l's repairs on the strong
part of the dam, and the name that before had been a credit to him was
turned into a reproach, for from that day the beavers called him, in
derision, "Mud Dauber's son, the best blood in the colony."

Don't neglect a danger because it is small; don't boast of what your
father did; and don't be too conceited to receive good advice.

THE MOCKING-BIRD'S SINGING-SCHOOL.

A lady brought a mocking-bird from New Orleans to her home in the North.
At first all the birds in the neighborhood looked upon it with contempt.
The chill northern air made the poor bird homesick, and for a few days he
declined to sing for anybody.

"Well, I do declare," screamed out Miss Guinea-fowl, "to see the care our
mistress takes of that homely bird. It don't seem to be able to sing a
note. I can make more music than that myself. Indeed, my voice is quite
operatic. Pot-rack! pot-rack! pot-rack!" and the empty-headed Miss
Guinea-fowl nearly cracked her own throat, and the ears of everybody
else, with her screams. And the great vain peacock spread his sparkling
tail-feathers in the sun, and looked with annihilating scorn on the dull
plumage of the poor mocking-bird. "Daddy Longlegs," the Shanghai rooster,
crowed louder than ever, with one eye on the poor jaded bird, and said:
"What a contemptible little thing you are, to be sure!" Gander White,
Esq., the portly barn-yard alderman, hissed at him, and even Duck
Waddler, the tadpole catcher, called him a quack.

But wise old Dr. Parrot, in the next cage, said: "Wait and see. There's
more under a brown coat than some people think."

There came a day at last when the sun shone out warm. Daddy Longlegs
crowed hoarsely his delight, the peacock tried his musical powers by
shouting Ne-onk! ne-onk! and Duck Waddler quacked away more ridiculously
than ever. Just then the mocking-bird ruffled his brown neck-feathers and
began to sing. All the melody of all the song-birds of the South seemed
to be bottled up in that one little bosom. Even Miss Guinea-fowl had
sense enough to stop her hideous operatic "pot-rack," to listen to the
wonderful sweetness of the stranger's song. Becoming cheered with his own
singing, the bird began to mimic the hoarse crowing with which Daddy
Longlegs wakened him in the morning. This set the barn-yard in a roar,
and the peacock shouted his applause in a loud "ne-onk!" Alas! for him,
the mocking-bird mimicked his hideous cry, then qu