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destiny was over. You would have thought that she owned all the vegetables, and had raised them all from their earliest years. Such quiet, vegetable airs! Such gracious appropriation! At length I said:

"Polly, do you squashes?"

know who planted that squash, or those 5

"James, I suppose."

"Well, yes; perhaps James did plant them to a certain But who hoed them?"

extent.

"We did."

"And

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"We did!" I said in the most sarcastic manner. I suppose we put on the sackcloth and ashes when the striped bug came at four o'clock A.M., and we watched the tender leaves, and watered night and morning the feeble plants. I tell you, Polly," said I, uncorking the 10 vinegar, "there is not a pea here that does not represent a drop of moisture wrung from my brow, nor a beet that does not stand for a back-ache, nor a squash that has not caused me untold anxiety; and I did hope- but I will say no more."

Observation. In this sort of family discussion, “I will say no more" is the most effective thing you can close up with.

Abridged.

Eternal gardening is the price of liberty: the original quotation is, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Its authorship is unknown.

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TO THE DANDELION

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

LOWELL, Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, and Holmes belong to the group known as the New England poets. Lowell stands high among

them. He was a great critic as well as a great poet, and he was deeply interested in American politics. During the Mexican War, and again dur5 ing the Civil War, he wrote a series of poems called "The Biglow Papers." These represented the views of an up-country farmer, whose sound good sense and rough dialect went straight to the point. It is hard to fight a laugh, and these verses had undoubted influence in political questions.

James Russell Lowell's name is one long to be remembered in Ameri10 can literature. One of his best known poems is "The Vision of Sir Launfal." Lowell was at one time United States minister to Spain, and later to England. He died in 1891 at the age of seventy-two.

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Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,

First pledge of blithesome May,

Which children pluck, and full of pride uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,

Which not the rich earth's ample round

May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer blooms may be.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,

Who, from the dark old tree

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,

And I, secure in childish piety,

Listened as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he could bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears

When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam

Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of God's book.

Abridged.

buccaneers: pirates. - Eldorä'do: a name given by the Spanish to an imaginary country in South America, said to abound in gold and jewels. - peers: equals; those of the same rank. - prod'igal: one who spends his money too freely.

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THE WARNING

MARY JOHNSTON

MISS MARY JOHNSTON is a young author from Virginia, whose novels show remarkable descriptive and dramatic ability.

NOTE. This selection is taken from "To Have and To Hold," a story of early colonial life in Virginia. Captain Percy has escaped from the 5 Indians, and is on his way back to Jamestown to warn the colony of an attack that the savages are planning.

At last the dawn came and I could press on more rapidly. For two days and two nights I had not slept; for a day and a night I had not tasted food. As the sun 10 climbed the heavens, a thousand black spots, like summer gnats, danced between his face and my weary eyes. The forest laid stumbling-blocks before me, and drove me back, and made me wind in and out when I would have had my path straighter than an arrow. When the ground allowed 15 I ran; when I must break my way, panting, through undergrowth so dense and stubborn that it seemed some enchanted thicket, where each twig snapped but to be on the instant stiff in place again, I broke it with what patience I might; when I must turn aside for this or that 20 obstacle I made the detour, though my heart cried out at the necessity. Once I saw reason to believe that two or more Indians were upon my trail, and lost time in outwitting them; and once I must go a mile out of my way to avoid an Indian village.

As the day wore on I began to go as in a dream. It had come to seem the gigantic wood of some fantastic tale through which I was traveling. The fallen trees ranged themselves into an abatis hard to surmount; the thickets withstood one like iron; the streamlets were like rivers, 5 the marshes leagues wide, the tree tops miles away. Little things -twisted roots, trailing vines, dead and rotten wood-made me stumble. A wind was blowing that had blown just so since time began, and the forest was filled with the sound of the sea.

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Afternoon came and the shadows began to lengthen. They were lines of black paint split in a thousand places and stealing swiftly and surely across the brightness of the land. Torn and bleeding and breathless, I hastened on; for it was drawing toward night, and I should have been 15 at Jamestown hours before. My head pained me, and as I ran I saw men and women stealing in and out among the trees before me: Pocahontas with her wistful eyes and braided hair, and finger on her lips; Nautauquas, Dale, the knight-marshal, and Argall with his fierce, unscrupu- 20 lous face; my cousin, George Percy, and my mother with her stately figure, her embroidery in her hands. I knew that they were but phantoms of my brain, but their presence confused and troubled me.

The shadows ran together and the sunshine died out of 25 the forest. Stumbling on I saw through the thinning trees a long gleam of red, and thought it was blood, but

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