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Her aged hand on his strong, young arm
She placed, and so, without hurt or harm,
He guided her trembling feet along,
Proud that his own were firm and strong;
Then back again to his friends he went,
His young heart happy and well content.
"She's somebody's mother, boys, you know,
For all she's aged, and poor, and slow;
And I hope some fellow will lend a hand
To help my mother, you understand,
If ever she's poor, and old, and gray,
When her own dear boy is far away."

And "somebody's mother" bowed low her head
In her home that night, and the prayer she said
Was "God be kind to the noble boy

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Who is somebody's son, and pride, and joy!"

NOTES

1. Collect from other writings all the beautiful tributes you can find paid to mothers.

2. Read Cary's "An Order for a Picture" and Cowper's "On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture."

3. Make a list of a number of the best things a mother does for her children.

4. Explain clearly the meanings of the following words and expressions: bent with the chill, uncared for, amid, throng, heeded, anxious eye, freedom, hastened, slippery street, gayest laddie, paused, guided, lend a hand.

EXERCISES

1. Describe the old woman.

2. Why did she wait so long at the crossing?

3. Why did many children pass without offering her a helping hand?

4. Why was she "so timid, afraid to stir"?

5. What caused the "gayest laddie" to pause to help her?

6. Why "whispered low"?

7. Why did he not fear the jeers and taunts of his companions? 8. What made "his young heart happy and well content"?

9. What reason did he give the boys for his act? ·

10. How did the aged woman show her appreciation?

11. Give instances in which you have known young people to be kind

to older people.

12. Why should young people be respectful and kind to older people? 13. Find other poems in which mothers are shown special respect.

ADDITIONAL READINGS

ALICE CARY: An Order for a Picture, Pictures of Memory.

MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY: Our Mother.

WORDSWORTH: She Was a Phantom of Delight.

LAURA BLANCHARD: The Mother's Hope.

COWPER: My Mother's Picture.

HOOD: I Remember, I Remember.

Somebody's Darling.

HANS ANDERSEN: Story of a Mother.

LOOK FOR GOODNESS

Do not look for wrong and evil —
You will find them if you do;
As you measure for your neighbor,
He will measure back to you.

Look for goodness, look for gladness,
You will meet them all the while;

If you bring a smiling visage
To the glass, you meet a smile.

-Alice Cary.

No

THE FIGHT

one respects a bully on the playground. Every bully is a coward, or he would not try to take advantage of others smaller than himself. Nothing pleases us more than to see a bully punished by a smaller boy who has too much grit to be imposed upon. In the following story, Franti is a big boy who has broken a window-pane of the schoolhouse, but who promised to punish the little cripple, Stardi, if Stardi told on him. Just as another boy was about to be arrested for the act, Stardi appeared and said, "This is not the right one, I saw it with my own eyes. It was Franti who threw it and he said to me, 'Woe if you tell on me,' but I am not afraid." Franti was immediately expelled, but he decided to get revenge on Stardi. The following, taken from an Italian Schoolboy's Diary, describes the fight in which Franti sought revenge.

THE FIGHT

It was what might have been expected. Franti, on being expelled by the head master, wanted to revenge himself on Stardi, and he waited for Stardi at a corner, when he came out of school, and when the latter was passing with his sister, whom he

escorts every day from an institution in the Via Dora Grossa. My sister Silvia, on emerging from her schoolhouse, witnessed the whole affair, and came home thoroughly terrified. This was what took place. Franti, with his cap of wax cloth canted over one ear, ran up on tiptoe behind Stardi, and in order to provoke him, gave a tug at his sister's braid of hair, a tug so violent that it almost threw the girl flat on her back on the ground. The little girl uttered a cry; and her brother whirled around; Franti, who is much taller and stronger than Stardi, thought:

"He'll not utter a word, or I'll break his skin for him!"

But Stardi never paused to reflect, and small and ill-made as he is, he flung himself with one bound on that big fellow, and began to belabor him with his fists. He could not hold his own, however, and he got more than he gave. There was no one in the street but girls, so there was no one who could separate them. Franti flung him on the ground; but the other instantly got up, and then down he went on his back again, and Franti pounded away as upon a door: in an instant he had torn away half an ear, and bruised one eye, and drawn blood from the other's nose. But Stardi was tenacious; he roared:

"You may kill me, but I'll make you pay for it!" And down went Franti, kicking and cuffing, and Stardi under him butting and lunging out with his heels. A woman shrieked from a window, “Good

for the little one!" Others said, "It is a boy defending his sister; courage! give it to him well!" And they screamed at Franti, "You overbearing brute! you coward!" But Franti had grown ferocious; he held out his leg; Stardi tripped and fell, and Franti on top of him.

"Surrender!"

"No!"- Surrender!"

"No!"

and in a flash Stardi recovered his feet, clasped Franti by the body, and, with one furious effort, hurled him on the pavement, and fell upon him with one knee upon his breast.

“Ah, the infamous fellow! he has a knife!" shouted a man, rushing up to disarm Franti.

But Stardi, beside himself with rage, had already grasped Franti's arm with both hands, and bestowed on the fist such a bite that the knife fell from it, and the hand began to bleed. More people had run up in the meantime, who separated them and set them on their feet. Franti took to his heels in a very sorry plight, and Stardi stood still, with his face all scratched, and a black eye, but triumphant, beside his weeping sister, while some of the girls collected the books and copybooks which were strewn over the street.

But Stardi, who was thinking more of his satchel than of his victory, instantly set to examining the books and copybooks, one by one, to see whether anything was missing or injured. He rubbed them off with his sleeve, scrutinized his pen, put everything back in its place, and then, tranquil and serious as usual, he said to his sister,

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