"Go back, sea, go back!" cried Janet, in despair; but still nothing happened, except that the boat bounded on, and the two little Kanter girls, overcome by the unexpected result, sat down in the bottom of the boat and cried.

"Now we shall go away around the globe," sobbed Prue, "and never get back to the right place again. If we ever get anywhere, it will be somebody else's cottage and somebody else's mother!"

"I'm afraid of sinking and drowning," wailed Janet, "and I am so thirsty I don't know what to do."

"Go back, stream!" cried Prue again. "Go back, dear, darling stream, and take us home again!'

But still they went on and on, and now the sea, the sky, and even the sun looked different.

We must have gone thousands of miles," sighed Prue. " Look, there is an island, Janet; see the funny tall trees with bunches of big leaves up at the top.'

"They are like the pictures in our geography," said Janet, with a little reviving interest. "And, oh, see! There is an elephant walking along! I wonder if we can get ashore!"

"I should be afraid to," said Prue, cautiously. "If

it is a tropical country, there will be snakes and crocodiles."

"Oh! oh! See the monkeys!" cried Janet.

The Kanter girls had now floated quite near land, and more than fifty monkeys were running out of the woods down on the shore to look at them, grinning and chattering in great excitement. Some of the little monkeys climbed on the backs of the bigger ones in order to see better, and one monkey, who had stubbed his toe running, sat down and held it with a very woe-begone face.

Janet and Prue could not help laughing, although their minds were so disturbed about getting home, but all the while they were floating on, till presently they had passed the island, and the sense of desolateness smote upon them afresh. Besides, some great black clouds had come up over the sky, and the wind began to blow in a gale. The Kanter girls cowered before it, with the tears rolling down their cheeks, and still the boat bounded on over the waves.

"It will be night before long," moaned Prue. "Oh, please, please turn, stream, turn!"

This time she had hit upon the right words, and the instant she spoke, the billows all reared themselves in just the reverse direction, the wind changed, and there they were floating rapidly back toward the point

from which they had come.

The little Kanter girls could hardly believe in such good fortune at first, and sat holding each other's hands in silence. But when they passed the island again where the elephant wandered among the palm-trees, and found their boat still bounding on the homeward way, their hearts grew light as ever with the elasticity of childhood, and they laughed and talked while they ate their lunch.

Back and back over the sea they sailed, repassing the ships and the lonely lighthouses, and it did not seem so very long before they were again upon the river, whose current now flowed merrily just the other way, bearing them toward home. Past the villages and farms and forests they went, and would have reached the cottage garden without once stopping, if they had not happened to see, sitting on a rock which jutted out into the stream, the forlorn figure of their little boatman friend, with his head on his knees, weeping.

He looked up at them as they floated near, and said, in a heart-broken voice,

"I told you I couldn't swim!"

“Oh, well, we got along very well without you," said Janet, cheerfully. "We were only a little frightened, that's all. Don't you want to get into the boat?" "Of course I do," he replied, with a splendid leap

from the rock which took him at once to the bow of the boat.

"Do you want to go with us every time we sail?" asked Prue, not quite sure that she should like such odd company as a steady thing, but thinking perhaps it might be "the rule," as they say in school, to have him go with them.

"Oh, no, no!" he answered, "that would be very inconvenient, I have so many things to do. Today, for instance, I meant to have put up a large quantity of pickles. But it is my business to see that you have the word. I do hope you won't forget it again," he added, pathetically.

"Oh, never fear, we won't forget," said Janet, and as the boat grazed against the garden bank, she sprang out with her sister, and they found themselves back in the cottage just in time to tell the whole story of their adventures to their mother while the three pared apples for pies.

Many a sail after that did the Kanter girls take in their pretty little boat, sometimes only to the meadows, sometimes as far out as the lighthouses, but they never again forgot to say, "Turn, stream, turn," and their acquaintance with the odd little green man would have quite stopped short, if something had not happened.

Happens

V

"Alas! my journey rugged and

uneven

Through prickly moors or dusty

ways must wind."

- Wordsworth.

66

Then, as I don't like all the trouble I've had,

O

In future I'll try to prevent it;

For I never am naughty without being sad,
Or good-without being contented."

NE day Janet was naughty!

-Jane Taylor.

Her mother

had so much sewing to do on that day that, in the morning, she bade Janet and Prue wash and wipe all the dishes and put the rooms in order entirely by themselves. They had never had so long a task set them before, though they had helped so often that they knew just how each thing ought to be done. But they had planned something entirely different for that morning, and Janet's face was dark and gloomy as she cleared the table. "Let's run away!" she whispered to Prue.

Oh, no!" said Prue; "maybe we can finish by noon, and mother says we may bake cakes."