A FLY.

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

Enlarged view of Head of Fly showing Trunk.

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.'

Enlarged view of Fly's Foot.

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

Wasp's Nest.

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

Sunflower.

'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	brook´-lets	lis´-ten	hum´-ming
bus´-y	ripp´-ling	hon´-ey	e-nough´
i´-dle	sky´-lark	mer´-ri-ly	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	sweet´-ly	stooped	yel´-low
wo´-man	cab´-bage	smile	a-greed´
vil´-lage	be-cause´	thorns	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!'

Wild Rose.

Garden 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.'

Making the Doll's House.