mother never thought of herself, only of her cubs.
They were not quite dead, only dying, and she crawled to where they
lay, with the lump of meat she had fetched, and put it down before
them, as she had done the first time. When she found they did not eat,
she took hold first of one, then of the other, and tried to lift them
up, moaning pitifully all the time, as if she thought it would be of
no use. Then she went a little way off and looked back. But the cubs
were dead now, and could not move, so she went back to them and began
to lick their wounds. Once more she crawled away from them, and then
again came back, and went round and round them, pawing them and
moaning. At last she seems to have found out that they were dead; and
turning to the ship, she raised her head and uttered a loud growl of
anger and despair. The cruel sailors fired at her in reply, and she
fell between her poor dead cubs, and died licking their wounds.

[Illustration: THE FAITHFUL BOY.]

CHARLIE'S ESCAPE.

I have some boy-cousins living in the country of whom I think a great
deal. They write me letters quite often. I can hardly tell whose
letters give me the most pleasure, the "big boys'," who write me about
their school, their colts and calves, their good times on the
holidays, or the little printed letters I get from the "small boys,"
telling me how many chickens they have and that they love me. I am
sure I love them _all_, and hope they will grow to be good, true men.

Charlie is one of the "big boys." Not _very_ big, either--just
thirteen years old, and rather small and slight for his years. A few
weeks ago a neighbor of his father's was going away, and got Charlie
to do "the chores" for him during his absence--feed the young cattle,
milk the cow and keep things in order about the barn. Charlie is an
obliging boy, so he performed his task faithfully. If I had time,
boys, I would just like to stop here and give you a little lecture on
faithfulness, with Charlie for a model, for he _is_ a "faithful boy."
But I want to tell my story. For two or three days Charlie went each
morning to his neighbor's barn, and after milking the cow turned all
the creatures to pasture, and every night drove them home again. One
morning, as he stood by the bars waiting for them all to pass out, a
frisky year-old calf--"a yearling" the farmers call them--instead of
going orderly over the bars, as a well-disposed calf should, just gave
a side jump and shook