le employment in future.

[Illustration: THE WOODCHUCK HUNTER.]

After they had left the boy, Frank and Fanny talked together very
sagely on the importance of making a proper use of time, and the folly
of spending it in the hunting of wild animals, like the woodchuck,
which are very hard to catch.

Just before reaching the village, they met a party of boys playing at
soldiers. They had their drum, and fife, colors, and wooden guns, and
tin swords, and flourished away in all the "pride, pomp, and
circumstance" of military display.

[Illustration: PLAYING AT SOLDIERS.]

This sight afforded Frank another theme for remark. His conversations
with Farmer Baldwin had inspired him with disgust for this kind of
amusement. He hated war, and was not pleased with any thing which
reminded him of it. Besides the nonsense of this soldier-playing, he
said there was an objection to it, as inspiring a taste for real
soldier life, and for amusing one's self with gun powder; and he told
Fanny a story of a boy, who, in firing off a little brass cannon,
which split in pieces, received one of the pieces in his neck, which
cut off a large artery, and caused his death in a few minutes.

[Illustration: DANGEROUS SPORT.]

Before Frank had finished his comments on this sad affair, they
reached home; and so ended the nutting expedition, which, Frank
thought, was not quite so profitable as helping Farmer Baldwin to
gather his apples.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII.

MARY DAY.

Mary Day's father was rich. He lived in an elegant house, kept a
carriage and fine horses, and Mary had beautiful dresses, and a great
variety of play-things.

Now I suppose you think that all these things made Mary very happy.
But it was not so. Mary was a discontented little girl. She was never
satisfied with any thing that she had, but was always wishing for
something new. Even the flock of beautiful tame rabbits, which her
father had given, afforded her but little pleasure, because she was of
a discontented disposition.

[Illustration: MARY DAY'S RABBITS.]

Now, it so happened, that Mary had been with Fanny several times to
the little 'chick-a-dee's' grave, and she told her mother, that she
wished she had a bird's grave of her own, like Fanny Lee's. Her mother
told her that Fanny would much rather have a live bird, like Mary's
Canary. But Mary persisted in saying, that a bird's grave was a great
deal nicer than a bird, which had to be waited on so m