This made Henry Long-fel-low feel bad. But he kept on trying. After
many years, he became a famous poet.

For more than fifty years, young people have liked to read his poem
called "A Psalm of Life." Here are three stanzas of it:--

"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sub-lime,
And, de-part-ing, leave behind us
Foot-prints on the sands of time,--

"Foot-prints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and ship-wrecked brother,
Seeing, may take heart again.

"Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still a-chiev-ing, still pur-su-ing,
Learn to labor and to wait."

KIT CARSON AND THE BEARS.

Great men of one kind are known only in new countries like ours. These
men dis-cov-er new regions. They know how to manage the Indians. They
show other people how to live in a wild country.

One of the most famous of such men was Kit Car-son. He knew all about
the wild animals. He was a great hunter. He learned the languages of
the Indians. The Indians liked him. He was a great guide. He showed
soldiers and settlers how to travel where they wished to go.

Once he was marching through the wild country with other men. Evening
came. He left the others, and went to shoot something to eat. It was
the only way to get meat for supper. When he had gone about a mile,
he saw the tracks of some elks. He followed these tracks. He came in
sight of the elks. They were eating grass on a hill, as cows do.

Kit Car-son crept up behind some bushes. But elks are very timid
animals. Before the hunter got very near, they began to run away. So
Carson fired at one of them as it was running. The elk fell dead.

But just at that moment he heard a roar. He turned to see what made
this ugly noise. Two huge bears were running toward him. They wanted
some meat for supper, too.

Kit Carson's gun was empty. He threw it down. Then he ran as fast as
he could. He wanted to find a tree.

Just as the bears were about to seize him, he got to a tree. He caught
hold of a limb. He swung himself up into the tree. The bears just
missed getting him.

But bears know how to climb trees. Carson knew that they would soon be
after him. He pulled out his knife, and began to cut off a limb. He
wanted to make a club.

A bear is much larger and stronger than a man. He cannot be killed
with a club. But every bear has one t