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XCII. THE YOUNG PHILOSOPHER.

phil os'o pher meas ur ing | dif fi cul ty | dis cov'er y

1. Rob is the owner of a foot-rule and a yardstick, and he takes great pleasure in measuring garden walks, fences, and other things about the place.

He will often guess at the distance from one point to another, and then measure, to see how near he came to it.

2. He had some difficulty when he tried to find out the length of his own shadow, for sometimes it was quite short, and at other times very long.

At length, however, he discovered that it was long in the morning, grew shorter till noon, then grew longer all the afternoon till sunset, when it would disappear.

3. He also learned that twice each day (once in the forenoon and once in the afternoon) his shadow was exactly of the same length as himself.

There is a beautiful maple near the house, which runs up tall and slim. Rob longed to know its real height, but could see no way of measuring it.

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this tree plainly marked on the smooth, green lawn. Just then a new thought came to him.

Why might he not find out the height of the tree by the length of its shadow?

He drove a stake into the ground, and found that its shadow was longer now than the stake. But he knew that shadows were growing shorter at this hour of the day, so he waited and watched.

5. In about an hour the stake and its shadow were of the same length. Then Bob ran to measure the shadow of the tree. He found it to be thirty-one feet, and he felt sure that this was the height of the maple.

He was delighted with his discovery, and said he should some time try to measure the distance to the moon.

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1. Harry's papa is an officer in the army, so Harry lives in a fort out on the plains. He sees a great many queer sights.

One day he saw some Indians moving. Indians live in wigwams, and do not have any furniture. They do not move from one wig

wam to another. They move wigwam and all from place to place. They do not have wagons, but carry their things on the backs of horses.

2. The Indians rode on horses, with the pappooses on their backs and the half-grown chil

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dren sitting before or behind them. The skins and blankets belonging to the wigwams were tied up, and the bundles were fastened to the backs of pack-horses. The lodge-poles were tied to the sides of the horses, so that one end of them dragged on the ground, as in the picture.

3. The Indians stopped a few hours not a great distance from the fort, and Hal went with the soldiers to see them. They were friendly Indians; that is, they were friendly just then. Perhaps the next time they would see them the Indians would be ready to fight about something.

4. Hal thought at first that it would be great fun to live like the Indians; but he soon changed his mind. When he saw still more of them he was very certain he would not like it. He was sure he would not like to sleep among such dirty skins and blankets, or to eat such food as they did.

5. The moving party Hal went to see were cooking their dinner. They had built fires on the ground. They cooked their meat on sticks over the fire, and stewed a good many queer things in large earthen pots.

6. One of the officers told Hal that the Indians were very fond of stewed puppies. Hal did not know whether to believe that or not. The Indians all helped themselves out of the same dish. They seemed to think it quite right to dip their fingers in and fish out the piece they liked best.

7. Some of the little Indians were almost pretty.

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