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FOURTH READER

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THE CHILDREN'S SONG

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      Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee

       Our love and toil in the years to be,

       When we are grown and take our place,

       As men and women with our race.

      Father in Heaven who lovest all,

       Oh help Thy children when they call;

       That they may build from age to age,

       An undefilèd heritage.

      Teach us to bear the yoke in youth

       With steadfastness and careful truth;

       That, in our time, Thy Grace may give

       The Truth whereby the Nations live.

      Teach us to rule ourselves alway,

       Controlled and cleanly night and day,

       That we may bring, if need arise,

       No maimed or worthless sacrifice.

      Teach us to look in all our ends,

       On Thee for judge, and not our friends;

       That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed

       By fear or favour of the crowd.

      Teach us the Strength that cannot seek,

       By deed or thought, to hurt the weak;

       That, under Thee, we may possess

       Man's strength to comfort man's distress.

      Teach us Delight in simple things,

       And Mirth that has no bitter springs,

       Forgiveness free of evil done,

       And Love to all men 'neath the sun!

      Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride,

       For whose dear sake our fathers died,

       Oh Motherland, we pledge to thee,

       Head, heart, and hand through years to be!

      Kipling

OUR COUNTRY

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      Love thou thy land, with love far-brought

       From out the storied Past, and used

       Within the Present, but transfused

       Thro' future time by power of thought.

      Tennyson

TOM TULLIVER AT SCHOOL

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      It was Mr. Tulliver's first visit to see Tom, for the lad must learn not to think too much about home.

      "Well, my lad," he said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had left the room to announce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie had begun to kiss Tom freely, "you look rarely. School agrees with you."

      Tom wished he had looked rather ill.

      "I don't think I am well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr. Stelling not to let me do Euclid—it brings on the toothache, I think."

      (The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever been subject.)

      "Euclid, my lad; why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.

      "Oh, I don't know. It's definitions, and axioms, and triangles, and things. It's a book I've got to learn in; there's no sense in it."

      "Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, reprovingly, "you mustn't say so. You must learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for you to learn."

      "I'll help you now, Tom," said Maggie, with a little air of patronizing consolation. "I'm come to stay ever so long, if Mrs. Stelling asks me. I've brought my box and my pinafores, haven't I, father?"

      "You help me, you silly little thing!" said Tom, in such high spirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the idea of confounding Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid. "I should like to see you doing one of my lessons! Why, I learn Latin too! Girls never learn such things. They're too silly."

      "I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie, confidently. "Latin's a language. There are Latin words in the Dictionary. There's 'bonus, a gift.'"

      "Now, you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, secretly astonished. "You think you're very wise. But 'bonus' means 'good,' as it happens—'bonus, bona, bonum.'"

      "Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't mean 'gift,'" said Maggie, stoutly. "It may mean several things—almost every word does. There's 'lawn'—it means the grass-plot, as well as the stuff pocket-handkerchiefs are made of."

      "Well done, little 'un," said Mr. Tulliver, laughing, while Tom felt rather disgusted with Maggie's knowingness, though beyond measure cheerful at the thought that she was going to stay with him. Her conceit would soon be overawed by the actual inspection of his books.

      Mrs. Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did not mention a longer time than a week for Maggie's stay; but Mr. Stelling, who took her between his knees, and asked her where she stole her dark eyes from, insisted that she must stay a fortnight. Maggie thought Mr. Stelling was a charming man, and Mr. Tulliver was quite proud to leave his little wench where she would have an opportunity of showing her cleverness to appreciating strangers. So it was agreed that she should not be fetched home till the end of the fortnight.

      "Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie," said Tom, as their father drove away. "What do you shake and toss your head now for, you silly?" he continued; for, though her hair was now under a new dispensation, and was brushed smoothly behind her ears, she seemed still in imagination to be tossing it out of her eyes. "It makes you look as if you were crazy."

      "Oh, I can't help it," said Maggie, impatiently. "Don't tease me, Tom. Oh, what books!"

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