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his own; how he had repaid her constant care and kindness with disobedience and neglect. 5. And now she was going to die. would never have any chance to please her, to do any thing for her in return for all she had done for him. It was too bad. If she would only get well, he thought, he would never displease her again.

6. Then he thought all at once that perhaps she might yet recover. As he thought more of it, he felt sure she would. He would please her yet.

7. Quieted a little by these thoughts, he arose from his bed and went into his mother's chamber. Before any one could stop him, he had gone straight to her side.

8. "Mother," said he, as he looked on her thin, pale face," they say that you are going to die; but I know better. It is I who have made you sick by my behaving so badly.

9. "I will never disobey you again. I am going to try hard to be as good a boy as you wish me to be, and if you will only get well I will never displease you as long as I live."

10. His mother was very much affected by this, and that very day showed signs of improved health. She grew better slowly, but

in two months was quite well again. Henry had now become a good boy, and when he was tempted to do wrong, was kept from it by the remembrance of his feelings when he had thought his mother was going to die.

11. He became one of the best boys in the village, and the pride and delight of his mother.

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1. WHEN Columbus returned to Spain, after he had discovered America, we may suppose that his friends came round him, asking him where he had been and what he had seen; and this is such a story as he may have told them :

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2. I left the shores of Spain, which had long been my home, to seek a new world.

1 The teacher can relate such incidents of the voyage as will be interesting to children; and by this means a desire for the study of history will be early created.

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With a pang of grief, I cast back a long, sad look upon the land I was leaving.

3. The soft breeze curled the blue sea, and the bright sunlight played upon the deep. Our ships, with their sails swelling in the breeze, cut through the waves, and bore us over the main.

4. The gale sung in the shrouds, the ropes shook, the masts bent, the sails filled with the wind, and as our ships rode on the deep they left a track of white foam on the sea.

5. Day by day the wind blew from the east, and we held our way right on to the west. Our hearts were full of hope. We

blessed the breeze that did not change, for we were bound to the west. It was there we hoped to find a new world.

6. On we sped. One week was gone, and still the wind blew strong from the east. Two weeks were passed, and still the same east wind. We held on our course.

7. All was sea: no land. At morn, at noon, at eve, we climbed the mast to look for land, in vain. We saw no shore.

8. The fourth week now had passed; still all was sea. At morn we seemed to be where we had been at night, and at night where we had been in the morning.

9. Our men, once so full of hope, once so bold, now grew sad and full of fears. They spoke of home, of their friends, and asked, When shall we see them again?

sea.

10. One night, thick clouds hung over the The wind came in gusts, and the waves rose and dashed over the reeling ships. Vain was the skill of the seamen. The ships drove before the storm.

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1. You who dwell at home know nothing of the dangers of the deep. When the wind blows, and you walk along the shore and see the waves roll in and break upon the sand, you say, How grand and beautiful they are!

2. But he who once has seen a storm at sea never sees the waves roll upon the shore, or hears the wind howl round his home, but he thinks of the sailor's toils.

3. Three days and nights we drove before the storm, and then the rain fell, and the wind grew still, and the sea calm: but still no land.

4. The men looked gloomy, and said that they would work the ship no longer; and we thought that we must give up the search for a new world, and seek once more our own shores.

5. All at once I heard a shout, and one of 2 Pronounced draft.

1 Pronounced lõng'ger.

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