JIMMY-Don't you know what a shark is? Why, it's a big fish-as big as-as-as-as five elephants! with a mouth as big as-this whole house! an' teef as long as from here to the corner; an' if it wanted to-it could swallow up all the houses in this block!

MOLLY (in an anxious tone said faintly) JimmyCan't I get into your bed?

JIMMY-Now, don't interupt! When the shark saw the pirate ship he swammed right up, and gobbled the ship down!

MOLLY-(doubtfully) Why, Jimmy Baker!

JIMMY-Don't you believe that? That's in the Bible, and as soon as the boy got out, he began swimming-oh, he was ist swimming for two months!

MOLLY-Without nothin' to eat?

JIMMY-Oh, he ate the fishes! An' pretty soon when he was swimming along, he came to a beautiful island, an' he went right on it and there was a b-e-e-u-t-i-f-u-l prin

cess!

MOLLY-What did she have on?

JIMMY-She had on yellow curls an' a crown, an' pink tights, like the girl at the circus! An' when she saw the boy, she said that if he'd kill all the bears on the island, she'd marry him and he'd be king or something! so he said he would, an' he waited till it wuz 'mos dark, an' then he built a fire.

MOLLY-Where wuz the princess?

JIMMY-She wuz in to supper of course. He made a fire and then pretty soon he saw two great big shinin' eyes, and a great mouf 'at went (Woo-Woo!)

MOLLY-Jimmy! Jimmy! What's that over in the corner? Its got fiery eyes!

JIMMY-W-W-W-where? I don't see anything.

MOLLY-It's a movin' its a coming after us, it's a bear! Mama! Mama!

JIMMY-Mama! Mama!

ADVANCED READINGS FOR CLASS USE

LEAD KINDLY LIGHT

John Henry Newman.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on;

The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead thou me on.

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou
Should'st lead me on;

I lov'd the garish day; and, spite of fears,
Pride rul'd my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy pow'r has blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,

And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have lov'd long since, and lost awhile.

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL

James Russell Lowell.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us:
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the devil's booth are all things sold,

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; For a cap and bells our lives we pay,

Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:

"Tis heaven alone that is given away,

'Tis only God may be had for the asking; No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys;

The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives;

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,
"Tis the natural way of living.

There was never a leaf on bush or tree,
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly;
The river was dumb and could not speak,

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun;
A single crow on the tree-top bleak

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun;

Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold,
As if her veins were sapless and old,
And she rose up decrepitly

For a last dim look at earth and sea.

Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate,
For another heir in his earldom sate:
An old, bent man, worn out and frail,
He came back from seeking the Holy Grail.
Little he recked of his earldom's loss,

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross;
But deep in his soul the sign he wore,
The badge of the suffering and the poor.

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air,
For it was just at the Christmas-time;
So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime,
And sought for a shelter from cold and snow
In the light and warmth of long ago.
He sees the snake-like caravan crawl
O'er the edge of the desert, black and small,
Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one,
He can count the camels in the sun,
As over the red-hot sands they pass

To where, in its slender necklace of grass,

The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade,
And with its own self like an infant played,
And waved its signal of palms.

"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms:"
The happy camels may reach the spring,
But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing,-
The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone,
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas
In desolate horror of his disease.
And Sir Launfal said, "I behold in thee
An image of Him who died on the tree;
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,

And to thy life were not denied

The wounds in the hands and feet and side:
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;
Behold, through him, I give to thee!"

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes
And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he
Remembered in what a haughtier guise
He had flung an alms to leprosie,

When he girt his young life up in gilded mail
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail.
The heart within him was ashes and dust:
He parted in twain his single crust,
He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink,
And gave the leper to eat and drink;

'Twas a moldy crust of coarse brown bread,
'Twas water out of a wooden bowl,—

Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,

And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,

A light shone round about the place;

The leper no longer crouched at his side,

But stood before him glorified,

Shining and tall and fair and straight

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,— Himself the Gate whereby men can

Enter the temple of God in Man.

The castle gate stands open now,

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall As the hang-bird is to the elm-tree bough; No longer scowl the turrets tall.

The summer's long siege at last is o'er:

When the first poor outcast went in at the door, She entered with him in disguise,

And mastered the fortress by surprise;

There is no spot she loves so well on ground;

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round;