Chapter 17

clean´-ing piece can´-vas soap oil em´-er-y pow´-der bun´-dle man´-gle a-fraid´ brok´-en sec´-ond Fri´-day points hun´-gry laugh´-ing

1. The cleaning of the needles came next.

2. A great many were laid side by side on a piece of canvas, and covered with paste.

'What is the paste made of?' Harry wanted to know.

'Soft soap, my lad,' said the workman, 'and oil, and emery-powder.'

3. He rolled them all up in the canvas, tied string round the bundle, and put it between the rollers of a thing that looked like a mangle.

4. Dora and Harry opened their eyes wide. 'Think of needles being mangled! This will be something to tell mother!'

5. When the bundle was unrolled, they were afraid that the needles would be broken. But they were all right, and they were taken out and washed in warm soap-suds.

6. 'Now they must be clean!' said Dora.

'Not yet,' said the man; 'they have to be rolled up again with more paste, and put between those rollers again, and again, and again. It takes eight days to clean the best needles.

7. 'And it takes six days to clean the second-best,' said the man.

'Then even the second-best won't be done till Friday!' said Harry.

8. 'But we can go and see some needles that have been cleaned,' said his uncle. 'Let us go up-stairs again.'

9. And they went up into a room where many girls were sitting at a long table with heaps of bright needles before them. They were putting them in order, side by side, heads all one way, points another.

Dora was sure that she could not pick them out so quickly.

10. They were going on into another room to see the eyes of the needles made smooth, when Dora said, 'Oh, uncle, I am so tired!'

'So am I,' said Harry, 'and hungry, too.'

11. 'Come along, then,' said uncle, laughing. 'We all want our dinners, I think.' He took Dora's hand in his, and away they went.

THE KNIFE.

ro´-ley po´-ley thought morn´-ing knife least blade han´-dle aunt´-ie edg´-es rath´-er clock

1. There was not much talking at dinner, till after the second helping of roley-poley.

2. Then Dora and Harry felt happy again, and began to tell their aunt all about the needle-making. She had seen it once, but it was a long time ago, and she thought she should like to see it again.

3. 'But if I had gone this morning,' she said, 'you would not have had your pudding.'

'That would have been sad,' said Dora.

4. 'What a lot of steel we have seen,' said Harry. 'I never knew there was so much in the world.'

5. 'You can see some on this table now.'

'Where?'

'What have I cut the pudding with?'

'Oh, the knife! Yes, I see; that must be steel; at least, that part of it. What do you call that part?'

'The blade.'

6. 'And what about the handle?'

'I don't know. It is yellow, and smooth, and hard.'

'It is bone,' said his uncle, 'part of an ox-bone. But some handles are made of wood.'

7. 'May I look at that knife near you, auntie? I mean the clean one. Thank you!'

8. Then Dora wanted one to look at too; and they felt the edges softly and found them very sharp. They looked at the blunt backs of the blades, and then tried to read the maker's name.

9. 'There is no room to put the maker's name on a needle,' said Harry. 'But how do they get it on here?'

'It is stamped on when the blade is red-hot and rather soft.'

10. They could not make out how the handle was put on, so their aunt went to the knife-box and got out an old knife that had lost its handle. They saw that the blade had a long thin piece of iron at the end of it.

11. 'A long hole is made inside the handle, and this iron thing is put into it, and made fast.'

So their uncle said, and then looked at the clock and saw that it was time for him to go.

THE HEN.

bas´-ket fetch friends fowls watch thought charge pair ban´-tams know proud peck´-ing greed´-y gray swal´-lowed laughed

1. The day after Dora and Harry came home, their mother gave them a basket and sent them up to the farm to fetch eggs.

2. Rover went with them, and all three were glad to go, for they had many friends at the farm.

3. There was the great dog, Watch, and there were the cart-horses and the pony, the ducks and the fowls. And there were five girls and boys--Mary, Tom, Johnny, Annie, and Kate.

4. When these five, and Watch, saw Harry, Dora, and Rover coming, they ran down the lane to meet them. They were soon all in the farm-yard, talking as fast as they could talk.

5. Two had to tell about their visit to Needle-town, and five about the doings at the farm, so it was some time before the eggs were thought of.

6. Mary had charge of the eggs, and went every morning to look for new ones.

'Since you went away,' she said, 'I have had a pair of bantams given me, for my very own. Here they are!'

'What little things! and how very pretty!' cried Dora. 'Do they know you, Mary?'

7. 'Yes; I feed them every day. Here comes the big black hen. She has been laying an egg. See how proud she is! She calls out in that way to let the rest know what she has done.'

