Of woodland, corn, of wheat and hay;
His cattle roam o'er many a hill,
His brooklet turns the groaning mill;
Yet still he sighs, and longs for more,
And grumbles e'er that he is poor.

4. Four sturdy sons, four daughters fair
Claimed at his hands a father's care.
He gave them labor without end,
And strove their souls, like his, to bend
Into the narrowing groove of thought:
Gold to be earned, land to be bought.

5. Yes, farmer John is growing poor!
You feel it as you pass his door.
His old brown house is small and mean,
The roof is warped by crack and seam;
The leaning bars, the half-hinged door,
Proclaim old John is very poor.

6. No books; no pictures on the wall;
Carpetless rooms and dreary hall.

Why think it strange such farmer's boys
Should seek the city's pomp and noise?
Should learn to loathe the sight of home,
Where naught of joy or grace may come?

7. Why think it strange his poor, old wife,
Who coined for him her very life,
Should pause, at last, despite his frown,
And lay her weary burden down

In joy, to walk the streets of heaven,
Where naught is sold, but all is given?

8. Go where you will, search earth around, The poorest man that can be found,

Is he who toils through life to gain
Widest extent of hill and plain;
Forgetting all his soul's best needs,
In counting o'er his title-deeds.

Mrs. M. M. B. Goodwin.

STILL

LESSON 29.

IN SCHOOL-DAYS.

TILL sits the school-house by the road
A ragged beggar sunning;

Around it still the sumachs grow

And blackberry vines are running.

2 Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial;

3. The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!

4. Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western window-panes,
And low eaves' icy fretting.

5. It touched the tangled golden curls, And brown eyes full of grieving, Of one who still her steps delayed

When all the school were leaving.

6. For near her stood the little boy
Her childish favor singled;

His cap pulled low upon a face

Where pride and shame were mingled.

7. Pushing with restless feet the snow
To right and left, he lingered,—
As restlessly her tiny hands

The blue-checked apron fingered.

8. He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hands' light caressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing.

9. "I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,

Because," the brown eyes lower fell,—
"Because, you see, I love you!"

10. Still memory to a gray-haired man
That sweet child-face is showing.
Dear girl! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing!

11. He lives to learn, in life's hard school, How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and his loss,

Like her, because they love him.

EXERCISE.

John G. Whittier.

Write expressions equivalent to the following:

1. The charcoal frescoes on the wall.

2. Low eaves' icy fretting.

3. The grasses on her grave have forty years been growing.

DOES

LESSON 30.

LIFE AT THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

OES anybody stay at home? If so, who and where? This season, having no northern home and being shut out of our southern one by the torrid heats, we have devoted to an exploration of summer resorts.

2. We have been through the great New York plateau or table land, including Sharon Springs, Richfield, Cherry Valley, Cooperstown, Saratoga, and Lake George, and found all so full, that we wondered when we heard one and another say, that most of the families who usually frequented these resorts were in Europe.

3. Then, we said to ourselves, the New England place of resort cannot be thronged. We applied at Rye Beach no room - every place full: we hear that Old Orchard is overflowing. We come to the Twin Mountain House to find every corner and crevice full; the house daily and nightly crowded; people sleeping in the bathing-rooms, on billiard-tables; beds nightly made in the halls; stages coming in two or three times a day crowded outside and in with new candidates for the places that are daily vacated.

4. Now, when we see this rushing stream of people going in every direction, we ask - Who stays at home? The throng that rushes by seems to have in- it all the composite elements of the family: "Men, women, children, and also much cattle."

5. Our house rejoices in a full quota of babies. One or two children with the whooping-cough give a family sound to matters; toy-terriers, hounds, and coach-dogs gyrate through the halls, and waken the echoes now and then with a bark. Here are whole families settled. down for the summer, with nurses and tutors, and children of every age, from the collegian and the initiated young lady, down to the baby in arms. It is a general stirring up of society together.

6. On Sundays there is a religious service in the parlors, which seems to be attended not only by all the inmates of the house, but by many who come in from the neighborhood, for ten miles around. Last Sunday the preacher discoursed upon "Good Nature" as a Christian grace, and certainly the subject received an amount, not only of discussion, but practical attention quite uncommon for a sermon. In fact it struck upon the very Christian grace and attainment in which an American society, or set of people, most readily excels.

7. If there is anything which we should remark as a national trait of our population, it is good nature. They are not haughty, stiff, prickly, afraid of being approached, and anxious to keep up certain lines and boundaries between themselves and other human beings. The Americans may have their faults, but they do not run in this direction. As a general rule the American is good-humored and obliging; ready always to put the very best face upon present matters, and indisposed to complain of inconveniences, or to make any troublesome offensive stand for personal rights. The preaching of good nature as a Christian grace to such an audience is therefore planting in a well-prepared soil.

8. Such rushes and crushes as the inclement heat of this summer has caused, try one's love to one's neighbor by the surest test. It is easier to love one's neighbor a square off, than to love one's neighbor four in a room. Love, unlike gravitation, often increases with the square of the distance.

9. But the question arises, Why do so many who have the command of beautiful, spacious, well-kept houses and grounds, leave them all, to try their fortunes in the general scramble of the hot months? Surely the hot weather, a trial always, may be better borne in a home, where one has control of many rooms and of all the surroundings, where one can open and shut doors or