Over the fields of waving corn,
Over the hill-tops brown.
Sailing along in fairy grace,
Floateth the thistle-down.
Flying past the meadows bare,
Catching on grasses brown,
Like airy films from cobwebs torn,
Floateth the thistle-down.
Drifting past the old oak-tree,
Drifting past the town;
Further than any eye can see,
Floateth the thistle-down.
On the blue of the sky afloat,
A dainty craft is this seedling brown,
Manned by the loveliest fairy crew,
Guiding the thistle-down.
Fairy forms in sunbeams dressed,
With rainbow hues caught down.
Sailing away in their elfin glee.
They guide the thistle-down.
Elizabeth Morton Boyce, Chicago, Ill.
Dora, whose rhyme about the streamlet is quite merry and musical, is also eleven:
THE STREAMLET.
How lovely is the little stream
That babbles on and on
Through many a field and woodland too
This little stream has gone.
There by the stream the sun looks down,
And the many sunbeams play,
Oh, happy are the breezy woods
On that sweet summer day!
And just before it joins the lake—
Nor does it miss it ever—
This little stream another meets,
And they go on together.
In its mossy bed the streamlet
Glides on through valleys low,
In sweet contentment flowing
Where the lovely flowers blow.
The glowing sun fades out of sight,
The moon and stars appear,
All is silent now, and quiet,
For the shades of night are near.
But the stream is onward gliding,
Never does it pause to rest,
Gliding onward, onward swiftly,
To seek the lake's deep breast.
Dora Cumming, Newport, Ky.
Who would like to perform this amusing trick, which is called Water Bewitched?
Take an ordinary dinner plate, and fill it with water; then produce a small empty phial, and assure the company that you are wizard enough to pour water through the solid bottom. Having declared that the phial must be perfectly dry when the experiment is performed (if you are asked why, you may say to open the pores of the glass), thrust a stick into it, and hold it to the fire until it is very hot—too hot to hold. Then stand it, without delay, mouth downward in the plate of water. Then pour a tea-spoonful of water on the bottom of the phial, as if you meant to fill it that way, and every time you do this the phial will become more and more filled with water; and as this apparently takes place every time you pour water on the bottom, it will have every appearance of having passed through the solid glass. Of course the water really rises from the plate by what is called capillary attraction.
We would call the attention of the C. Y. P. R. U. this week to "Some Diamond Stories," and to the account of Commander De Long and his terrible death among the ice-fields of the North, as told by Sherwood Ryse under the title of "The Victims of the Arctic Seas." Then Aunt Marjorie Precept has some wise advice to give about "Picnics."