"Well, what else did you plow up?" asked the little boy.

When

"There was something that we didn't plow up," answered his father. "At one place I noticed a stick standing up in the ground just ahead of us. your grandpa got near the stick he drove the horses around on one side of it and left a narrow strip of

land not plowed.

"Why did you do that?' I asked. He stopped the horses and lifted me from my seat.

here, and I'll show you,' he said.

'Come back

"Close by the stick there was a hole in the ground, and the hole was almost filled with dry grass and tufts of gray fur. Your grandpa stooped and lifted up the dry grass very gently, and what do you think was under it?"

"Oh, tell me, papa, what was it?'

99

"A soft warm nest with six tiny young rabbits in. it. As soon as they were uncovered they began to squeak, for they thought their mother had come to them. I was about to pick one of them up, but your grandpa said, 'Don't touch them. The old rabbit doesn't like them to be meddled with.'

"Then he pushed the grass back over them, and we went on. I asked your grandpa what he would do with the strip of land where the rabbits had their

nest; and he said that he would come back and plow it when the little fellows were big enough to run away. He was always kind to everything."

"Do farmers always plow up so many live things?" asked the little boy.

"No, not always. I'll tell you why so many little animals happened to be in that piece of ground which your grandpa was plowing that day. It was an old meadow. A meadow is a field where the grass is allowed to grow tall and become ripe. In the summer, when the grass has ripened, it is cut for hay; then new grass springs up from the roots and covers the ground. After a while this second growth of grass becomes brown and dry and falls over on the ground. Then, when winter comes many little animals find good warm places in it where they are safe from the wind and the snow. Some of them dig into the ground and make their nests there.

"Grass had been growing a long time in that old meadow where we were plowing, and tiny wild creatures had been living there for many years.'

"Well, I wish I could ride on a plow," said the boy.

EXPRESSION: What did the plow turn up? Choose parts, and read what is said about each thing. Read each of the little boy's questions just as you think he spoke them.

CATCHING THE COLT 1

With star in forehead, silver tail,
And three white feet to match,
The gay, half-broken, playful colt
Not one of us could catch.

"I can," said Jack, "I'm good for that"; Then he shook his empty hat.

"She'll think it's full of corn," said he ;
"Stand back, and she will come to me."

Her head, the shy, proud creature raised
As 'mid the daisy flowers she grazed;
Then down the hill, across the brook,
Delaying oft, her way she took.

Then stepping softly, and with movement
quick,

She hurried on, and then came back. "Ho! ho! I've caught you!" then said Jack, And put the halter round her neck.

By and by came another day

When Jack was wishing for a ride.

"I'll catch that colt the very same way,-
I know I can," said he with pride.

1 By Marian Douglas.

FOURTH READER 4

So, up the stony pasture lane,

And up the hill he trudged again;
Then to the colt he said, "Come, ho!"
And shook his old hat to and fro.

"She'll think it's full of corn," he thought, "And easily then she will be caught." "Come, Beck!" he called; and at the sound The restless creature looked around.

Soon, with a quick, impatient kick,
She galloped far away from Jack;
Then underneath a tree she stopped
And leisurely some clover cropped.

Jack followed after, but in vain ;
His hand was just upon her mane,
When off she flew as flies the wind,
And, panting, he pressed on behind.

Down the steep hill, the brook across,
O'er bushes, thistles, mounds of moss,
Round and around the field they passed,
Till breathless Jack fell down at last.

Then, vexed, he threw away his hat,
"The colt," he said, "remembers that!
There's always trouble from deceit ;
I'll never try again to cheat!"

TOM, DICK, AND HARRY

Tom and Dick were two fire-engine horses. They were large and strong and beautiful. They could run very fast, and all the firemen were proud of them.

For six years these two horses had gone to every fire in their district. They had learned all the fire signals, and they knew just what to do and when to do it.