44

FIFTH READER.

ladies of our own days.

On the contrary,

always fed heartily on pumpkin-pies, doughnuts, puddings, and other Puritan dainties, she was as and plump as a pudding herself.

8. With this round, rosy Miss Betsey, did Sewell fall in love. As he was a young man o character, industrious in his business, and a men the church, the mint-master very readily gave h "Yes, you may take her," said he, in his way; "and you'll find her a heavy burden enough

sent.

9. On the wedding-day, we may suppose that John Hull dressed himself in a plum-colored co the buttons of which were made of pine-tree shi The buttons of his waistcoat were sixpences; an knees of his small-clothes were buttoned with threepences. Thus attired, he sat with great di in Grandfather's chair; and, being a portly old g man, he completely filled it from elbow to elbow. the opposite side of the room, between her briden sat Miss Betsey. She was blushing with all her n and looked like a full-blown peony, or a great red a

10. There, too, was the bridegroom, dressed in purple coat, and gold-lace waistcoat, with as much finery as the Puritan laws and customs would a him to put on. His hair was cropped close to his 1 because Governor Endicott had forbidden any ma wear it below the ears. But he was a very person young man; and so thought the bridemaids, and Betsey herself.

11. The mint-master also was pleased with his

son-in-law; especially as he had courted Miss Betsey out of pure love, and had said nothing at all about her portion. So when the marriage ceremony was over, Captain Hull whispered a word to two of his men-servants, who immediately went out, and soon returned, lugging in a large pair of scales. They were such a pair as wholesale merchants use, for weighing bulky commodities; and quite a bulky commodity was now to be weighed in them.

12. “Daughter Betsey," said the mint-master, “get into one side of these scales." Miss Betsey—or Mrs. Sewell, as we must now call her- did as she was bid, like a dutiful child, without any question of the why and wherefore. But what her father could mean, unless to make her husband pay for her by the pound (in which case she would have been a dear bargain), she had not the least idea.

13. "And now," said honest John Hull to his servants, "bring that box hither." The box to which the mint-master pointed was a huge, square, iron-bound oaken chest; it was big enough, my children, for all four of you to play at hide-and-seek in. The servants tugged with might and main, but could not lift this enormous receptacle, and were finally obliged to drag it across the floor.

14. Captain Hull then took a key from his girdle, unlocked the chest, and lifted its ponderous lid. Behold! it was full to the brim of bright pine-tree shillings, fresh from the mint; and Samuel Sewell began to think that his father-in-law had got possession of all the money in

the Massachusetts treasury. But it was only th master's honest share of the coinage.

15. Then the servants, at Captain Hull's con heaped double handfuls of shillings into one side scales, while Betsey remained in the other. jingle, went the shillings, as handful after handf thrown in, till, plump and ponderous as she was fairly weighed the young lady from the floor.

16. "There, son Sewell!" cried the honest master, resuming his seat in Grandfather's chair, these shillings for my daughter's portion. Us kindly, and thank Heaven for her. It is not every that's worth her weight in silver.”

rising of the

1. Conversational power is a gift of birth. some men's nature to talk. Words flow out incessa like drops from a spring in the hillside, not bec they are solicited, but because pushed out by an in force that will not let them lie still. We have kn persons whose tongues ran from the until the going down of the same. into another as continuously as one less chain took hold of another link. vel whether they do not wake up of nights and hav good talk by themselves, just for the relief it would them.

One sentence

link in an

We always

2. From this extreme there is every degree of modification until we come to the opposite extreme, in which men seem unable, certainly unwilling, to utter their thoughts. Some men are poor in simple language. They have thoughts enough, but the symbols of thought -words-refuse to present themselves, or come singly and stingily. Others are silent from the stricture of secretiveness. Others are cautious and look before they speak, and before they are ready the occasion has passed.

3. In regard to language itself, the habit of reading pure English and of employing it every day is the best drill for a talker. People always act more naturally in their every-day clothes than they do when dressed up for Sunday, and the reason is, that they are unconscious in the one case and self-conscious in the other. It is so in speech. If one allows himself to talk coarsely and vulgarly every day and out of company, he will most assuredly find it not easy to talk well in company.

4. Habit is stronger than intention, and somewhere the common run of speech will break through and betray you. To converse well at some times requires that you should converse well at all times. Avoid all vulgarisms, all street colloquialisms, even when they are not vicious; for by-words and slang sentences amuse only while they are new. As soon as they become habitual they corrupt your language, without any equivalent in

amusement.

which you use, but only of the thought or feeling which

they express.

H. W. BEECHER.

XVII. HOW AN INDIAN BOY EARNED HIS NAME.

I.

1. The mountain countries of the earth have always been wonderlands. People are always exploring them, but they keep their secrets remarkably well.

The great western mountain country of the United States is made up of range after range of wonderful peaks and ridges. Right in the eastern edge of one of these mountain ridges, one warm September morning, a band of Nez Perces Indians were encamped.

2. The camp was in a sort of nook, and it was not easy to say whether the mountain jutted out into the plain, or a spur of the plain made a dent in the rugged line of the mountain. More than a dozen "lodges," made of skins upheld by poles, were scattered around on the smoother spots not far from a bubbling spring. There were trees and bushes and patches of grass near the spring, but the little brook which trickled from it, did not travel a great way into the world before it was soaked up by the sand and gravel. Up and beyond the spring, the farther one chose to look the rockier and ruggeder it became. Take it all together, it was a most forlorn looking place. The very lodges themselves, and the human beings around them, made it appear the