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LESSON XXXII.-THE SILK WORM.

Charles, do not you re-mem-ber the cat-er-pil-lar we put in-to a pa-per box, with some mul-ber-ry leaves for it to eat? Let us go and look at it. It is gone-here is no cat-er-pil-lar-there is some-thing in the box; what is it? I do not know. It is a lit-tle ball of yellow stuff. Let us cut it o-pen, per-haps we may find the cat-er-pil-lar. No, here is noth-ing but a strange lit-tle grub, and it is dead, I be-lieve, for it does not move. Pinch it gent-ly by the tail. Now it stirs: it is not dead quite. Charles, this grub is your cat-er-pil-lar; it is, in-deed. That yel-low stuff is silk. The cat-erpil-lar spun all that silk, and cov-ered it-self up with it; and then it was turned into this grub. Take it and lay it in the sun: we will come and look at it a-gain to-morrow morn-ing. Well, this is very sur-pris-ing! here is no grub at all to be found. Did not we put it on this sheet of paper last night? Yes, we did. And no-bod-y has been in the room to med-dle with it. at all has been in the room. Is there noth-ing up-on the sheet of pa-per? Yes, here is a white but-ter-fly. I won-der how it came here, for the win-dows are shut. Per-haps the grub is turned into a but-ter-fly. It is, in-deed; and look, here is the emp-ty shell of the grub. Here is where the but-ter-fly came out. But the butter-fly is too big: this shell could not hold him. Yes, it did, be-cause his wings were fold-ed up, and he lay very snug. It is the same, I as-sure you, Charles; all the pretty but-ter-flies that you see fly-ing about were cat-er-pil-lars once, and crawled on the ground.-Mrs. Barbauld.

No, no-bod-y

LESSON XXXIII.-THE WEEK.

What is to-day, Charles? To-day is Sun-day.

And what will to-mor-row be? To-mor-row will be Mon-day.

And what will the next day be? The next day will be Tues-day.

And the next day? Wed-nes-day.

And the next?

And the next?

Thurs-day.

Fri-day.

And the next? Sat-ur-day.

And what will come after Sat-ur-day? Why, then, Sun-day will come a-gain.

Sun-day, Mon-day, Tues-day, Wed-nes-day, Thurs-day, Fri-day, Sat-ur-day. That makes sev-en days, and seven days make a week.

On Sun-day be-gin

The week with-out sin;
On Mon-day re-sume

Your tasks with-out gloom;

And pray don't be vex'd
That Tues-day comes next;

And when it is gone,

Doth Wed-nes-day come on;

And Thurs-day can ne'er

To fol-low for-bear;

And Fri-day, no doubt,

Not be-ing left out,

With Sat-ur-day, last,

The week will be past.-Sara Coleridge.

LESSON XXXIV.-THE ACORN.

Sup-pose a lit-tle boy is walk-ing out in the fields on some fair day in au-tumn. As he bounds a-long he sees some-thing on the ground, which looks round and smooth like a lit-tle egg. He picks it up. It is an a-corn. He car-ries it a little while, and then throws it a-way. He thinks it a small af-fair and use-less. He for-gets it entire-ly. The poor little a-corn lies for-got-ten. The ox comes a-long, and treads it in the ground with-out ev-er know-ing it. It lies and sleeps there in the ox-track dur-ing the cold win-ter. In the spring it swells. The lit-tle sprout peeps out, a root grows down, and two lit-tle leaves o-pen on the top of the ground. It lives and grows. Dur-ing a hun-dred years it grows, while men live and die, and while many a storm beats upon it. It is in time a gi-ant oak-tree. It is cut down, and made into a might-y ship, and la-den with goods. The ship sails round the world, and does her er-rand at many hun-dreds of pla-ces. She bears the flag of her na-tion on her mast, and her na-tion is hon-oured for her sake. What great things may spring from small ones! Who would have thought that such a lit-tle thing could contain the might-y oak in it? Be-sides this, that one tree bears a-corns e-nough ev-er-y year to raise a thou-sand more oaks; and these, ev-er-y year, bear e-nough to raise ten thou-sand more. Thus a whole for-est may be shut up in the lit-tle bud of a sin-gle a‐corn. What great things may be found in lit-tle things!-Todd,

LESSON XXXV.-THE CREATION-SIXTH DAY.

There is an-oth-er sort of liv-ing crea-tures, called in-sects. God made them come out of the earth, and

not out of the wa-ter, like birds and fish-es. In-sects are small, and creep upon the earth; such as ants. Some in-sects can fly al-so; such as bees and but-terflies. The bee sucks the juice of flowers, and makes wax and hon-ey. How gay are the wings of the butter-fly! they are cov-ered with little feath-ers, too small to be seen. All the in-sects were good and pret-ty when God made them.

At last God made the beasts. They came out of the earth when God spoke. Beasts walk upon the earth: most of them have four legs. You know the names of a great many sorts of beasts. Sheep and cows, dogs and cats, are beasts. But there are many other sorts be-sides. The squirrel that jumps from bough to bough, the rab-bit that lives in a hole un-der ground, and the goat that climbs the high hills; the stag with his beau-ti-ful horns, the li-on with his yel-low hair, the ti-ger whose skin is marked with stripes. The el-e-phant is the lar-gest of the beasts, the li-on is the strong-est, the dog is the most sen-si-ble, the stag is the most beau-ti-ful, but the lamb is the gen-tlest. The dove is the gen-tlest of the birds, and the lamb is the gen-tlest of the beasts. Now God had filled the world with living crea-tures, and they were all good; even li-ons and ti-gers were good and harm-less. I have told you of four sorts of living crea-tures. Fish-es. Birds. In-sects. Beasts.-"Peep of Day."

LESSON XXXVI.-A LITTLE MISTAKE.

In a dark night there was once a ship com-ing in-to one of our har-bours. She had been to In-di-a on a long voy-age, and had been gone a year or two. She had a very cost-ly car-go, or load, on board. The cap-tain and

all in her were ho-ping and ex-pect-ing soon to see their friends and their homes. The sail-ors had brought out their best clothes, and were clean and neat. As they came bound-ing a-long o-ver the foam-ing wa-ters, and drew near to the land, the cap-tain told a man to go to the top of the mast and "look out for the light-house." The light-house is a high, round kind of tower, built out on the points of the land, with great lamps light-ed every night in its top, so that ves-sels may see it be-fore they get too near the land. This light-house stood at the en-trance of the har-bour. Soon the man cried out,

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Light a-head!" Then they all re-joiced, and knew they were near the har-bour.

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While they had been gone, this light-house had been re-moved to an-oth-er place, a-way from where it was when they sailed. But the cap-tain knew noth-ing a-bout that. So they kept sailing in what they supposed was the old way. In a short time the man at the mast-head cries out, Break-ers a-head!" that is, rocks just be-fore us, "and the ship is just on them!" The cap-tain cast his eye out on the dark wa-ters, and saw the white foam on the rocks. In a mo-ment he cries out, "Star-board the helm." Now see how much may hang on one lit-tle word. The man at the helm mistook the word, and thought the cap-tain said, “Lar-board the helm." So he turned it the wrong way. It was done in a mo-ment, in the twink-ling of an eye. But it was turned the wrong way, and the ship struck on the rocks the next mo-ment, and was dashed in a thou-sand pie-ces. The car-go was lost, and ev-er-y soul on board, ex-cept one or two, was drowned. All this hung up-on one lit-tle word, or lit-tle mis-take. If that word had been un-der-stood right, she would not have been lost.

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