the way;
'Mid smoke and shot, he saw his banners wave,
He rode victorious, joying in the fray.
Till fickle Fortune set the hero learning
'Tis a long lane, or street, that knows no turning.

_Long-street._

HOME STORIES.

MY PET FROM THE CLOUDS.

How odd it was! Such a funny little event! I have often told the
story to my one little chick, but it has always seemed to me too absurd
to put into print; yet you see I have finally made up my mind to tell
you all about it.

I was seven years old that summer,--seven, "going on" eight, as we
country children used to say. It was the term during which I commenced
the study of geography,--dear old Peter Parley's charming little book,
which first formally introduced me to the great world we live in, or
rather on, and first made me realize that it was round, and all that.
It was on an afternoon in the early part of July, I am not sure,
though, that it was n't in the latter part of June, that it
happened,--the singular event I am going to tell you about. It had
been dreadfully hot all day,--so hot that the very hillsides seemed to
pant, like the sides of the poor cattle, in the parched pastures. I
thought it extremely lucky that my geography lesson that day was in
Greenland. I don't believe I could have been equal to a lesson in
Mesopotamia. I remember saying to Bob Linn, at recess, that I wished I
was a seal, riding on an iceberg; and he said he wished he was a white
bear, climbing the North Pole and sliding down backwards. That was so
like Bob Linn. He used to climb the lightning-rod of the
meeting-house, and ring the bell at very improper hours, till Deacon
Jones tarred it,--the rod, not the bell. I wonder where he is
now,--Bob, not the Deacon. He was the first schoolmate to whom I told
what had happened that July, or June afternoon. As I think I have
said, it was a very hot day; but, just before school was dismissed,
there came up a refreshing thunder-shower. How we revived, in the
cool, moist air, like the poor wilted field-flowers! The shrunken
stream in the glen grew, and took heart, and went tumbling down the
rocks, in its old, headlong spring-fashion. The cattle stopped panting
and whisking off flies, and stood dripping and chewing, while a smile
of brightening greenness ran over the faded face of the pasture.

I had a half-mile walk home. One of the girls who lived nearer the
school-house invited me to stay all night with her;