"I thank you, gentle sir," she said, "for what you're pleased to say, And bidding you good morning now, I'll call another day." The spider turned him round about, and went into his den, For well he knew the silly fly would soon come back again; So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly, And set his table ready, to dine upon the fly. Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing, "Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver wing; Your robes are green and purple; there's a crest upon your head; Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!" Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly, Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by! With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew, Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue; Thinking only of her crested head poor foolish thing! At last, Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast. And now, dear little children, who may this story read, LXXIII.-BREAKFAST TABLE SCIENCE. "WHAT is an object lesson?" said Lucy to her mother, one day after breakfast. "I have been reading about one in a book; and I do not know exactly what it means." An object is "An object lesson," said her mother, "is a lesson which teaches the properties, or qualities, of objects. any thing which you can see, or feel, or taste. object; so is a chair; so is a slice of bread. A tree is an A lesson about a tree tells you of the properties which distinguish a tree from other things; of its root, its trunk, its branches, its leaves, its fruit, its bark; of the way it grows, and the uses made of its wood. Object lessons teach us to use our senses; to observe, and compare, and reflect." "I should like to have some object lessons; will you be so good as to give me some?" "I will, my dear daughter, on one condition; and that is, that you give me your careful attention. You must listen to me with your ears, and give heed to me with your mind." "I will do so, my dear mother," said Lucy, "and be much obliged to you besides. What object will you teach me about?" "Here is the breakfast table," said her mother, "with the remains of the breakfast upon it, with cups and saucers, spoons, plates, and knives and forks. Here is substance enough for many object lessons. Suppose I give you some lessons in the science of the breakfast table. And, first of all, let us see what it is that all these things rest upon and are held up by." "It is a table." "Very good. And the table is made of mahogany. Mahogany is the wood of a tree which grows in the West Indies, in Central America, and in many parts of South America. Men go into the woods and cut down the trees, just as lumbermen go into the woods of Maine and cut down pine trees. They are then floated down to the sea coast, and shipped to Europe or this country. This is very hard work; the men who do it are obliged to go into woods and swamps, where it is very hot, and often unhealthy. "Mahogany, as you see, is a beautiful wood, and takes a fine polish. It was introduced into England about the end of the seventeenth century.* A captain of a West Indian ship brought home some logs, which he had put on board his vessel simply as ballast; that is, as weight to make it steady. He gave them to his brother, a physician, who was building a house, supposing they might be useful to him; but the carpenters would not do any thing with the wood, saying that it was too hard for their tools. "Some time after, the wife of this physician was in want of a candle box, and she told the cabinet maker to make it out of one of the logs of mahogany which had been thrown aside. He was unwilling at first, because he thought it would spoil his tools; but he at last consented. When the box was made and polished, it far outshone any thing in the physician's new house; and people came from far and near to look at it. A lady of rank had a bureau made from one of the logs; and from this time the use of mahogany was gradually extended till it became general. "Articles of mahogany furniture were once formed of the solid wood, which made them quite expensive; but that has been obviated by a modern invention. A log of mahogany is now cut into very thin pieces, called veneers, by sharp saws; and these veneers are nicely glued upon pine, so that we can have now what looks like a mahogany table, though it is really made of pine, with a covering of mahogany outside. Such a table is much cheaper than if it were all mahogany. Then next comes the table cloth. This is made of linen. Linen is produced from a plant called flax. Have you ever seen flax growing?" *The seventeenth century is the period between 1600 and 1701. "Yes, father showed me some last summer growing in a field on grandfather's farm. It had a green stalk, with a pretty blue flower. When father showed it to me, he repeated a piece of poetry about a little girl that was lost in a shipwreck, and it said, 'Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax.' Father told me that this meant that her eyes were as blue as those flowers." 66 "I am very glad, my dear, that you remember so well what your father tells you. After the flowers are dead, the plants are pulled up. The seeds are then beaten out; the stalks are soaked in water, and dried, and combed, and bleached, until they become a bundle of fibres, like very fine hair. These are spun into threads, and the threads are woven into cloth. You will see that the surface of the table cloth is not uniform, or all alike, but that it has patterns, or figures, wrought into it. This is all done by very curious and ingenious machinery. "Flax is not much raised in our country; nor are there many manufactories of linen here. They raise it in great quantities in England, Ireland, Belgium, and parts of Germany; and it is manufactured in Scotland, England, the north of Ireland, and Germany. This table cloth was brought in a ship from Liverpool, in England." "You said just now that the flax was bleached. What is that?" "To bleach is to make white. The natural color of flax is a kind of brown, like the brown linen thread I have in my work basket; and it has to be whitened by art. Most linen fabrics are whitened after they are woven. It used to be done by spreading the cloth upon the grass, in the sun, and frequently wetting it; but now the cloth is dipped into a kind of liquid which takes the color out at once. "Now we have the table set, and the cloth spread; we will next see what there is on the table. Here are the coffee pot, the tea pot, the water pot, the cream jug, and the sugar bowl. What do you think these are made of?" "They are made of silver, I suppose. They look like the silver half dollar father gave me once." “Your answer is a natural one, my dear Lucy. Older persons than you judge of things by their outward appearance. These are not made of silver, though they look like it. Rich people have them of silver, but ours are made of a white metal, commonly called German silver, covered over, or plated, with real silver. German silver is made of copper, zinc, and nickel; all of which are metals. Articles of this kind are made in great numbers in the city of Birmingham, in England. They are also made in our country.". LXXIV. - THE SAME SUBJECT, CONTINUED. "LET us next go to the cups and saucers and the plates. They are of the same substance, and of a white color; but they may be of other colors. Our dinner plates, you know, are covered all over with blue figures. They are all called, in common speech, earthen ware, or crockery ware, and sometimes China ware, because much of it comes from China. All kinds of crockery ware are made out of earth or clay. The finest sorts, which are sometimes called porcelain, are made partly of clay, and partly of flint stones which have been burned, pounded, and ground into a powder. "This material is mixed with water, and made into a sort of paste, or dough; this is shaped or moulded into cups, plates, or dishes, and it is done very quickly and neatly by men who are accustomed to it. They use a wheel to help them shape it. Then it is put into an oven and heated, and when it comes out it is glazed, and sometimes painted with figures, and colored.” "What do you mean by glazed, mother?” "If you look at a cup, or plate, carefully, you will see that the surface is not merely smooth, but polished and bright, |