3. So the merry brown thrush sings away in the tree, To you and to me, to you and to me;

And he sings all the day, little girl, little boy

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"O, the world's running over with joy;
But long it won't be,

Don't you know? don't you see?

Unless we are as good as can be!"

1JUNIPER. A kind of evergreen tree or shrub.

XXIV. - SPRING RAIN.

OHIO FARMER.

[Schoolboys and girls often feel very cross when it happens to rain on their holidays. The flowers and birds are wiser than they.]

1. THE lark sits high on the walnut tree,

And it rains, it rains, it rains;

A jolly' philosopher' sure is he,

While it rains, it rains, it rains;

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Blithely he looks at the meadow below,

Where the nest will be when the grass-blades grow,
And pours out his song in a liquid flow,
While it rains, it rains, it rains.

2. The crocuses put up their little heads While it rains, it rains, it rains,

And the pink spires spring from their chilly beds, While it rains, it rains, it rains;

The peach blossoms whisper within their cells, "We'll open our eyes, and peep from our bells, While it rains, it rains, it rains."

3. All nature seems happy as happy can be While it rains, it rains, it rains,

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But restless mortals, like you and me,

While it rains, it rains, it rains,

Look out of the windows in discontent,"
And wonder why showers to-day are sent,
Our plans and pleasures to so prevent;
Why, it rains, it rains, it rains.

4. The lark knows well that God knows best
The need of the spring-time rains,

That the summer sunshine will warm his nest
After the spring-time rains,

The grass in the meadow more greenly grow,
And the corn-blades wave in the valley below,
After these spring-time rains.

5. Let us, like him, look cheerily on

While it rains, it rains, it rains;

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Waiting with faith till the storm is gone,
While it rains, it rains, it rains;

We know that above the cloud 'tis light,
And the heavens are shining in beauty bright,
While it rains, it rains, it rains.

1 JOLLY. Full of life and spirits. PHILOSOPHER. A wise person. BLITHELY. Cheerfully.

4 MEADOW, Low grass land.

5 LIQUID. Fowing like water 6 RESTLESS. U easy.

7 DISCONTENT. Dissatisfaction 8 FAITH. rust, confidence.

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1. A LARGE old house in the country was so extremely infested' with rats, that nothing could be seeured from their depredations. They scaled the walls to attack flitches of bacon, though hung as high as the ceiling. Hanging shelves afforded no protection to the cheese and the pastry. They penetrated into the store

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room, and plundered it of preserves and sweetineats. They gnawed through cupboard doors, undermined floors, and ran races behind the wainscots."

2. The cats could not get at them; they were too cunning and too well fed to meddle with poison; and traps only now and then caught a heedless straggler. One of the rats, however, on being taken, was the occasion of practising a new device. This was, to fasten a collar with a small bell about the prisoner's neck, and then turn him loose again.

3. Overjoyed at the recovery' of his liberty, the rat ran into the nearest hole, and went in search of his companions. They heard at a distance the bell tinkle, tinkle, through the dark passages, and, suspecting some enemy had got among them, away they scoured, some one way, and some another.

4. The bell-bearer pursued; and soon guessing the cause of their flight, he was greatly amused by it. Wherever he approached, it was all hurry-skurry, and not a tail of one of them was to be seen. He chased his old friends from hole to hole, and room to room, laughing all the while at their fear, and increasing it by all the means in his power.

5. Presently he had the whole house to himself. "That's right," quoth he; "the fewer, the better cheer." So he rioted" alone among the good things, and stuffed till he could hardly walk.

6. For two or three days this course of life went on very pleasantly. He ate and ate, and played the bugbear to perfection. At length he grew tired of this lonely condition, and longed to mix with his companions again upon the former footing.

7. But the difficulty was how to get rid of his bell.

He pulled and tugged with his fore feet, and almost wore the skin off his neck in the attempt; but all in vain. The bell was now his plague and torment. He wandered from room to room, earnestly desiring to make himself known to one of his companions; but they all kept out of his reach. At last, as he was moping about disconsolate," he fell in puss's way, and was devoured in an instant.

8. He who is raised so much above his fellow-creatures as to be the object of their terror must suffer for it in losing all the comforts of society. He is a solitary being in the midst of crowds. Ile keeps his fellowcreatures at a distance, and they equally shun him. Dread and affection cannot exist together.

1. "I WISH it were always winter!" said Ernest, who, had returned from a sleigh ride, and was making a man out of snow. His father desired him to write down this wish in a memorandum' book he took out of his pocket; and Ernest did so.