Columbus made his egg to stand on its end, though with feelings that were filled with gratitude instead of envy.

33. "Most wonderful!" said Middleton, when he saw the complete success of the means, by which they had been rescued from a danger that he had conceived to be unavoida"The thought was a gift from Heaven, and the hand

that executed it, should be immortal."

34. "Old trapper," cried Paul, thrusting his fingers through his shaggy locks, "I have lined many a loaded bee into his hole, and know something of the nature of the woods, but this is robbing a hornet of his sting without touching the insect!"

35. "It will do-it will do," returned the old man, who, after the first moment of his success, seemed to think no more of the exploit. "Let the flames do their work for a short half hour, and then we will mount. That time is needed to cool the meadow, for these unshod beasts are tender on the hoof as a barefooted girl."

36. The veteran, on whose experience they all so implicit ly relied for protection, employed himself in reconnoitering objects in the distance, through the openings which the air occasionally made in the immense bodies of smoke, that, by this time, lay in enormous piles on every part of the plain.

1.

EXERCISE CLI.

THE ACORN.

An acorn fell from an old oak tree,

E. OAKES SMITH.

And lay on the frosty ground-
"O, what shall the fate of the acorn be ?"
Was whispered all around,

By low toned voices, chiming sweet,

Like a floweret's bell when swung,

And grasshopper steeds were gathering fleet,
And the beetle's hoofs up-rung→

2.

For the woodland Fays came sweeping past
In the pale autumnal ray,

Where the forest leaves were falling fast,
And the acorn quivering lay;

They came to tell what its fate should be,
Though life was unrevealed;

For life is holy mystery,

Where 'er it is concealed.

3. They came with gifts that should life bestow; The dew and the living air,—

The bane that should work its deadly woe,-
Was found with the fairies there.

In the gray moss-cup was the mildew brought,
And the worm, in the rose-leaf rolled,
And many things with destruction fraught,
That its fate were quickly told.

4. But it needed not; for a blessed fate Was the acorn's meant to be,—

5.

The spirits of earth should its birth-time wait,
And watch o'er its destiny.

To a little sprite was the task assigned
To bury the acorn deep,

Away from the frost and searching wind,
When they through the forest sweep.

I laughed outright at the small thing's toil,
As bowed beneath the spade,

He balanced his gossamer wings the while
To look in the pit he made.

A thimble's depth it was scarcely deep,
When the spade aside he threw,

And rolled the acorn away to sleep

In the hush of dropping dew.

6. The Spring-time came with its fresh, warm air, And its gush of woodland song;

7.

8.

9.

The dew came down, and the rain was there,
And the sunshine rested long ;

Then softly the black earth turned aside,
The old leaf arching o'er,

And up, where the last year's leaf was dried,
Came the acorn-shell once more.

With coiléd stem, and pale green hue,
It looked but a feeble thing;
Then deeply its roots abroad it threw,

Its strength from the earth to bring.
The woodland sprites are gathering round,
Rejoiced that the task is done-

That another life from the noisome ground
Is up to the pleasant sun.

The young child passed with a careless tread,
And the germ had well-nigh crushed,
But a spider, launched on her airy thread,
The cheek of the stripling brushed.

He little knew, as he started back,
How the acorn's fate was hung

On the very point in the spider's track,
Where the web on his cheek was flung.

The Autumn came, and it stood alone,
And bowed as the wind passed by-

The wind that uttered its dirge-like moan
In the old oak sere and dry;

The hollow branches creaked and swayed,
But they bent not to the blast,

For the stout oak tree, where centuries played,
Was sturdy to the last.

10.

11.

12.

A school-boy beheld the lithe young shoot,
And his knife was instant out,

To sever the stalk from the spreading root,
And scatter the buds about;

To peel the bark in curious rings,
And many a notch and ray,

To beat the air till it whizzing sings,
Then idly cast away.

His hand was stayed; he knew not why:
'T was a presence breathed around-
A pleading from the deep blue sky,

And up from the teeming ground.
It told of the care that had lavished been
In sunshine and in dew-

Of the many things that had wrought a screen
When peril around it grew.

It told of the oak that once had bowed,
As feeble a thing to see;

But now,

when the storm was raging loud,

It wrestled mightily.

There's a deeper thought on the school-boy's brow,
A new love at his heart,

And he ponders much, as with footsteps slow
He turns him to depart.

13. Up grew the twig, with a vigor bold,
In the shape of the parent tree,

And the old oak knew that his doom was told,
When the sapling sprang so free.

Then the fierce winds came, and they raging tore
The hollow limbs away;

And the damp moss crept from the earthy floor
Round, the trunk, time-worn and gray.

14.

15.

16.

17.

The young oak grew, and proudly grew,
For its roots were deep and strong;
And a shadow broad on the earth it threw,
And the sunlight lingered long

On its glossy leaf, where the flickering light
Was flung to the evening sky;
And the wild-bird came to its airy hight,
And taught her young to fly.

In acorn time came the truant boy,
With a wild and eager look,

And he marked the tree with a wondering joy,
As the wind the great limbs shook.

He looked where the moss on the north side grew,
The gnarléd arms outspread,

The solemn shadow the huge tree threw,
As it towered above his head.

And vague-like fears the boy surround,
In the shadow of that tree,

So growing up from the darksome ground,
Like a giant mystery.

His heart beats quick to the squirrel's tread
On the withered leaf and dry,

And he lifts not up his awe-struck head,
As the eddying wind sweeps by.

And regally the stout oak stood,
In its vigor and its pride;

A monarch owned in the solemn wood,
With a scepter spreading wide.

No more in the wintry blast to bow,
Or rock in the summer breeze;

But, draped in green, or star-like snow,
Reign king of the forest trees.