The New McGuffey Fourth Reader Part 8

DEFINITIONS:--Molest, harm. Prairie, a treeless plain. Wigwam, an Indian house.

HARRY AND HIS DOG.

BY MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

"Beg, Frisk, beg," said little Harry, as he sat on an inverted basket, at his grandmother's door, eating, with great satisfaction, a porringer of bread and milk. His little sister Annie sat on the ground opposite to him, now twisting her flowers into garlands, and now throwing them away.

"Beg, Frisk, beg!" repeated Harry, holding a bit of bread just out of the dog s reach; and the obedient Frisk squatted himself on his hind legs, and held up his fore paws, waiting for master Harry to give him the tempting morsel.

The little boy and the little dog were great friends. Frisk loved him dearly, much better than he did any one else, perhaps, because he remembered that Harry was his earliest and firmest friend during a time of great trouble.

Poor Frisk had come as a stray dog to Milton, the place where Harry lived. If he could have told his own story, it would probably have been a very pitiful one, of kicks and cuffs, of hunger and foul weather.

Certain it is, he made his appearance at the very door where Harry was now sitting, in miserable plight, wet, dirty, and half starved; and there he met Harry, who took a fancy to him, and Harry's grandmother, who drove him off with a broom.

Harry, at length, obtained permission for the little dog to remain as a sort of outdoor pensioner, and fed him with stray bones and cold potatoes, and such things as he could get for him.

He also provided him with a little basket to sleep in, the very same which, turned up, afterward served Harry for a seat.

After a while, having proved his good qualities by barking away a set of pilferers, who were making an attack on the great pear tree, he was admitted into the house, and became one of its most vigilant and valued inmates. He could fetch or carry either by land or water; would pick up a thimble or a ball of cotton, if little Annie should happen to drop them; or take Harry's dinner to school for him with perfect honesty.

"Beg, Frisk, beg!" said Harry, and gave him, after long waiting, the expected morsel. Frisk was satisfied, but Harry was not. The little boy, though a good-humored fellow in the main, had turns of naughtiness, which were apt to last him all day, and this promised to prove one of his worst. It was a holidays, and in the afternoon his cousins, Jane and William, were to come and see him and Annie; and the pears were to be gathered, and the children were to have a treat.

Harry, in his impatience, thought the morning would never be over. He played such pranks--buffeting Frisk, cutting the curls off of Annie's doll, and finally breaking his grandmother's spectacles--that before his visitors arrived, indeed, almost immediately after dinner, he contrived to be sent to bed in disgrace.

Poor Harry! there he lay, rolling and kicking, while Jane, and William, and Annie were busy gathering the fine, mellow pears.

William was up in the tree, gathering and shaking. Annie and Jane were catching them in their ap.r.o.ns, or picking them up from the ground, now piling them in baskets, and now eating the nicest and ripest, while Frisk was barking gayly among them, as if he were catching pears too!

Poor Harry! He could hear all this glee and merriment through the open window, as he lay in bed. The storm of pa.s.sion having subsided, there he lay weeping and disconsolate, a grievous sob bursting forth every now and then, as he heard the loud peals of childish laughter, and as he thought how he should have laughed, and how happy he should have been, had he not forfeited all his pleasure by his own bad conduct.

He wondered if Annie would not be so good-natured as to bring him a pear. All on a sudden, he heard a little foot on the stair, pitapat, and he thought she was coming. Pitapat came the foot, nearer and nearer, and at last a small head peeped, half afraid, through the half-open door.

But it was not Annie's head; it was Frisk's--poor Frisk, whom Harry had been teasing all the norning, and who came into the room wagging his tail, with a great pear in his mouth; and, jumping upon the bed, he laid it in the little boy's hand.

Is not Frisk a fine, grateful fellow? and does he not deserve a share of Harry's breakfast, whether he begs for it or not? And little Harry will remember from the events of this day that kindness, even though shown to a dog, will always be rewarded; and that ill nature and bad temper are connected with nothing but pain and disgrace.

DEFINITIONS:--Inverted, turned upside down. Porringer, a small metallic dish. Remembered, had not forgotten. Plight, condition.

Pensioner, one who is supported by others. Pilferers, those who steal little things. Vigilant, watchful. Inmates, those living in the same house. Holiday, a day of amus.e.m.e.nt. Buffeting, striking with the hand. Subsided, become quiet. Forfeited, lost.

