saying the ass was his, and that if he pleased he would kill it. So he continued torturing the unhappy creature till it could bear his ill usage no longer; and running at him with enraged and frightfully flashing eyes, and mouth wide open and foaming, he dashed him to the ground, tearing him with his teeth, and stamping him till he was dead. The poor beast then went raving mad, and ran out upon a neigh

Adam's displeasure was highly to be commended, but we all have need of caution, lest a spirit of revenge usurp the place of a just indigna tion.-EDS.

boring moor, doing mischief to every person and anımal that came in its way: at last it was freed from its torment by being shot dead. The ass by nature is not the dull, sluggish animal we daily witness. In its native soil, the desert of Arabia, it is a very fleet and fierce creature. It lives in society, or in herds; and so jealous are they of admitting strangers among them, that if a tame ass, or a horse, were to join the herd, they would very shortly kick him to death.*

*

"To-morrow, I understand, our neighbor, farmer Barter, intends shearing his sheep; it is very early to do so; but the season is an early one, and fine and warm, so I suppose he is right: besides, the farmers are generally guided in shearing their sheep by the elder tree being in flower; for that plant does not blow till the summer has set in. If you behave well, you and your sisters and brothers shall go. And now you may plant out some of the coss and Dutch and Capuchin lettuces. Take the line, and set them at the length of your dibble apart from each other: afterwards, do the same by the cauliflowers; and by the time you have finished that job, I shall be prepared to show you how to thin the turnip, and carrot, and parsley beds. This will be quite as much as we shall be able to finish to-day." While they were employed, Adam asked his father whether he would not some day

Xenophon, in his "Expedition of Cyrus the Younger," gives a very interesting account of the wild asses with which he met in the desert of Arabia; and a very spirited sketch of the habits of the same animal is found in the book of Job:

"Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bonds of the wild ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the bar. ren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing."-EDS.

take them out to dine in the fields: this he very readily promised, saying that they would choose some very warm day, and go and sit under his favorite plane-tree. Adam asked if the plane was not that tree which is so much like the sycamore. "The leaves are alike,"

said his father, "but the whole tree itself is far more elegant than the sycamore. There are two sorts of plane-tree: the oriental, which is so called because it comes from the eastern parts of the world, that is, Asia; (oriens, you know, is the Latin for east ;) and the other called the occidental plane, (from the word occidens, meaning the west,) which was brought from North America. It is a most beautiful object, and was a great favorite with the ancient people of Asia, no doubt `on account of its elegant appearance, and because it afforded them a thick shade with its thousands of noble, large, thick leaves, like kind and protecting hands turned into leaves by magic. In the warm climates of the East, where the natives live so much in the open air, these handsome ornaments to a country were much more admired than they are with us. It is reported that Xerxes halted his vast army for, I believe, more than a whole day, while he paid due honor to a grand tree of this description. The ancients also

danced under its shade when they worshipped their god Bacchus, in gratitude for the protection they had received from the burning sun, as well as in compliment to its great beauty; at the same time they were also accustomed to pour wine upon its roots. Many people in our country would laugh at their being so fond of a tree; but they ought to recollect, with how much more reason these same people would laugh at some of our troublesome modes of procuring a little pleasure. How they would laugh at one of our dull