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THE SUN'S TRAVELS

By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The Sun is not abed, when I
At night upon my pillow lie;

Still round the earth his way he takes,
And morning after morning makes.

While here at home, in shining day,
We round the sunny garden play,
Each little Indian sleepyhead
Is being kissed and put to bed.

And when at eve I rise from tea,
Day dawns beyond the Atlantic sea;
And all the children in the West
Are getting up and being dressed.

We know that the earth turns round and round as it travels about the sun, and that when it is day in Scotland, where the author of this poem lived, it is night way off in India, on the other side of the earth. Stevenson was a grown man when he wrote this poem, but he remembered very clearly how interested he was when a child in the other little children far away in the strange, "upside-down" parts of the world.

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A

THE GNAT AND THE BULL

STURDY Bull was driven by the heat of the

weather to wade up to his knees in a cool and swift-running stream. He had not been there long when a Gnat, that had been disporting itself in the air, lighted upon one of his horns.

"My dear fellow," said the Gnat, with as great a buzz as he could manage, "pray excuse the liberty I take. If I am too heavy, only say so, and I will go at once and rest upon the poplar which grows by the edge of the stream."

"Stay or go, it makes no difference to me," replied the Bull. "Had it not been for your buzz I should not even have known you were there."

Did you never see a silly little child, or even a grown person, who thought he was of great importance, while all his acquaintances knew him to be neither a help nor a hindrance to others?

THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE

O'

YOU slow one, you clumsy one, your ugly shape and plodding motions make me roar with laughter," said the Hare to the Tortoise one day as they met in the road.

"Perhaps I am ugly and do move slowly," replied the Tortoise, "but I can beat you in a race to the next river."

This made the Hare laugh more loudly than ever, and a Fox coming along stopped to see what caused

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the uproar. The Hare explained the joke and finally asked the Fox to hold the stakes and judge the

race.

Off started the rivals, and almost in the twinkling of an eye the Hare was out of sight. Only a little cloud of dust remained to show where he had gone. The day was hot and sultry, and soon he was choking with dust.

"Pshaw!" said he; "I can rest here an hour-can even take a nap-and beat that lazy Tortoise to the brook. Suppose he does pass me, I can overtake him quickly enough."

Meanwhile the Tortoise plodded slowly along, kicking up no dust, feeling no heat. When he came up to the Hare the latter was sleeping soundly, and the Tortoise passed on slowly but surely, moving steadily, never resting a minute.

It was late afternoon when the Hare awoke and looked up and down the road. "I declare," he said; "that slow-poke has not come along yet. I'll take a few nibbles at this clover and then run back and meet him."

The clover was sweet and juicy, and it was some time before the Hare again remembered his race. When he did, he turned to the road and examined the dust. Think how surprised he was to see the trail of the Tortoise leading by him toward the brook. There was no more nibbling of lunches, no more sleeping or resting, for off down the road he ran, covering the ground in long leaps that brought him quickly to the brook, where, sitting lazily at the edge of the water, was the Tortoise, calmly waiting.

"Here, take your money," said the Fox to the Tortoise; adding as he turned to the Hare, "Steady going wins the race."

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