Connected, united, have a close relation.

EXERCISE.--What two lessons may be learned from this story? Is it a good rule to return kindness for unkindness? Do you think that Harry's dog brought him the pear because he was really grateful?

LITTLE BOY BLUE.*

BY EUGENE FIELD.

The little toy dog is covered with dust, But st.u.r.dy and stanch he stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket it molds in his hands.

Time was when the little toy dog was new, And the soldier was pa.s.sing fair, And there was a time when our Little Boy Blue Kissed them and put them there.

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said, "And don't you make any noise!"

So, toddling off to his trundle bed, He dreamed of the pretty toys: And, as he was dreaming, an angel song Awakened our Little Boy Blue-- Oh, the years are many, the years are long; But the little toy friends are true.

Ah, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand, Each in the same old place, Awaiting the touch of a little hand, The smile of a little face; And they wonder, as waiting these long years thro'

In the dust of that little chair, What has become of our Little Boy Blue, Since he kissed them and put them there.

* From " A Little Book of Western Verse." Copyright, 1889, by Eugene Field. By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers.

IF I WERE A BOY.

If I were a boy again, and knew what I know now, I would not be quite so positive in my opinions as I used to be. Boys generally think that they are very certain about many things. A boy of fifteen is generally a great deal more sure of what he thinks he knows than a man of fifty.

You ask the boy a question and he will probably answer you right off, with great a.s.surance; he knows all about it. Ask a man of large experience and ripe wisdom the same question, and he will say, "Well, there is much to be said about it. I am inclined on the whole to think so and so, but other intelligent men think otherwise."

When I was a small boy, I traveled from central Ma.s.sachusetts to western New York, crossing the river at Albany, and going the rest of the way by ca.n.a.l. On the ca.n.a.l boat a kindly gentleman was talking to me one day, and I mentioned the fact that I had crossed the Connecticut River at Albany. How I got it in my head that it was the Connecticut River, I do not know, for I knew my geography very well then; but in some unaccountable way I had it fixed in my mind that the river at Albany was the Connecticut, and I called it so.

"Why," said the gentleman, "that is the Hudson River."

"Oh, no, sir!" I replied, politely but firmly. "You're mistaken.

That is the Connecticut River."

The gentleman smiled and said no more. I was not much in the habit, I think, of contradicting my elders; but in this matter I was perfectly sure that I was right, and so I thought it my duty to correct the gentleman's geography. I felt rather sorry for him that he should be so ignorant. One day, after I reached home, I was looking over my route on the map, and lo! there was Albany standing on the Hudson River, a hundred miles from the Connecticut.

Then I did not feel half so sorry for the gentleman's ignorance as I did for my own. I never told anybody that story until I wrote it down on these pages the other day; but I have thought of it a thousand times, and always with a blush for my boldness.

Nor was it the only time that I was perfectly sure of things that really were not so. It is hard for a boy to learn that he may be mistaken; but, unless he is a fool, he learns it after a while.

The sooner he finds it out, the better for him.

If I were a boy, I would not think that I and the boys of my time were an exception to the general rule--a new kind of boys, unlike all who have lived before, having different feelings and different ways. To be honest, I must own that I used to think so myself. I was quite inclined to reject the counsel of my elders by saying to myself, "That may have been well enough for boys thirty or fifty years ago, but it isn't the thing for me and my set of boys." But that was nonsense. The boys of one generation are not different from the boys of another generation.

If we say that boyhood lasts fifteen or sixteen years, I have known three generations of boys, some of them city boys and some of them country boys, and they are all very much alike--so nearly alike that the old rules of industry and patience and perseverance and self-control are as applicable to one generation as to another. The fact is, that what your fathers and teachers have found by experience to be good for boys, will be good for you; and what their experience has taught them will be bad for boys, will be bad for you. You are just boys, nothing more nor less.

DEFINITIONS:-- a.s.surance, certainty. Route, road. Generation, people living at the same time. Applicable, can be applied.

EXERCISE--Find on the map, Albany, the Hudson River, and the Connecticut River.

THE TEMPEST.

BY JAMES T. FIELDS.

We were crowded in the cabin; Not a soul would dare to sleep It was midnight on the waters, And a storm was on the deep.