There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with; and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor, poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had, beside the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, a part of a jewsharp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six firecrackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collarbut no dog, the handle of a knife, four pieces of orangepeel, and a dilapidated old window sash.

Tom had had a nice good idle time all the whileplenty of company-and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

He said to himself that it was not such a hollow world after all. He had discovered a great law of human action without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make it difficult to attain.

If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this, he would now have comprehended that

work consisted of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do, and this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement.

-MARK TWAIN.

NOTE.-Tom Sawyer, having offended his sole guardian, Aunt Polly, is by that sternly affectionate dame punished by being set to whitewash the fence in front of the garden.

"Be not simply good, be good for something."

LESSON CVII.

sheaves

wav'ing

fleet'ing

trěm' bling

SOWING AND REAPING.

Sow with a generous hand;

Pause not for toil and pain;

Weary not through the heat of summer,
Weary not through the cold spring rain;
But wait till the autumn comes

For the sheaves of golden grain.

Scatter the seed, and fear not,
A table will be spread;
What matter if you are too weary
To eat your hard-earned bread;
Sow, while the earth is broken,
For the hungry must be fed.

Sow; while the seeds are lying

In the warm earth's bosom deep, And your warm tears fall upon itThey will stir in their quiet sleep, And the green blades rise the quicker, Perchance, for the tears you weep.

Then sow; for the hours are fleeting," And the seed must fall today;

And care not what hands shall reap it, Or if you shall have passed away Before the waving corn-fields

Shall gladden the sunny day.

Sow; and look onward, upward,
Where the starry light appears,-
Where, in spite of the coward's doubting,
Or your own heart's trembling fears,
You shall reap in joy the harvest
You have sown today in tears.

-ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER.

I had dreams when days were darkest-in the loneliness of night,

I was dreaming of the gleaming and the streaming of the

light;

And the sod that whispered secrets to the blossom and the leaf

Sent me shimmering, shining sunward to the splendor of the sheaf!

The wind that tossed my tresses sang of treasures mani

fold,

The dew and star and sunlight gave their glory to my

gold;

And I heard a far rejoicing, and the tempest-flags were

furled

And my golden banners rippled all my riches round the world!

I heard the songs of cities, and in the shadowed dells
The ringing and the singing of all the golden bells;
For I wove the blue sky's beauty, the sunlight and the
rains,

In an answer to the valleys and the pleading of the plains. I have sweetened fervid summers, I have starred the winter's snow

And gladdened homes with garlands, and made the hearth-fires glow;

And my story is my glory, and my triumph is completeThey march beneath my banners, to the thrilling song of