12. THE BAREFOOT BOY. John Greenleaf Whittier, often called the Quaker Poet, is one of the four leading American poets of the nineteenth century. Whittier was a farmer's son, and unlike Bryant, Longfellow, and Lowell, had not the advantage of a college education. Whittier's language is always sweet and simple, and his thought pure and tender. More than any other American poet he has written of American scenes and events. In the days of slavery his pen was never idle. "Barbara Frietchie" is one of the best known of his war poems. "Mabel Martin" is a story of the days of witchcraft. "Snow-Bound," an idyl of winter, is the most beautiful of all his poems. You will notice in "The Barefoot Boy" his love of nature, and his memory of his own happy life as a farmer's boy. Articulation. - kissed | by; mocks; whitest | lilies; freshest | berries. Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy with cheeks of tan! Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace: O for boyhood's painless play, How the robin feeds her young, Definitions. O for boyhood's time of June, I was rich in flowers and trees, Laughed the brook for my delight, Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, I was monarch: pomp and joy Tan, of a yellowish-brown color. Jaunty, airy, showy. Idyl, a finely written descriptive poem. Spell: tortoise (tor/tis); pickerel; Hesperides. Why is the wasp called a mason? What is the mole's spade? How did the boy own the pond and orchards? 13. THE BEE PASTURES OF CALIFORNIA. John Muir, of California, is one of the great naturalists of the West. He is the discoverer of the Muir Glacier in Alaska, and every year he makes some new exploration of mountain or valley. He writes charmingly of what he sees, and is to the flowers, and bees, and birds, and beasts of the Pacific Coast, the same watcher, and listener, and friend, that John Burroughs and Henry Thoreau are to those of the Eastern wild-woods. His description of the Douglas squirrel and his forests, the water ousel and her streams, should be read by every California child. Read also his sketches in a book entitled, "The Mountains of California." When California was wild, it was one sweet bee-garden throughout its entire length. Wherever a bee might fly within the bounds of this wilderness-through the red wood forests, along the banks of the rivers, along the headlands fronting the sea, over valley and plain, or far up the piny slopes of the mountains-bee flowers bloomed in abundance. Here they grew in sheets and patches of no great size, there in broad folds, hundreds of miles in length, zones of polleny forests, zones of flowery chaparral, streamtangles of wild rose, sheets of golden compositæ, beds of violets, beds of mint, beds of clover, and so on—certain species blooming somewhere all the year round. The Great Central Plain of California, during the months of March, April, and May, was one smooth bed of honey-bloom, so rich that, in walking from one end of it to the other, a distance of more than four hundred miles, your feet would press a hundred flowers at every step. Mints, nemophilas, castilleias, gilias, and innumerable compositæ were so crowded together that, had ninetynine in every hundred been taken away, the plain would still have seemed extravagantly flowery to any but Californians. The radiant, honeyful corollas, touching and overlapping, and rising above one another, glowed in the living light like a sunset sky-one glorious blaze of purple and gold. The air was sweet with fragrance; the larks sang their blessed songs, rising on the wing, then sinking out of sight in the polleny sod, while myriads of wild bees stirred the lower air with their monotonous hum-monotonous, yet forever fresh and sweet as everyday sunshine. I have seen wild bees and butterflies feeding at a height of thirteen thousand feet above the sea. Many, however, that go up these dangerous heights never come down again. Some undoubtedly perish in storms, and I have found thousands lying dead or benumbed on the surface of the glaciers, to which they had perhaps been attracted by the white glare. Bears, too, roam the sweet wilderness; and it seems doubtful whether bees themselves enjoy honey with so great a relish. By means of his powerful teeth and claws the bear can gnaw and tear open almost any hive he can reach. Most honey-bees in search of a home are wise enough to make choice of a hollow in a living tree, at a considerable distance above the ground, when it is possible. Here they are pretty secure, for though the smaller black and brown bears climb well, they are unable to break into the strong hives while compelled to exert themselves to keep from falling, and at the same time to endure the stings of the fighting bees without having their paws free to rub them off. But woe to the black bumble-bees discovered in their mossy mouse-nests in the ground! The bears, with a few strokes of their huge paws, lay the entire establishment bare, and, before time is given for a general buzz, bees, old and young, larvæ, honey, stings, nest, and all, are taken in in one ravishing mouthful. Pronunciations.-glā ciēr; Thō'reau; pol len y; chap ar răl'; compos' i tæ; ne moph'i la; cas til lē ia (ya); ġìlia; co rolla; lär væ. Definitions. Naturalist, one who studies nature. Glacier, a river of ice. Ousel, a water-bird somewhat like a robin. Zones, belts or bands. Polleny, powdered with the seed-dust of the flowers. Chaparral, underbrush of evergreen shrubs. Compositæ, plants of the sunflower family. Nemophilas, flowers of the family to which the "baby blue eyes" belongs. Castilleias, flowers of the family to which the Indian pink, or "Painter's Brush," belongs. Corolla, the most showy part of the flower. Myriads, a very large number. Monotonous, ever the same. Larva, the worm-like young of the bee. Ravishing, delightful. Spell all the words that are defined. 14. TRUTH OR FALSEHOOD. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who died recently in Boston, where he had always lived, was called the leading humorist of America. He was clever at both prose and poetry, and everything he wrote sparkles with wit, or knowledge, or fancy. His best known book is "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." This is a series of pleasant morning talks at a boarding-house table, and one can almost see the various wise and foolish boarders there, and guess what they will say next. You will enjoy "The Young Fellow they call John," and the landlady's son, Benjamin Franklin. "The Chambered Nautilus" is Mr. Holmes's finest poem. It compares this little creature of the sea, which, every year, moves to a larger and more beautiful part of its shell, closing up the outgrown part, to our lives, which every year should grow to nobler actions and thoughts. "The One Hoss Shay" will make you smile, as it goes to pieces "All at once and nothing first, Just as bubbles do when they burst." From "Old Ironsides" and "Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill," you will get some beautiful lessons in the history of our country. Articulation. this | right | hand; stainless | ivory; cubes | and | spheres; globes | of | falsehood; blocks | of | truth. While we are as yet small children, there comes to us a youthful angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and in his left, spheres like marbles. The cubes are of stainless ivory, and on each is written, in letters of gold, TRUTH. The spheres are streaked and spotted beneath, with a crimson flush above, and when the light falls on them in a certain way, you can read upon every one of them, LIE. The child to whom they are offered probably takes both cubes and spheres. The spheres are the most convenient things in the world; they roll just where the child wishes them to go. The cubes will not roll at all; they have a great talent for standing still, and always keeping right side up. |