8. 'Now she is pecking about for food,' said Harry.

Tom said that fowls were always eating.

'They are greedy things,' said Kate.

9. 'Oh, look at this gray hen!' said Harry, 'she picked up a bit of stone just now and ate it! Does she know no better?'

10. 'It is not for food,' Mary told him; 'she takes it to grind up the hard seeds she has swallowed. They all go into a strong little bag, and the stones rub and press on the seeds.'

11. 'I never heard of such a thing! She keeps a mill inside to grind her food!'

12. The others laughed, and then Mary went in to get some eggs. After the basket was filled, the two children said good-bye to their friends, and went home.

THE SPARROW.

shoots spar´-rows steal fruit thou´-sand ba´-bies build spoil beaks ap´-ple blos´-som fruit clean thirst´-y wheat throw

1. 'Mother,' cried Harry, running in one day, 'Jack Denny says he shoots sparrows!'

'I am very sorry to hear it. Why does he shoot them?'

'"They steal fruit and corn," he says. He wanted me to throw stones at them!'

2. 'Well, you can tell him about some silly men who killed the sparrows and other birds, and the next year their fruit and corn were eaten up by grubs. Even the leaves on the trees were eaten.'

3. 'Is this true?'

'Quite true. They had to send for little birds from other places to live in their fields and gardens. Do you know that a sparrow kills four thousand grubs in one day when her babies are in the nest?

4. 'One wise man who grows fruit says that his best friends are the sparrows, and he makes holes in the garden-walls for them to build in. Their sharp eyes see the tiny things that would spoil the fruit, and their sharp beaks nip them up at once.

5. 'He loves to see sparrows in an apple-tree in blossom-time; he knows they are saving the apples for him.'

'But Jack says he has seen them pecking at fruit.'

6. 'Yes, they like fruit, just as you and I do. But there would be no fruit at all, if the birds did not eat the grubs.

7. 'The man I was telling you about puts nets over his trees when the fruit begins to ripen. And I heard only the other day that it is a good plan to put pans of clean fresh water close to the trees and bushes. Then the birds will not go so often to the fruit. They are thirsty and hot, poor things!

8. 'And there would be no corn, if the birds did not kill the wheat-fly's grubs.'

9. When Harry heard all this, he made up his mind not to throw stones at the sparrows, as Jack wanted him to do.

A DAY IN THE COUNTRY.

but´-ter-flies mer´-ry gath´-ered broth´-er flow´-ers o-bliged´ roamed scoured pleas´-ant cheese hedge ease brook´-let crys´-tal thrush mus´-ic

1. Where the bees and butterflies Skim the grassy down, Four merry little children Gathered from the town;

2. Ragged little Johnnie, And his brother Ben, With wild-flowers are laden, These merry little men. Kate and Mat have posies Of colours bright and gay, For Tim, their tiny brother, At home obliged to stay.

3. They have roamed the meadow, They have scoured the wood, Seeking nuts and blackberries, For their pleasant food. With their nuts and blackberries And bits of bread and cheese, On a mossy hedge-bank, Now they take their ease.

4. Drinking from the brooklet 'Neath the hawthorn tree, Clear it runs as crystal, Fresh and bright and free. And the thrush sings loudly On the hawthorn spray, And the brooklet ever Makes music on its way.

SOME HERBS.

stream through grav´-el mar´-ket tea lett´-uce tongue mus´-tard pow´-der sprin´-kled flan´-nel car´-ried pars´-ley thyme herbs sage

1. A little stream ran through one of the farmer's fields. The water was so clear that you could see the sand and gravel at the bottom, and in it there grew plenty of water-cress.

2. Harry went one afternoon to help Johnny and Tom to pick it for market, and brought a big bunch home for tea.

3. His mother had picked a lettuce from the garden, and some mustard and cress, and they were all put on one plate.

'They bite my tongue,' said Dora, 'all but the lettuce. I like it best.'

4. 'And I like the biting,' said Harry. 'Why is this called mustard, mother?'

'Because the yellow mustard comes from it. The seeds are ground to powder.'

'And we eat the leaves. It is a useful plant.'

5. After tea, mother took some cress-seed and mustard-seed out of two little packets. Then she cut up one or two corks, put them into a deep plate, filled it with water, and sprinkled seed on the cork.

6. 'This is for you, Harry,' she said. 'You will soon have a little crop of mustard and cress. And here is one for Dora!'

In Dora's plate she laid a bit of flannel, poured water on it, and sowed seed. The children carried off their plates to a safe place, and thought it would be fine fun to see roots and leaves come out of the tiny seeds.

