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And all should keep to time and place, and all should keep to rule

Both waves upon the sandy shore, and children true at school."

Write a short story about what you see in the picture at the head of this lesson.

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It stands alone, on the brow of a little hill, not far from my door. The sight of it gives me so much pleasure, that I have learned to love it as if it were a human friend. I go often to visit it.

It is a magnificent tree. The trunk rises high in a single stem, then divides into three principal branches. These three great branches grow gradually farther and farther apart, then bend rapidly outward with an easy sweep, and finally divide into a number of smaller branches.

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Of these smaller branches, the lower or under ones bend down toward the ground in graceful curves, and, dividing into many branchlets and twigs, form the drooping boughs of the tree. The upper ones grow erect, and their branchlets and twigs, spreading out and bending in all directions, make the airy top of the tree.

In the summer-time this lovely tree is cov

ered with dark-green leaves. It rests the eye to look at it, and it is a delight to sit under it. But it is not in summer only that it is beautiful. In the autumn its leaves turn to a sober brown, touched here and there with bright golden yellow; and, when the sun shines on it, it is glorious to behold.

When the rude autumn winds have stripped it of its leaves, it is still pleasant to watch the graceful branches swaying in the wind; and then, too, I can see the birds' nests, which the leaves have hidden during the summer. Almost always there are one or two orioles' nests, swinging like little bags from the ends of the long, slender branches.

The earliest spring flowers blossom under my elm-tree. But the dear old tree is not to be outdone by the little plants at its foot, for it puts forth its blossoms as soon as they. Its flowers always come before its leaves. They are very tiny flowers, of a yellowish hue, and grow in small clusters on the sides of the twigs.

The flowers are soon followed by the seeds, which ripen and fall just as the leaves come out. The leaves are rather small and darkgreen, and grow on short stems called foot-stalks. . They are, almost all of them, oval in shape, and

have a slender point at the apex. The under side of the leaf is whitish and hairy, and the ribs show very plainly.

All elm-trees are not shaped just as mine is; but any boy or girl can always tell an elm-tree by its graceful, curving branches, and slender, drooping twigs.

Write a short description of some tree with which you are familiar, using as many as you can of the words Write also a description of a leaf.

below.

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They drive home the cows from the pasture,

Up through the long, shady lane,

Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat-fields, That are yellow with ripening grain.

They find, in the thick, waving grasses,
Where the scarlet-lipped strawberry grows;
They gather the earliest snow-drops,

And the first crimson buds of the rose.

They know where the fruit hangs the thickest
On the long, thorny blackberry-vines;
They know where the apples hang ripest,

And where the red bitter-sweet twines.
They gather the delicate sea-weeds,

And shells that the ocean-wave brings;
And at night-time are folded in slumber
By a song that a fond mother sings.

Those who toil bravely are strongest;
The humble and poor become great;
And so from these brown-handed children
Shall grow mighty rulers of state.

The pen

of the author and statesmanThe noble and wise of the land

The sword, and the chisel, and palette,

Shall be held in the little brown hand.

Write answers to the following questions, and let each answer be in a complete sentence :

Whose are the little brown hands? Where do they drive the cows? What do they find in the fields and by the road-side?-in the woods?-in the orchards?-by the sea-shore?

Commit to memory the lasi stanza.

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