The next day the giant came and looked, and found that Dick had eaten none of his bread; so he took him by the head, and crammed some of it down his throat, and seemed quite vexed to think he would not eat. Poor Dick was too much frightened to eat or drink.
He was left all alone in the dark another day, and a sad day it was; the poor creature thought of his own home, his companions, the sun-light, the trees, and the many nice things he used to get to eat; and then he screamed, and tried to get between the iron bars, and beat his poor head and limbs sore, in trying to get out.
The giant came again, and wanted Dick to sing, the same as he sung when he was at home, and to be happy and merry. “Sing, sing, sing!” said he: but poor Dick was much too sad to sing—a prison is no place to sing songs in.
The giant now seemed quite in a rage, and took Dick out to make him sing, as he said. Dick gave a loud scream, a plunge, a struggle, and sank dead in the giant’s hand.—Ah! my young reader, poor Dick was a little bird, and that giant was a cruel little boy.—Holiday Book.
The Flowers.
When we walk in the fields, how many flowers we see; some spring from the grass, where they look like little stars; some twine in the hedge; some grow on each bank; and some hang from trees and plants.
How we love to look at them—red and blue, and yellow and white. Some are round, like cups; some stand up, with sun-like rays; some hang down their heads; but all their forms seem to please the eye.
And then, while they look so bright and fair, how sweet they smell. The air is full of their sweets; and bees sing songs round them, and sip honey from their rosy lips.
They come in the first soft winds of spring, and shed their pure bloom on the white bosom of the snow; they seem to look at the sun with joy, and watch him through the day. At night, when the sun is gone to rest, they seem sad, hang their heads, and droop.
But at morn, they open their leaves, and the clear dew seems, like a tear of joy in their eyes, to hail the sun that lights them.