late and pencil
in hand, ready to jot down any question that may chance to pop into
your busy young brains, to be asked and answered, for our further
enlightenment, at the end of our evening lesson. So, without more ado,
we will begin.

But, before trudging on further in our delightful journey, we must
pause a moment, and turning square round, with our faces towards the
long-ago years of the past, take a bird's-eye view of the early
history of our country, that we may know exactly where we are when we
come to find ourselves in the outskirts of that long and bloody
struggle between the two great nations of England and France, commonly
called the Seven Years' War, and sometimes the Old French War. Now,
although this would not be as entertaining to your lively fancies as
an Arabian tale or an Indian legend, yet you will by and by see very
plainly that we could not have skipped it, without losing the sense of
a great deal that follows; for it was during this war that our
Washington first experienced the trials and hardships of a soldier's
life, and displayed that courage, prudence, and ability, which in the
end proved the salvation and glory of his native country.

In the first place, you must know, my dear children, that this
beautiful land of ours, where now dwell the freest and happiest people
the blessed sun ever shone upon, was, only a few hundred years ago,
all a vast unbroken wilderness; a place where no one but savage
Indians found a home, whose chief amusement was to fight and kill and
scalp each other; and whose chief occupation was to hunt wild beasts
and birds, upon whose flesh they fed, and with whose hairy skins and
horns and claws and feathers they clothed and decked themselves. Where
in the leafy summer-time may now be heard the merry plough-boy
whistling "Yankee Doodle" over the waving corn, the wild Indian once
wrestled with the surly bear, or met his ancient enemy in deadly
fight. Nibbling sheep and grazing cattle now range the grassy hills
and valleys where he was wont to give chase to the timid deer, or lie
in wait for the monstrous buffalo. Huge steamers ply up and down our
mighty rivers where he once paddled his little canoe. Splendid cities
have risen, as if at the rubbing of Aladdin's enchanted lamp, where in
the depths of the forest he once kindled the great council-fire, and
met the neighboring tribes in the Big Talk. The very schoolhouse,
where you little folks are now tripping so lightly along