away and wasn't scared a bit.

And sing--how oft in glee
Came a truant boy like me,
Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting melody,
Till the gurgle and refrain
Of your music in his brain
Wrought a happiness as keen to him as pain.

Little brook--laugh and leap!
Do not let the dreamer weep:
Sing him all the songs of summer till he sink in softest sleep;
And then sing soft and low
Through his dreams of long ago--
Sing back to him the rest he used to know!

_James Whitcomb Riley_.

From "Rhymes of Childhood." Used by special permission of the
publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Co. Copyright, 1900.

* * * * *

[Illustration: BY THE BROOK]

RIPPLES, little curling waves FILM, a thin skin or slight
covering.

CURRENT, the swiftest part of a stream; also applied to _air,
electricity_, etc.

What do the following expressions mean: tilting rim, lilting melody,
softest sleep, gurgle and refrain, a happiness as keen to him as pain?

What is a lullaby? Recite a stanza of one.

Insert _may_ or _can_ properly where you see a dash in the
following: The boy said, "--I leave the room?" "Mother, I--climb the
ladder;--I?"--a dog climb a tree?--I ask a favor?

Copy the following words--they are often misspelled: loving, using,
till, until, queer, fulfil, speech, muscle, quite, scheme, success,
barely, college, villain, salary, visitor, remedy, hurried, forty-four,
enemies, twelfth, marriage, immense, exhaust.

By means of the suffixes, _er, est, ness_, form three new words
from each of the following words: happy, sleepy, lively, greedy,
steady, lovely, gloomy.

Example: From happy,--happier, happiest, happiness. Note the change of
_y_ to _i_.

* * * * *

_15_

rag'ged
crin'kly
rub'bish
fil'tered
protect'ed
disor'derly
disturbed'
imme'diately

THE STORY OF THE SEED-DOWN.

I.

High above the earth, over land and sea, floated the seed-down, borne on
the autumn wind's strong arms.

"Here shall you lie, little seed-down," said he at last, and put it down
on the ground, and laid a fallen leaf over it. Then he flew away
immediately, because he had much to look after.

That was in the dark evening, and the seed could not see where it was
placed, and besides, the leaf covered it.

Something heavy came now, and pressed so hard that the