Chapter M: E. R

HOW A RAT WAS ONCE CAUGHT.

DO you know what sly and cunning creatures rats are? The picture shows how they sometimes contrive to carry off eggs. The old fox in the background seems to be watching the performance with great interest.

But, cute as they are, they sometimes get caught. I am going to tell you how a rat was once caught by a clam. It happened when I was a little child, and lived with my mother. Whether such a thing ever happened before or since, I do not know; but this is a true story.

One day, my father went to town, and bought some clams. When he came home, I took them down cellar in a basket, and laid them on the brick floor of the cellar. Now, when clams are put where it is dark and cool and quiet, they open their shells. If you should go softly up, and put a straw in one of their mouths, it would clasp its shells together so tightly, that you could not get them open.

The cellar was under my mother's bed-room; and in the night she heard a great noise, like something bumping and slamming, down below. Being a brave woman, she lighted a candle, and went down stairs; and what do you think she found? I will tell you; for I am sure you would never guess.

When the house came to be still with the night-stillness, and every one was in bed, an old rat had come out of his hole, and gone foraging around for his supper. As he walked majestically along, swinging his long tail after him, it happened to switch into a clam's opened shell, when, presto change! the clam was no longer only a clam: it was a rat-trap.

It pinched hard; and I am sure it hurt the old rat very much. He ran across the cellar to his hole; and the clam bounced on the bricks as he went; and that was what my mother had heard. The rat could not get the clam into the hole. It held him fast by the tail all the rest of his life, which was not long; for he was killed soon after.

LIZZIE'S MAMMA.

TO SEA IN A TUB.

HERE is a picture of a boy trying his new boat in a tub of water. His brothers and sisters are looking on. His elder brother seems to be pointing out some fault in the rig of the boat. Perhaps he thinks the sails are too large. The dog Tray takes a good deal of interest in the matter. I wonder what he thinks of it.

But the story I am going to tell you is about a little girl named Emma, and what happened one day, when she went out in the yard to play. Her mother had told her not to go outside the gate: so she looked around the doorway to see what she could find to play with. There stood a great tub full of water; and there, close by, was a pile of chips. "Boats!" said Emma to herself: "I'll sail boats!"

It didn't take a minute to get six of the nicest chips well afloat; but after all they were not much better than rafts.

"I must put on sails," said Emma. And running into the sitting-room, and getting some pins, and then putting a bit of paper on each pin, and sticking a pin upright in each chip, at last she had her little boats with little sails, going straight across the tub with a fair wind.

Once a fly alighted on one of the boats, and took quite a long voyage. That made Emma think of trying to find other passengers; and she picked up a great ground beetle, and put him aboard. Poor beetle! he didn't want to go, and he wasn't used to it. He tumbled about on the deck; the boat tipped under him, and the next thing Emma knew he was overboard.

"Oh, he mustn't drown!" she cried. "I must get him out!" And she stooped over in great haste to save the poor beetle. But it was a large tub, and a very deep one too; and what did little Emma know about being careful? She lost her balance, and down into the water she went, with a great splash that wrecked all the boats in the same instant. "Mother, mother!" screamed a choking, sputtering voice, as Emma managed to lift her head.

Her mother heard it, and flew to the spot. It didn't take long to get Emma into the warm kitchen, to pull off the wet clothes, to wrap her in a blanket, and set her before the fire in the big rocking-chair, with a bowl of hot ginger-tea to drink. There Emma sat, and steamed, and begged for stories. By eleven o'clock she couldn't stand it any longer, and by noon she was out in the yard again, playing tea-party, and not one whit the worse for her sudden cold bath. But what became of the poor beetle?

MARY L. B. BRANCH.

A LENTEN-SONG.

FROM THE GERMAN.

QUOG, quog, quog, quog!
A very unmusical note:
This eminent basso, Mr. Frog,
Has surely a cold in his throat.
But he does his best, with a good intent,
The little speckled man;
For every frog must sing in Lent,
As loud as ever he can.

Quog, quog, quog, quog!
When the morning sky is red,
He sits on the slippery, mossy log,
With the rushes over his head.
He does his best, with a good intent,
The little sprawling man;
For every frog must sing in Lent,
As loud as ever he can.

Quog, quog, quog, quog!
When the evening sky is pale,
He nestles low in the sheltering bog,
While the gentle dews exhale.
He does his best, with a good intent,
The little struggling man;
For every frog must sing in Lent,
As loud as ever he can.

Quog, quog, quog, quog!
He strains till he shakes the reeds,
And scares his neighbor, Miss Polly Wog
As she hides in the water-reeds.
He does his best, with a good intent,
The little panting man;
For every frog must sing in Lent,
As loud as ever he can.

