sun'-flow-er
course
warmth
in-stead'
star'-ing
spar-row
stopped
crowd
cush'-ion
mid'-dle
gar'-den
know

1. It was very hot, the sky was blue, and the air was full of the
humming and buzzing of bees and flies. A white butterfly flitted by, but
soon went away over the garden-wall.

2. Bee after bee, and fly after fly, settled on the sunflowers and
hunted for honey. Dora and Harry watched for a long time.

3. 'The sunflower is like a little sun,' said Dora.

'And it loves the sun,' said her mother, who was snipping off dead roses
close by; 'it always turns to look at it. See, its face is towards the
sun now. And if you look again before sunset you will find the flower
turned to it still.'

4. 'How strange!' said Dora.

[Illustration: Sunflower.]

'And it has such a strong stalk,' said Harry. 'You would not think that
it could turn round. It must be alive!'

'Of course it is alive!'

'But, I mean, it must feel, or why should it turn and turn to get the
light and warmth?'

5. 'How ragged all the stalks and leaves are!' said Dora. 'I wish they
would make themselves tidy instead of always staring at the sun. Why are
there so many holes in the leaves?'

6. 'Grubs have been eating them. Our friend Mr Sparrow must have been
away lately!'

7. Here mother stopped snipping at her rose-trees, and came up to one of
the sunflowers.

8. 'There is something I want you to see,' she said. 'You think this is
one big flower, but it is really a crowd of little flowers. Look! Can
you think of another flower that is something like it?'

9. Harry and Dora shook their heads.

'It is very small,' mother went on, 'with a cushion in the middle like
this, and rays standing out all round like these.'

10. 'Does it grow on a tree?'

'No.'

'In this garden?'

'No.'

'In the fields?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, I know!' cried Harry. 'It is the daisy.'

MERRY WORKERS.

wheels
bus'-y
i'-dle
brook'-lets
ripp'-ling
sky'-lark
lis'-ten
hon'-ey
mer'-ri-ly
hum'-ming
e-nough'
wea'-ry

1. Tell me what the mill-wheels say,
Always turning night and day;
When we sleep and when we wake,
What a busy sound they make!
Never idle, never still,
What a worker is the mill!

2. What is it that the brooklets say,
Rippling onward day by day?
Sweet as skylark on the wing,