7. Then mother called them into the garden to see her parsley. She told them that hares and rabbits would come a long way to feed on a parsley-bed if they could get at it.

8. Close by grew mint, sage, and thyme. 'All these are herbs,' she said. 'They are not like trees, are they?'

'No; they have no bark, no hard wood, and they are so small.'

9. Dora picked a mint-leaf, a parsley-leaf, a thyme-leaf, and a sage-leaf, and laid them side by side. She wanted to see if they were like each other. But when she looked at them she found that they were not alike.

COFFEE.

cof´-fee beans kneel´-ing chair win´-dow bus´-y stock´-ings ket´-tle rat´-tled coun´-try cher´-ry to-geth´-er blos´-som cov´-ered cloths ber´-ries

1. 'What is coffee, mother dear? Does it grow?'

2. It was Dora who asked this. She and Harry were putting away some things that had come from the shop, and she was now filling a tin with coffee-beans.

3. She was kneeling on a chair by the table in the window. Her mother was busy mending stockings, and the cat and the dog were both asleep. The kettle was singing, and all was cosy.

4. The coffee-beans rattled into the tin, and Dora picked one out and looked at it.

When Harry heard Dora asking about it, he also put his hand in and took a coffee-bean. It smelt very nice, he thought. So did Dora.

5. They found that it had a flat side and a round side.

'It humps up,' said Dora.

'See, I can put the flat side of mine against the flat side of yours,' said Harry.

'They grew like that,' said mother.

'Oh, then, they did grow? They were alive once?'

6. 'Yes; they were seeds of a plant that grows in a warm country, far away from here. They once lived inside a berry.

'The berry was red like a cherry, and the seeds inside were held together in a little bag.'

7. 'There must have been a flower before the berry came,' said Harry, thinking of the pea-flower and its pod.

'A very pretty white flower,' said his mother. 'They say that a coffee-garden looks lovely in blossom-time, just as if it were all covered with snow.

8. 'In two or three days the snow-like blossoms are gone, and the fruit is left. When it is ripe, men put cloths under the trees, and shake it down.'

9. 'I wish I could go and help!' said Harry. 'What comes next?'

'They pick up the berries, dry them in the sun, and get the beans out. Then they send the beans over the sea in a ship. And here they are!'

PAPER.

un-hap´-py should tea heels per-haps´ clean school clean´-ing hearth laugh jok´-ing in-deed´ tear boil through clev´-er

1. 'It is such a wet day, I don't know what to do!' said Harry, looking very unhappy.

2. 'Are you tired of your drawing and painting?' asked his mother.

'Oh yes! And we have played at houses, and had the bricks out on the floor, and now there is nothing to do, and it is not nearly tea-time yet. Will you read to us, mother?'

3. 'Not just now. But if you would help me a little I should get on faster, and then we might have a nice time before tea.'

'Jolly!' cried Harry; and he ran to the foot of the stairs and called Dora.

4. Down came Dora very fast, with her doll in her arms, and the dog at her heels.

5. 'What I want you to do,' said mother, 'is to tear up these old papers and put them into this sack. The man is coming soon to take it to the paper-mill.'

6. 'Why is it taken to the paper-mill?' asked Harry.

'To be made over again into paper. Perhaps it will come back to us some day, all clean.

7. 'Or it may be made into a newspaper, and father may bring it home in his pocket.'

'Or we may get it in copy-books at school.'

'Yes; or it may come from the shop with rice in it.'

8. 'It may never come at all,' said Dora. 'Perhaps it will go to some other house.'

'That is quite likely,' said mother, who was now cleaning the hearth.

9. They went on putting the paper into the sack for a long time, and then Harry asked:

'How was paper made before there was old paper to make it of?'

10. 'Oh, it is not made of paper only. It is made of old rags, old ropes'----

Harry and Dora began to laugh.

'And straw, and wood, and a kind of grass'----

'Now, are you joking, mother?'

11. 'No, indeed! They cut the wood and straw into tiny bits, and they cut and tear the rags and boil them.'

'And what do they do with the grass?'

'They cut it up, boil it, and mix clay with it. Then it is put through a very clever machine, which makes it into paper.'

A FLY.

spilt won´-der e-nough´ fel´-low thirst´-y mouth su´-gar teeth ceil´-ing ei´-ther win´-dow pane won´-der-ful straight count´-ed friend

1. 'Just look here, Harry!' Dora called out.

A little milk had been spilt on the table, and two flies had found it out.

