No. 4.
Portulaca.
ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE.
[SENTENCE-MAKING.]
BY J. R. SEVER.
Harry Penwright came home from school one day grumbling, and with a frown on his brow.
"Another composition," he said, crossly. "I wish we never had any compositions at all to write. I don't see what good they are, anyway."
Harry grumbled himself out of temper at first; but finding at length that grumbling was not likely to help him do his task, he took the better course of seeking his father's advice on the matter. His father explained to him the necessity of training boys and girls to express their ideas in simple, well-chosen language, and to write with ease and entertainingly on all topics. Then he explained an exercise called "sentence-making" which he used to have at school when a boy, and which he said might help Harry to write compositions more readily, while it would at the same time afford him a pleasant pastime.
Harry was eager to begin the new exercise, and he got the big dictionary from the library table and brought it to his father.
The latter, pleased at his awakened interest, said: "I will select some words at random from the dictionary, and you must try and combine them into sentences. Now if you are ready, we will have our first exercise in sentence-making."
While his father turned over the pages, Harry copied down the following words: Intrusts, Idle, Account, Merits, Follow, Strict, Cultivate, Excel.
"There," said he, "that will do for the present. When you have written your sentences, come and show them to me."
Harry, after thinking a long while, and scratching out a great deal he had written, finally finished his work to his satisfaction, and copied it out neatly on a clean sheet of nice white paper, as follows: "Boys at school should never idle away their time when at work at tasks their teacher intrusts to them, and for the proper performance of which they are rightly held to account. They should rather follow the example of those whose strict attention to their studies merits praise, and strive to cultivate an ambition to excel in all their work."
Harry's father said the sentences were very creditable, and commended the sentiment expressed in them. Harry himself soon became very fond of the new work, and sometimes, on rainy evenings, when at a loss for employment, he and his sisters amused themselves for hours together in making sentences from words their father selected.
One night not long ago, however, their father gave them some words which puzzled them greatly to combine into sentences. Here they are: Abdicate, Bequeathe, Planned, Design, Encroach, Foresee, Glory, Hero, Impassioned, Jeopardy, King, Laurel.
How many of the readers of Young People can make them up in good sentences? Let them try, and we promise to tell which we consider the best, and to show them the sentences Harry's father made from the words.
TENDER CONSIDERATION.
"Oh, don't make faces at him, Effie! It might frighten him, you know."