contented he is all the day long? He doesn't work as hard at his knitting as you do in searching for the flower; and although you get half your summer's wages, and he gets nothing, he will be richer than you in the fall. He will have a small piece of gold, and it won't change to a leaf. Besides, when a boy is contented and happy, he has gold and diamonds. Don't you believe that?"

I saw that Hans was not a bad boy: he was only restless, impatient, and perhaps a little inclined to envy those in better circumstances. I knew it

would be difficult for him to change his habits of thinking and wishing. But, after a long talk, he promised me he would try; and that was as much as I expected.

Now, you may want to know whether he did try; and I am sorry I can not tell you. I left the place soon afterward, and have never been there since. Let us all hope, however, that Hans found the real key-flower.

NOTES FOR STUDY.
I.

GRAZING, feeding, nibbling. BLEACHED (blech'd), made white. THA'LER (tä'ler), a German dollar, worth about seventy-one cents.

| KO BOLD (kō'bold), a kind of sprite or fairy once thought to be found in caves.

NEG LECT ́ING, slighting, not caring for.

GROSCH ́EN, German coins worth AT TEN'TIVE, caring for, mindful.

about two cents each.

HES'I TATE, to act slowly, to falter.

CIR CUM STAN CES, situation

position, condition of fortune.

or

II.

This story affords an excellent moral-What is the real key-flower? Which boy really found it? What has the kobold to do with finding one's fortune? Which is better, luck or labor? Study the two boys. The story is a Saxon myth. Saxony is part of Germany.

LIII. THE BOY.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.

There's something in a noble boy,
A brave, free-hearted, careless one,
With his unchecked, unbidden joy,
His dread of books and love of fun,
And in his clear and ready smile,
Unshaded by a thought of guile,
And unrepressed by sadness,

Which brings me to my childhood back,
As if I trod its very track

And felt its very gladness.

When every trace of thought is lost,
And not when you would call him gay,

That his bright presence thrills me most.

His shout may ring upon the hill,
His voice be echoed in the hall,
His merry laugh like music trill,
And I in sadness hear it all;
For, like the wrinkles on my brow,
I scarcely notice such things now.

But when, amid the earnest game,
He stops, as if he music heard,
And, heedless of his shouted name
As of the carol of a bird,
Stands gazing on the empty air,
As if some dream were passing there:
"Tis then that on his face I look-
His beautiful but thoughtful face-
And, like a long-forgotten book,
Its sweet familiar meanings trace,-

Remembering a thousand things
Which passed me on those golden wings,
Which time has fettered now-
Things that came o'er me with a thrill,
And left me silent, sad, and still,

And threw upon my brow

A holier and a gentler cast,
That was too innocent to last.

'Tis strange how thoughts upon a child
Will, like a presence, sometimes press,
And when his pulse is beating wild,
And life itself is in excess-

When foot and hand, and ear and eye,
Are all with ardor straining high—

How in his heart will spring
A feeling whose mysterious thrall
Is stronger, sweeter far than all!
And on its silent wing,

How, with the clouds, he'll float away,
As wandering and as lost as they!

LIV. CHICKENS.

MARY ABIGAIL DODGE.

A chicken is beautiful and round and full of cunning ways, but he has no resources for an emergency. He will lose his reckoning and be quite out at sea, though only ten steps from home. He never knows enough to turn a corner. All his intelligence is like light, moving only in straight lines. He is impetuous and timid, and has not the smallest presence of mind or sagacity to discern between friend and foe. He has no confidence in any earthly power that does not reside in an old hen. Her cluck will he follow to the last ditch, and to nothing else will he give heed.

I am afraid that the Interpreter was putting almost too fine a point upon it, when he led Christiana and her children "into another room, where was a hen and chickens, and bid them to observe awhile. one of the chickens went to the trough to drink, and every time she drank she lifted up her head and her

So

eyes toward heaven. 'See,' said he, 'what this little chick doth, and learn of her to acknowledge whence your mercies come, by receiving them with looking up.'"

Doubtless the chick lifts her eyes toward heaven, but a close acquaintance with the race would put anything but acknowledgment in the act. A gratitude that thanks heaven for favors received, and then runs into a hole to prevent any other person from sharing the benefit of those favors, is a very questionable kind of gratitude, and certainly should be confined to the bipeds that wear feathers.

Yet if you take away selfishness from a chicken's moral make-up, and fatuity from his intellectual, you have a very charming little creature left. For, apart from their excessive greed, chickens seem to be affectionate. They have sweet, social ways.

They huddle together with fond, caressing chatter, and chirp soft lullabies. Their toilet performances are full of interest. They trim each other's bills with great thoroughness and dexterity, much better, indeed, than they dress their own heads, for their bungling, awkward little claws make sad work of it.

It is as much as they can do to stand on two feet, and they naturally make several revolutions when they attempt to stand on one. Nothing can be more ludicrous than their early efforts to walk. They do