'We won't wipe it up! Let us wait and see if they can take it all. See, it is getting less! I wonder how they do it.'

2. 'There! one fly has gone. He has had enough. But this old fellow is very thirsty. He does not look as if he were drinking, and yet the milk goes. That long thing must be his mouth. Is it, mother?'

3. 'It is called his trunk. The mouth is at the end of it. He is very clever with it. Do you know that he never eats? He only drinks.'

4. 'But I have seen him eating sugar.'

'No; I don't think you have. He has no teeth and no jaws. He can't bite anything. What he does is to wet the sugar with his mouth and melt it, and then suck it up.'

5. 'Well, that is clever! I wonder how he found out how to do it. And I know something else that he is clever at.'

6. 'What is it, Harry?' asked Dora.

'Something you can't do! He can walk on the ceiling.'

'You can't do it either,' said Dora.

'How does he hold on, mother? We can see one up there now! He walks about as if he were on the table.'

7. 'He has something like gum inside his feet, and, when he wants to stand or walk upside down, he presses this out, and it helps him to stick on. Here is another fly walking up the window-pane.'

'I have often seen flies on the window-pane.'

8. 'How wonderful it is! The glass, you see, is smooth and hard, and it stands straight up. We could not go up a hill like that, could we?'

9. They watched him go up and down, counted his six legs, and saw that his wings were very pretty. Their mother told them a very strange thing, that his eyes could see all ways at once!

10. Then they had to say good-bye to him, for out he went into the garden. When they turned to the table, they found that their other friend had gone too--and so had the milk.

THE WASP.

wasp bus´-y win´-ter ground pass´-age loose per-haps´ fence pow´-der spread brown comb pil´-lars cell hatched crawl´-ing

1. There was a great stir at dinner one day. A wasp came in, begging for sugar and plum-tart. Harry and Dora ran this way and that.

2. At last their father got the wasp out into the garden, and, when all was quiet again, he asked if they would like to hear its story.

'Oh yes, father!' said Dora.

3. Harry was busy with his plums, but he nodded, as much as to say, 'I shall be glad to hear it too!'

4. So the father began:

'All last winter the wasp was asleep, but when spring came she waked up and set out to look for a home. I am not quite sure where she found it, but it was in the ground, I think.

5. 'She began to dig in the soft earth, and she dug on till she had made a long passage. She had to carry out all the loose earth herself. Then she made a little room at the end of the passage.

6. 'Next she looked about for some old wood, and found it in a tree, perhaps, or post, or bit of fence. She rubbed away at it with her jaws till she got some of it off in powder.

7. 'She made this powder into a paste with a sort of gum which came out of her mouth, and off she went with it to her room.'

8. 'What did she do with it?'

'She spread it out in sheets of thin brown paper, and with these she made a comb like a bee's.'

'She made paper of it.'

'Only a bee's is made of wax. I know that!' said Harry.

9. 'She put many layers of paper on the top to keep the rain out, and pillars under it to hold it up. Then she laid an egg in each cell. When the eggs were hatched'----

'Little wasps came flying out,' said Dora.

'No; little grubs came crawling out!

10. 'The wasp was now more busy than ever. She fed each baby in turn, and as they all grew bigger she had to get more and more food for them.'

THE SUNFLOWER

blue buzz´-ing set´-tled watched sun´-flow-er course warmth in-stead´ star´-ing spar-row stopped crowd cush´-ion mid´-dle gar´-den know

1. It was very hot, the sky was blue, and the air was full of the humming and buzzing of bees and flies. A white butterfly flitted by, but soon went away over the garden-wall.

2. Bee after bee, and fly after fly, settled on the sunflowers and hunted for honey. Dora and Harry watched for a long time.

3. 'The sunflower is like a little sun,' said Dora.

'And it loves the sun,' said her mother, who was snipping off dead roses close by; 'it always turns to look at it. See, its face is towards the sun now. And if you look again before sunset you will find the flower turned to it still.'

4. 'How strange!' said Dora.

'And it has such a strong stalk,' said Harry. 'You would not think that it could turn round. It must be alive!'

'Of course it is alive!'

'But, I mean, it must feel, or why should it turn and turn to get the light and warmth?'

5. 'How ragged all the stalks and leaves are!' said Dora. 'I wish they would make themselves tidy instead of always staring at the sun. Why are there so many holes in the leaves?'

6. 'Grubs have been eating them. Our friend Mr Sparrow must have been away lately!'

