ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS for the use of copyright matter are made to publishers and authors as follows: "; To T. Y. Crowell & Company, publishers, for the selection entitled "The Brook that would not Wait," also for "Franklin and the Kite" from "Historic Americans," by Elbridge S. Brooks; to Rev. Minot J. Savage for his verses entitled "Learners"; to Small, Maynard & Co., publishers of the poems of John B. Tabb, for "The Taxgatherer" and the “Fern Song"; to the American Baptist Publication Com'pany for the selection from Marshall Saunders's "Beautiful Joe"; to the publishers of The Week's Current for the selection entitled "The Home of Washington"; to John Barlow for the selection, "Tracks in the Snow"; to William E. Curtis for the story, "Sandy, the Good Samaritan"; to D. C. Heath & Co. and to Miss Grace Kupfer, publishers and author, for the selection, “The Gods of Ancient Greece " to D. Appleton & Co., publishers of "Bog Myrtle and Peat," for the extract entitled "Jaikie's Flower Garden"; to Bobbs-Merrill Company for "A Song" by James Whitcomb Riley; to McClure, Phillips & Co., publishers, and Charles A. Eastman, author, for a selection from "My Indian Boyhood"; to The Century Company and to Dallas Lore Sharp, publishers and author, for the selection entitled "Rabbit Ways"; to University Publishing Company for the selection, "How Rome was Founded," from "Famous Men of Rome"; to Charles Scribner's Sons for the selections from the works of Frank R. Stockton, H. C. Bunner, Eugene Field, J. G. Holland, Henry Van Dyke, and Henrietta Christian Wright; to G. P. Putnam's Sons for the selection from Bayard Taylor's "Boys of Other Countries"; to Floyd D. Raze for his poem entitled "Pluck"; to the publishers of Success magazine for the selection, "Thankfulness." The selections from Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, Hawthorne, Holmes, Lucy Larcom, Celia Thaxter, John Burroughs, Thoreau, Trowbridge, Saxe, Stedman, Margaret Deland, and Nora Perry are used by permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the authorized publishers of the works of those authors. Especial acknowledgments are extended to Miss Frances Lilian Taylor, of Galesburg, Illinois, and to Mr. W. J. Button of Chicago, for much assistance in the selection and arrangement of the material contained in this volume. 9 LEARNERS LEARNERS are we all at school, Life the lesson that we learn - M. J. SAVAGE. AN ITALIAN SCHOOLBOY I. THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL TO-DAY is the first day of school. My three months of vacation in the country have passed like a dream. This morning my mother took me to the schoolhouse to have me entered for the third elementary grade. I was thinking of the country and went unwillingly. The streets were crowded with boys; the bookshops were filled with parents buying bags, portfolios, and copybooks; and so many people had collected in front of the school that the policeman could scarcely keep the entrance clear. Near the door, some one touched my shoulder; it was my teacher of the second grade. Cheerful, as always, he said to me, "Well, Enrico, are we to part forever?" I knew it too well, and his words made me sad. We pushed our way through the crowd with difficulty. Ladies, gentlemen, workingmen, officers, and servants, each leading a boy with one hand and holding the promotion books in the other, filled the entrance and the stairway. I was glad to see once more the large hall on the ground floor with the doors leading to the seven class rooms where I had spent nearly every day for three years. The teachers were coming and going. The schoolmistress who had taught me in the first class greeted me from the door of her class room, and said: "Enrico, you are going to the floor above this year. I shall not even see you pass." And she looked at me sadly. At ten o'clock we were all in our classes: fiftyfour of us. The schoolroom seemed small and dark to me when I thought of the woods and mountains where I had spent the summer. I thought too of my teacher of the second class. He was always smiling and seemed like one of us. I was sorry that I should see him no more. Our teacher this year is tall; his hair is long and gray; and he has a straight wrinkle across his forehead. He has a deep voice, and he looks at us intently as if he would read all our thoughts. I think he never smiles. I said to myself: "This is the first day. There are nine months more. What work, what monthly examinations, how tired I shall be!" I longed to see my mother, and when I came out, I ran to kiss her hand. She said to me: "Courage, Enrico, we will study together." And I returned home with her content. II. MY CLASSMATES The boy I like the best in our school is called Garrone. He is the tallest boy in the class and is about fourteen years old. He has a large head and his shoulders are broad. when he smiles, and it seems to me that he thinks like a man. One can see he is good I already know several of my schoolmates. There is another one I like, named Coretti. He is always jolly, and is the son of a wood merchant who was a soldier in the war of 1866. His On the bench near me is a boy who is called "The Little Mason," because his father is a mason. face is as round as an apple and his nose is like a |