The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;

Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, -
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside.
As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household bosom lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat.

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place;
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth's college halls.
A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took

In trained thought and lore of book. Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he Shall Freedom's young apostles be.

III. BEDTIME

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull's-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely-warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke;
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away,

Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brand with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express

Her grateful sense of happiness

For food and shelter, warmth and health, And love's contentment more than wealth.

Within our beds awhile we heard

The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the lightsifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams

They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,

And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

-Abridged.

1. Describe the family circle about the hearth, and tell what the different members did.

2. Explain these lines:

a. Alas for him who never sees

The stars shine through his cypress-trees.

b. Our uncle, innocent of books.

c. The huskings and the apple-bees.

d. Brisk wielder of the birch and rule. e. And hostage from the future took.

3. What caused the circle to break up?

4. Read aloud the lines that you like best in the poem. Why not memorize them?

5. Of what part of the Introduction (p. 2) does this poem remind you? Give reasons.

6. Why did Whittier like to look back on the days when the Whittiers were snow-bound? What made his boyhood home happy?

7. Topics for special reports:

a. The heaviest snowstorm I ever saw.

b. When we were snow-bound.

c. Our family circle.

d. Reading aloud in our home.

e. My father's favorite story.

4. HANGING A PICTURE

JEROME K. JEROME

Try to find out what Jerome's purpose is from the first three paragraphs. Is his purpose to tell the right way to hang a picture, or to describe a happy family, or to relate a funny story, or to show the character of Uncle Podger? Or is it for all four of these purposes? What seems to show his purpose? Play the game fairly and answer these questions before you read beyond the third paragraph.

You never saw such a commotion up and down a house, in all your life, as when my Uncle Podger undertook to do a job.

A picture would have come home from the frame-maker's and be standing in the dining-room, waiting to be put up; and Aunt Podger would ask what was to be done with it, and Uncle Podger would say:

"Oh, you leave that to me. Don't you, any of you, worry yourselves about that. I'll do all that."

And then he would take off his coat and begin. He would send the girl out for sixpen'orth of nails, and then one of the boys after her to tell her what size to get; and, from that, he would gradually work down, and start the whole house.

"Now you go and get me my hammer, Will," he would shout; "and you bring me the rule, Tom; and I shall want the step-ladder, and I had better have a kitchen-chair, too; and Jim! you run round to Mr. Goggles, and tell him, 'Pa's kind regards, and hopes his leg's better; and will he lend him his spirit-level?' And don't you go, Maria, because I shall want somebody to hold me the light; and when the girl comes back, she must go out again, for a bit of picture-cord; and Tom — where's Tom?- Tom, you come here; I shall want you to hand me up the picture."

And then he would lift up the picture, and drop it, and it would come out of the frame, and he would try to save the glass, and cut himself; and then he would spring round the room, looking for his handkerchief. He could not find his handkerchief, because it was in the pocket of the coat he had taken off, and he did not know where he had put the coat, and all the house had to leave off looking for his tools, and start looking for his coat; while he would dance round and hinder them.

"Doesn't anybody in the whole house know where my coat is? I never came across such a set in all my life upon my word I didn't. Six of you! - and you can't find a coat that I put down not five minutes ago! Well, of all the

Then he'd get up, and find that he had been sitting on it, and would call out:

"Oh, you can give it up! I've found it myself now. Might

just as well ask the cat to find anything as expect you people to find it."

And, when half an hour had been spent in tying up his finger, and a new glass had been got, and the tools, and the ladder, and the chair, and the candle had been brought, he would have another go, the whole family, including the girl and the charwoman, standing round in a semicircle, ready to help. Two people would have to hold the chair, and a third would help him up on it, and hold him there, and a fourth would hand him a nail, and a fifth would pass him up the hammer, and he would take hold of the nail, and drop it.

"There!" he would say, in an injured tone, "now the nail's gone."

And we would all have to go down on our knees and grovel for it, while he would stand on the chair, and grunt, and want to know if he was to be kept there all the evening.

The nail would be found at last. and by that time he would have lost the hammer.

"Where's the hammer? What did I do with the hammer? Seven of you, gaping round there, and you don't know what I did with the hammer!"

We would find the hammer for him, and then he would have lost sight of the mark he had made on the wall where the nail was to go in, and each of us had to get up on a chair beside him and see if we could find it; and we would each discover it in a different place, and he would call us all fools, one after another, and tell us to get down. And he would take the rule, and remeasure, and find that he wanted half thirtyone and three-eighths inches from the corner, and would try to do it in his head, and go mad.

And we would all try to do it in our heads, and all arrive at different results, and sneer at one another. And in the general row, the original number would be forgotten and Uncle Podger would have to measure it again.

He would use a bit of string this time, and at the critical moment, when he was leaning over the chair at an angle of