7. Here mother stopped snipping at her rose-trees, and came up to one of the sunflowers.

8. 'There is something I want you to see,' she said. 'You think this is one big flower, but it is really a crowd of little flowers. Look! Can you think of another flower that is something like it?'

9. Harry and Dora shook their heads.

'It is very small,' mother went on, 'with a cushion in the middle like this, and rays standing out all round like these.'

10. 'Does it grow on a tree?'

'No.'

'In this garden?'

'No.'

'In the fields?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, I know!' cried Harry. 'It is the daisy.'

MERRY WORKERS.

wheels bus´-y i´-dle brook´-lets ripp´-ling sky´-lark lis´-ten hon´-ey mer´-ri-ly hum´-ming e-nough´ wea´-ry

1. Tell me what the mill-wheels say, Always turning night and day; When we sleep and when we wake, What a busy sound they make! Never idle, never still, What a worker is the mill!

2. What is it that the brooklets say, Rippling onward day by day? Sweet as skylark on the wing, Ripple, ripple--thus they sing. Never idle, never still, Always working with a will!

3. Listen to the honey-bee, Flying now so merrily Here and there with busy hum-- Humming, drumming, drumming, drum. Never idle, never still, Humming, drumming--hum it will!

4. Like the mill, the brook, the bee, May it now be said of me That I'm always busy too, For there's work enough to do. If I work, then, with a will, It will be but playing still; Ever merry, never weary, It will be but playing still.

THE ROSE.

bas´-ket wo´-man vil´-lage sweet´-ly cab´-bage be-cause´ stooped smile thorns yel´-low a-greed´ win´-ter

1. Mother went back to her roses, and soon called for a little basket, saying that Dora and Harry should take a few to an old woman who lived in the village.

2. 'Poor granny,' she said, 'is so fond of roses, and she can never get out now to see them. Which shall we pick for her?'

3. 'Some of these white ones,' said Dora.

'I think she would like these red ones,' said Harry, 'they smell so sweetly.'

4. Mother cut one or two of each, and then a moss-rose, which looked as if it had moss growing round it, and then a pink cabbage-rose.

5. 'What has it to do with cabbage?' asked Harry.

'It is only called cabbage because it is so big and round.'

6. 'I like it the best of all,' said Dora, and stooped to smell it, putting her nose far down into the sweet, deep cup: 'it is such a nice rose!'

7. 'Yes, I am very fond of it, and of all roses,' said mother, looking at her bushes with a smile, 'but I almost think I like the wild ones best. Do you know that the wild rose is the mother of all these? Once upon a time all roses were wild.'

8. Harry and Dora did not think that wild roses were very like garden roses. 'But they both have thorns,' they said.

9. 'Look at them as you go along. There are some bushes not far from the bottom of the lane, after you turn round to go to the village. I don't think you will find many roses left, but you will see their fruit. They are the birds' fruit-trees.'

10. 'What can mother mean?' they asked as they went along.

But they soon found out. The bushes were covered with hips; some green, others yellow, one or two quite red.

11. They agreed to leave them for the birds. Dora said 'They would be sure to want them in the winter.'

WOOD.

min´-er-al cop´-per zinc chalk gummed climbed knees eve´-nings tools dead thought oak beech birch wil´-low build´-ing

1. The little mineral box was made, and Harry and Dora put in the lumps of lead, iron, copper, tin, zinc, chalk, and slate. Father wrote the names on tiny slips of paper and gummed them on.

2. Then he said that he was going to make Dora a doll's house. On hearing this, Dora first jumped about for joy, and then climbed up on her father's knees to kiss and hug him.

3. The doll's house was not made all at once. It had to be done bit by bit in the evenings after father had come home from work and had his tea.

4. Dora and Harry always helped him, or stood by and talked, played with bits of wood, and turned over the tools in the box.

5. They said that saw-dust should be called wood-dust; and they found out that wood was called tree when it was alive, and tree was called wood when it was dead. They thought this very funny.

6. They also learned that there were as many kinds of wood as there were trees.

'Some wood is hard,' said their father, 'some is half-hard, and some is soft.'

'Soft wood!' cried Dora.

7. 'Well, not soft like butter! But softer than oak, beech, birch, and elm'----

'The trunk of an oak-tree is lying where the rabbits live,' said Harry, in a great hurry. 'We often play on it. I know that it is hard. What sort of wood are you making the doll's house of?'

8. 'Soft wood. It is a bit of pine. So is the box that holds the minerals. I should find it hard work to cut oak.

'Now, there is one kind of wood so soft that you can bend it. It is called willow, and baskets are made of it.

'But oak was once used in building the great strong ships.'

COAL.