Quog, quog, quog, quog!
Oh! aren't you afraid you'll burst?
You should have put on, dear Mr. Frog,
Your girdle of leather first.
But on he goes, with his good intent,
The little gasping man;
For every frog must sing in Lent,
As loud as ever he can.

OLIVE A. WADSWORTH.

A WOODCHUCK HUNT.

ONE September morning, before breakfast, Ned and Harry went woodchuck hunting. They took Dick, who is a big, fat, spotted coach-dog, and Gyp, a little black-and-tan, with short ears, and afraid of a mouse,--both "such splendid hunters," Harry said.

Gyp ran ahead on three legs; and Dick walked sedately behind. Ned carried the bow, and Harry, the three arrows: and it was enough to make any wise woodchuck tremble to see them.

First they crossed a potato-field, and then a meadow where there was a brook, and where they lost Gyp so often among the bogs, that Harry carried him at last so as to know where he was. Dick ran through the brook, and shook himself over Ned's new sailor-suit; but that was no matter.

Then they came to a rickety old stone wall, and Dick barked. "It must be a woodchuck in the wall. We've got him!" shouted Ned. "Down comes the wall!" Then the stones fell; and Gyp jumped up and down with excitement, while Dick gave a low and terrible growl. "He must be here," said Ned.

But, as he was not to be found, Dick was reproved for giving a false alarm; and they all jumped over the stones of the old wall, and ran up the hill towards the walnut-grove, where woodchucks were sure to be as thick as nuts.

"Here's a fresh hole!" shouted Harry. "Now it's almost breakfast-time: he'll be out before long. Come on, Mr. Chuck, we're waiting for you."

So the boys lay down flat on the mound of earth, and peered into the hole, by way of inviting its owner to come out and be shot; while Dick and Gyp gave persuasive growls and yelps.

Strangely enough no woodchuck appeared; and after waiting an "age,"--five minutes long,--the brave hunters decided to dig in. "We ought to have brought spades," they said; but sticks and stones and hands did very well in the soft, wet earth.

About the time that Harry got out of breath, and Ned had dropped a stone on his foot, Dick barked furiously at something moving under a hazel-bush. "Shoot, Ned, shoot!" Harry shouted. "Whiz" went an arrow straight into the bushes, where it lodged, and never more came out.

"A chase, a chase!" cried Ned, throwing down his bow; and away they went,--Harry and Ned, Dick and Gyp,--over stones and fences, bushes and bogs, in pursuit of something; but whether it was a woodchuck or a cat they never got near enough to tell. Suddenly it disappeared in a corn-field.

Dick and Gyp put their tails between their legs, and dropped their ears; but Ned and Harry spied some pumpkins ripening among the stacked corn.

"Gay for Jack-o-lanterns!" said Harry. "Wouldn't they frighten Belle and Lucy, though!"

So two of the biggest pumpkins were cut off. "Now let's take 'em home," said Harry, thinking of his breakfast. But, oh, how heavy those pumpkins grew! In getting over a wall, Harry's fell and was smashed: so the boys took turns in carrying the other one.

Mamma stood on the piazza, in a fresh white morning-dress. She heard Dick and Gyp, and then she saw her little boys. Oh, what a sight!--the striped stockings and blue sailor-suits all one shade of yellow brown earth!

"Did you have good sport?" asked papa, coming to the door.

"Splendid! Found lots of _holes_," said Ned, dumping the pumpkin. And what they did with the pumpkin, perhaps I'll tell you another time.

MISS A. H. R.

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS.

"THERE are many thousand words in our language," said Ellen, reading from a book, "and some words are used for one purpose, and some for another; and the same word may be used in different ways. When your uncle gave you a lot of shells last December, what did you do with them, Edwin?"

"I classified them: that is, I put one kind into one heap, and another kind into another heap; and so on."

"Well, that is just the way we do with words; we put them in classes which we call Parts of Speech. Now, there is one class of words which is made up of name-words or nouns; that is, of words that are used as names of persons or things. In the sentence, 'Birds fly,' _birds_ is a noun, and _fly_ is a verb."

"I think I knew that much already, Schoolmistress."

"Well, sir, since you know so much, let me hear you correct the mistakes in the following sentence: 'A pear or peach, when they are ripe, are good food for the boy or girl who like them.'"

"It should be: 'A pear or a peach, when it is ripe, is good food for the boy or girl who likes it.'"

"Well done, Edwin! go up to the head of your class."

Edwin walked round his sister, as she sat in her chair, and then gravely took his place again before her.

"Here are two sentences, Edwin: 'I fell down,' and 'I fell down stairs.' _Down_ is not the same Part of Speech in the two sentences. What is it in the first?'"

"An Adverb; and in the second it is a Preposition."

"Well, sir, school is dismissed. You may go. I shall give you a good mark in grammar."

IDA FAY.

A MEW FROM PUSSY.

IN ANSWER TO "A SQUEAK."[A]