Only a zephyr that may blow
Among the reeds by the river low;
Give me thy most privy place
Where to run my airy race.

In some withdrawn, unpublic mead
Let me sigh upon a reed,

Or in the woods, with leafy din,
Whisper the still evening in:
Some still work give me to do
Only be it near to you!

For I'd rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,
Than be the king of men elsewhere,
And most sovereign slave of care:
To have one moment of thy dawn,
Than share the city's year forlorn.

THE LITTLE LEAF

BY HENRY WARD BEECHER

ONCE on a time a little leaf was heard to sigh and cry, as leaves often do when a gentle wind is about. And the twig said:

"What is the matter, little leaf?”

"The wind," said the leaf, "just told me that one day it would pull me off, and throw me down to the ground to die!"

The twig told it to the branch on which it grew, and the branch told it to the tree. And when the tree heard it, it rustled all over, and sent word back to the leaf.

"Do not be afraid, hold on tightly, and you shall not go till you want to." And so the leaf stopped sighing and went on rustling and singing. And when the bright days of autumn came, the little leaf saw all the leaves around becoming very beautiful. Some were yellow and some were scarlet, and some were striped with both colors. Then it asked the tree what it meant. And the tree said:

"All these leaves are getting ready to fly away, and they have put on these beautiful colors because of joy."

Then the little leaf began to want to go, and grew very beautiful in thinking of it, and when it was very gay in colors, it saw that the branches of the tree had no color in them, and so the leaf said:

"O branch, why are you lead-colored and we golden ?"

"We must keep on our work clothes," said the tree, "for our life is not done yet, but your clothes are for a holiday, because your task is over."

Just then a puff of wind came, and the leaf let go without thinking of it, and the wind took it up and turned it over and over, and then whirled it like a spark of fire in the air, and let it fall gently down

under the edge of the fence among hundreds of leaves, and it fell into a dream and never waked up to tell what it dreamed about.

One impulse from a vernal wood,

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

WORDSWORTH.

THE TREE THAT TRIED TO GROW

BY FRANCIS LEE

ONE time there was a seed that wished to be a tree. It was fifty years ago, and more than fifty - a hundred, perhaps.

But first there was a great bare granite rock in the midst of the Wendell woods. Little by little, dust from a squirrel's paw, as he sat upon it eating a nut; fallen leaves, crumbling and rotting and perhaps the decayed shell of the nut made earth enough in the hollows of the rock for some mosses to grow; and for the tough little saxifrage flowers, which seem to thrive on the poorest fare, and look all the healthier, like very poor children.

Then, one by one, the mosses and blossoms withered, and turned to dust; until, after years, and years, and years, there was earth enough to

make a bed for a little feathery birch seed which came flying along one day.

The sun shone softly through the forest trees; the summer rain pattered through the leaves upon it; and the seed felt wide awake and full of life. So it sent a little, pale-green stem up into the air, and a little white root down into the shallow bed of earth. But you would have been surprised to see how much the root found to feed upon in only a handful of dirt.

Yes, indeed! And it sucked and sucked away with its little hungry mouths, till the pale-green stem became a small brown tree, and the roots grew tough and hard.

So, after a great many years, there stood a tall tree as big around as your body, growing right upon a large rock, with its big roots striking into the ground on all sides of the rock, like a queer sort of wooden cage.

Now, I do not believe there was ever a boy in this world who tried as hard to grow into a wise, or a rich or a good man, as this birch seed did to grow into a tree, that did not become what he wished to be. And I don't think anybody who hears the story of the birch tree, growing in the woods of Wendell, need ever give up to any sort of difficulty in this way, and say: "I can't." Only try as hard as the tree did, and you can do everything.

HOW TO MAKE A WHISTLE

ANONYMOUS

FIRST take a willow bough,

Smooth, and round, and dark,
And cut a little ring

Just through the outside bark.
Then tap and rap it gently,
With many a pat and pound,
To loosen up the bark,
So it may turn around.

Slip the bark off carefully,

So that it will not break,
And cut away the inside part,
And then a mouth-piece make.

Now put the bark all nicely back,
And in a single minute,

Just put it to your lips

And blow the whistle in it.

THE FOREST*

BY HENRY D. THOREAU

From The Maine Woods

WHO shall describe the inexpressible tenderness and immortal life of the grim forest, where Nature,

*By permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.