"Now, Jack," mamma said, "you've had a nice time; but you must go back to your stable. Kate and Nell will miss you if you stay longer."
Then Mary opened the dining-room door, and Jack followed her down the long entry and out to the stable, just like a dog.—Yours truly, B.P.
TONGUES WHICH CARRY TEETH.
You've heard of folks with biting tongues, I dare say, and very disagreeable they are, no doubt, though, of course, they do not actually bite with their tongues. However, there really is an unpleasant fellow whose tongue carries twenty-six thousand eight hundred teeth! A capital one for biting, you'd suppose. He is nothing but a slug, though, and his army of teeth only scrape, not bite, I'm told. Then, too, there is a sort of cousin of his, a periwinkle, who has a long ribbon-like tongue, armed with six hundred crosswise rows of hooks, about seven in a row.
You can make sure of these surprising facts, my dears, with the aid of patience and a microscope.
DIZZY DISTANCES.
The other day, one of the school-children said to a chum, "The Little Schoolma'am told us this morning that some parts of the ocean are more than four miles deep!"
That's easy to say, thought I, but try to think it, my dear! Fix on a place four miles away from you, and then imagine every bit of that distance stretching down under you, instead of straight before you. Perhaps in this way you may gain an idea of the depth of the ocean; but just consider the height of the air—which, I'm told, is a sort of envelope about the earth—more than nine times the depth of the ocean! Yet, what a wee bit of a[Page 567] way toward the moon would those thirty-six miles take us! And from the earth to the moon is only a very little step on the long way to the sun.
Oh dear! Let's stop and take a breath! Why did I begin talking of such dizzy distances?