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STORIES FROM THE BEST AUTHORS.

3. MONKEYS IN THE FRONT YARD.

This story was written for "St. Nicholas" by Rudyard Kipling, a young Englishman still living. He has spent many years in India, and no writer has ever before written so well as he of the people and manners of that strange, hot country. He tells, in the most interesting way, of the monkeys, tigers, and elephants of those lands, and every boy will be glad to read his tales.

Articulation.-kept; lived | in; built | on; kinds of; used to.

Once I lived in a monkey country among the Himalayas. Our house was built on the side of a mountain that was full of monkeys. They were of two kinds: the big silver gray monkey, about three feet high, with a white beard, and the little green-brown organ-grinder monkey.

We never saw much of the big fellows. They kept to the tops of the tall pines, and jumped from one tree to another without seeming to care where they landed or how. The little ones played from morning till twilight in our garden, and on the tin roof, and around the verandas.

They came with their wives and children- tiny brown puff-balls, with their hair parted exactly in the middle, and so young that they tried to pick up things with their mouths instead of their hands. They used to pick our flowers and then slide up and down the pine trees, making the most awful faces they could, just to show they did not care for people. We watched them fight and play, and nurse their children, and chase each other on the hillside, till we came to know them and give them names.

Once a troop of trained monkeys came and performed in the garden, and the wild monkeys sat watching them

in the trees, and saying the worst things they could think of about them, while the monkeys in the blue and red petticoats looked at them sorrowfully.

If we came home late at night the flash of our lanterns

would sometimes disturb a

nest of monkeys asleep in the trees. Then there would be yells and screeches and cries of

"What did you push me

out of bed for?"

"I did n't."

"You did."

"Take that."

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And a monkey would come

crashing through the branches and sit at the bottom of the tree, crying "Smarty" till he was tired.

The tamest of our monkeys was a little fellow who had once been civilized. He wore a leather collar round his neck. He would eat biscuit from my sister's hand, opening her fingers one by one. One day I found the monkey with the collar jumping out of my window with my hair brushes.

He left them in a crotch of the tree, and the next time I had a fair chance at him I threw a pine cone at him and knocked him off the end of the fence when he was hunting for fleas.

He put his head through the pickets, showed all his teeth, and called me every ugly name in the monkey language, and went up the hillside. Next morning I saw him hanging head downward from the roof above my

[graphic]

window, feeling into the room for something to carry

away.

That time I did not throw at him, but put some mustard on a piece of bread and let him steal it. When the mustard began to burn his mouth, he danced with rage, and that night before he went to bed, he pushed my looking-glass over with his feet and broke it into splinters, and my servant said, sorrowfully, as he picked up the pieces:

"That monkey is angry with you, master."

Definitions.-Civilized, changed from a wild, ignorant state to an educated condition.

Where are the Him ä'la yas? Why do you think the young monkeys are called puff-balls? Did you ever see a trained monkey? How was it dressed? What is meant by a civilized monkey?

Select the hardest six words in this lesson, to spell.
Read the "Jungle Book."-Rudyard Kipling.

STORIES FROM THE BEST AUTHORS.

4. JENNIE WREN.

The following sketch of Jennie Wren, the doll's dressmaker, is taken from the story, "Our Mutual Friend," by Charles Dickens, who lived when your grandfather was a boy. You have heard of Little Nell before, but do you know of Sally Brass, and Dick Swiveller, and Little Dorritt, and Tiny Tim? Have you heard of Mr. Pickwick, and Mrs. Betsy Harris, and Peggotty, and Mr. Micawber, the letter-writer? All of these and many other delightful people are waiting to make your acquaintance in the books of Charles Dickens. Do not fail to meet them and learn from them lessons of kindliness and truth.

Articulation. - cold | or | ragged or beaten; tremble | all over; ease and rest.

Jennie Wren, the person of the house, the doll's dressmaker and manufacturer of pin-cushions and pen-wipers, sat in a little low arm-chair singing in the dark, and waiting for Lizzie.

Lizzie came in and smoothed back the bright, long hair that grew thick upon the head of the doll's dressmaker. Then she opened the door and turned the low chair and its occupant toward the outer air, and seated herself beside the little bent figure.

"This is what your loving Jennie Wren calls the best time of the day," said the person of the house.

"Lizzie," she went on, "I wonder how it happens that when I am at work, work, work, here all alone in the summer time, I smell flowers?"

"Why, perhaps you do smell flowers," said Eugene.

"No, I don't," said the little creature, resting her chin upon her hand. "This is not a flowery neighborhood. It's anything but that. And yet as I sit at work I smell miles of flowers. I smell rose leaves till I think I see the rose leaves lying in heaps - bushels on the floor.

"I smell fallen leaves till I put down my hand and expect to hear them rustle. I smell the pink and white May-flowers in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among. I have seen very few flowers in all my life."

"Those are pleasant fancies to have, Jennie dear," said Lizzie.

"So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me—and the birds I hear, too. I dare say they sing better than real birds, and that my flowers smell better than real flowers, for when I was a little child the children I used to see in the morning, when I awoke, were different from any I have ever seen since.

"They were not like me; they were not cold, or ragged, or beaten, and they were never in pain. They were not like the children of the neighbors; they never made me tremble all over by setting up shrill noises, and they never mocked me.

"There were such numbers of them, too

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all in white dresses with something shining on their heads, which I have never been able to imitate in my doll's dresses, though I know so well how it looks.

"These children used to come down to me in long, bright, slanting rows, and say, all together: 'Who is this in pain? Who is this in pain?' And when I told them who it was, they used to say: with us.'

'Come and play

"I used to say, softly: 'I can't play; I never play.' Then they would lift me up, till I felt ease and rest, and when they laid me down they would say, all together: 'Have patience, and we will come again.""

- Charles Dickens.

Do you suppose this little lame girl saw real children, or were they dream children? Can you imagine the poor London children who see no flowers and hear no birds? Are there any such in our State?

Read more of Jennie Wren from "Our Mutual Friend."

5. A NIGHT WITH A WOLF.

The writer of this poem was an American and a great traveler. He has written books giving interesting accounts of his travels in nearly every country in the world.

Little one, come to my knee!

Hark how the rain is pouring

Over the roof, in the pitch - black night,
And the wind in the woods a-roaring!

Hush, my darling, and listen,

Then pay for the story with kisses:
Father was lost in the pitch - black night,
In just such a storm as this is!

High up on the lonely mountains,

Where the wild men watched and waited:
Wolves in the forest, and bears in the bush,
And I on my path belated.

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