it in. Bring on the alembic wherein shall be distilled from the falling rain the Essence of Pumpkin, and we'll let it go without painting.

DEFINITIONS.

Benjamin F. Taylor.

A lem'bic, a chemical vessel used in distillation.

Dis till', to drop; to cause to fall in drops.

Es'sence, that which constitutes a substance as distinguished from

other substances.

Ro'tund, round; circular; spherical.

LESSON XXXVIII.

A MYSTERY.

1. "Things are working," these June days. Things'? WONDERS Withal! Why, quiet as it is here to-day, with nothing but green and blue in sight, the fields, the woods, the sky, and not a sound of carpentry, there is more going on than one would dream of, things that neither a Silliman, nor a Davy, nor a Liebig could do.

2. Do you see that cherry-tree? Every one of four bushels upon it! There's a ripe one. Pluck it. A cherry, -- red, ripe, and rich! Fragrance and flavor done up in a little red wrapper!

3. Set your cunning men who conjure with crucibles to make one, and you "set" them of a surety. Depend upon them, and you might, and you would, "make two bites of a cherry." Yet on that modest tree, "out of doors," that article was manufactured. No furnace sighing from morning till night; no workmen in white aprons; no sugar crushed, refined, snowy; no flour superfine; no vermilion in pot or powder; no parade, no bustle: but there they are," cherry ripe!"

4. Winter's cold fingers lifted from the pulses of the tree, and they throbbed full and strong. Pumps in the earth below were rigged and manned. Signals were silently set in bud and blossom aloft. Winds came and swung the branches, and peeped into this and that, and went away.

too.

5. Birds came and looked about, and saw nothing, and went Unseen hands were gathering, and molding, and refining all the while. The sun came up from the Tropic of Capricorn, and looked on, nothing more. The clouds went dripping by, and never stopped, and that was all.

6. Edward, or Silas, or somebody, planted a cherry-stone four or five years ago, and forgot it; but the "whip" of a tree went right on, and without any help that we can see, set up business, and manufactured Nature's confectionery, all by itself.

7. Last week the cherries were green; now they are tinted with red; not a brush lying about, not a stained finger visible. No advertisements in the newspapers of "Painting done here"; no "Apprentices wanted"; for Nature's hands are all journeymen; not a leaf with a capital or an exclamation point on it. Ah! that Artist belongs to the Royal Family of NATURE.

B. F. Taylor. (Adapted.)

LESSON XXXIX.

THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE-TREE.

1.

Come, let us plant the apple-tree!

Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;

Wide let its hollow bed be made;

H

There gently lay the roots, and there
Sift the dark mold with kindly care,
And press it o'er them tenderly,
As round the sleeping infant's feet
We softly fold the cradle-sheet;

So plant we the apple-tree.

2.

What plant we in this apple-tree? Buds, which the breath of summer days

Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;

Boughs, where the thrush, with crimson breast,

Shall haunt, and sing, and hide her nest.

We plant upon the sunny lea

A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer shower,

When we plant the apple-tree.

3.

What plant we in this apple-tree? Sweets for a hundred flowery springs To load the May-wind's restless wings, When, from the orchard row, he pours Its fragrance through our open doors.

A world of blossoms for the bee, Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, For the glad infant, sprigs of bloom We plant with the apple-tree.

4.

What plant we in this apple-tree? Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,

And redden in the August noon,

And drop when gentle airs come by,
That fan the blue September sky,

While children, wild with noisy glee,
Shall scent their fragrance as they pass,
And search for them the tufted grass
At the foot of the apple-tree.

5.

And when, above this apple-tree, The winter stars are quivering bright, And winds go howling through the night, Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth, Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth,

And guests in prouder homes shall see, Heaped with the orange and the grape, As fair as they in tint and shape,

The fruit of the apple-tree.

6.

The fruitage of this apple-tree
Winds and our flag of stripe and star
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar,
Where men shall wonder at the view,
And ask in what fair groves they grew;
And they who roam beyond the sea
Shall think of childhood's careless day
And long hours passed in summer play,
In the shade of the apple-tree.

7.

But time shall waste this apple-tree.
O, when its aged branches throw
Their shadows on the world below,
Shall fraud and force and iron will
Oppress the weak and helpless still'?

What shall the task of mercy be,
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears
Of those who live when length of years
Is wasting this apple-tree?

8.

"Who planted this old apple-tree?"
The children of that distant day
Thus to some aged man shall say ;
And, gazing on its mossy stem,
The gray-haired man shall answer them:
"A poet of the land was he,

Born in the rude but good old times;

'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes

On planting the apple-tree."

Bryant.

ANALYSIS. 1. The planting of the apple-tree described. To what is the covering of the roots compared? 2. What the tree will afford in the spring. 3. What, in May. 4. What, in August and September. 5. What, in the winter. 6. Where its fruit will be borne; and what it will suggest. 7. What questions does the poet ask in relation to the old age of the apple-tree? 8. What posterity may say about it. What reply may be given?

LESSON XL.

THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.

1. Pause awhile, ye downcast and disconsolate tenants of earth! Raise your bowed heads and look upward! Behold the vast panorama which Nature has spread out for your study and contemplation! If you look at the blue concave heavens over your heads, on a clear night, you will behold it bedecked with myriads upon myriads of sparkling gems, outvying in