was but seven years old. His father did not live with him, but they corresponded regularly, so that Eugene learned early to express his thoughts in writing. He was of a rollicking, joyous disposition, and so made many friends at school. Later he went to college and studied law as his father had done. But law did not appeal to his poetic temperament and he soon gave that up so that he might devote all his time to writing.

He loved little children and would lay aside his work at any time to play with them, tell them stories, or sing them beautiful lullabies. He used to buy all sorts of queer toys, playthings, and sugar plums for his own little children and for little strangers with whom he always made friends. He knew that these are the things that children love best and we find his verses full of them. Mr. Field also loved flowers, beautiful pictures and animals. He always had pets about him and these he cared for himself with the greatest tenderness. He was devoted to his wife and home, and could never bear to be away from them for very long at a time. He had the most precious memory of his mother, and it often made him feel sad to think that she had so early in life been taken away from him. "I have a thousandfold more than my deserts," he would say, "yet, if my mother had but lived to feel a little, just a little, proud of her boy."

Read: "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod," the most perfect child poem ever written; "Little Boy Blue," "The SugarPlum Tree," "The Duel," "Sleepy Song." Chutter's Art-Literature Third Reader contains many stories and poems in the section devoted to Eugene Field.

Sing: Any of Field's beautiful lyrics set to music as found in Songs of Childhood.

Birthday: Eugene Field, "the children's poet," born in St. Louis, Mo., September 2, 1850; died in Chicago, Ill., November 4, 1895.

3 WORK

Let Labor, then look up and see

His craft no pith of honor lacks;

The soldier's rifle yet shall be

Less honored than the woodman's axe.

KINGS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT

THE kings of the past have sat on thrones and made others serve them. The kings of the future will be those who do the world's work and serve others best. We honor the man who works with his hands and conquers the earth. His hands may be coarse, his body bent, but if his work is honest, he is king as much as any man. We also honor the man who works with his brain. He who works honestly and well with his hands, blesses the world; he who works honestly and well with his brain, and gives to the world a good book, a noble picture, an inspiring song, labors to leave a blessing in the mind of another that will live when the things built with the hand alone have fallen to pieces.

Read: "The Sailor Man," from The Pig Brother, by Laura E. Richards; "For a' That," by Robert Burns; "Workingman's Song," by Charles Mackay; Bible, Prov. 6:6-11.

Sing: "Work, for the Night is Coming," from Uncle Sam's School Songs.

4 PERSEVERANCE

There are as many pleasant things,

As many pleasant tones,

For those who dwell by cottage hearths

As those who sit on thrones.

-Phoebe Cary

THE STORY OF PHOEBE CARY

PHOEBE CARY was born in a low and small brown house, which stood on an old-fashioned country homestead or

farm. Her mother died when Phoebe was a little girl, and as her father was poor, neither she nor her sister Alice could attend school very much. But they studied and read a great deal at home. As they had no lamps in the houses then, and her father couldn't afford candles, the two girls made a lamp by using a saucer with a rag in it for a wick, and by this strange light they would read and write until late into the night. When Phoebe was fourteen she began to compose verses, and at seventeen she was able to write quite well. She and her sister lived together all their lives and cared much for each other. The last twenty years of their lives were spent at their home in New York City, but they never forgot "the good old-fashioned homestead” where they were born. They both died the same year, in 1871.

Read: "Nobody's Child," "Our Homestead," "Suppose" and "Now," by Phoebe Cary; Mary Clemmer's Memorial of Alice and Phœbe Cary, and Whittier's "The Singer."

Sing: "Nearer Home" (a hymn by Phoebe Cary), found in almost any hymn book.

Birthday: Phoebe Cary, an American poet, born near Cincinnati, Ohio, September 4, 1824; died in Newport, R. I., July 31, 1871.

6 PATRIOTISM

The moment I heard of America, I loved her; the moment I knew she was fighting for freedom, I burnt with a desire of bleeding for her; and the moment I shall be able to serve her at any time or in any part of the world, will be the happiest one of my life. -Lafayette

AMERICA'S DEBT TO LAFAYETTE

AMERICA Owes a great deal to this gallant young Frenchman1 who crossed the seas to aid the colonies. He was among the first of those foreigners who showed the colonists that the love of liberty was as wide as the world. He came when hope was low, and his coming meant much to the brave men who had to undergo the long, discouraging winter at Valley Forge, and the days when it seemed as though time would prove them only rebels and not patriots. He brought ships, and men, and money to aid in the great cause, but more than all these were his own magnetic personality and the buoyant spirit that refused to be cast down. -Historic Boyhoods

Read: "Lafayette, the Boy of Versailles," from Historic Boyhoods, by Holland; Story of Lafayette, by Margaret J. Codd.

Sing: "Hail! Columbia," from American School Songs. Birthday: Marquis de Lafayette, born in Auvergne, France, September 6, 1757; died in Paris, France, May 20, 1834.

7 CHARITY

This world is not so bad a world

As some would like to make it;

Though whether good or whether bad,
Depends on how we take it.

-M. W. Beck

1He was but twenty years old then, having set sail for America April 20, 1777, in a boat happily named La Victoire.

THE DOVE AND THE WOODPECKER

A DOVE and a woodpecker had been visiting a peacock. "How did you like our host?" asked the woodpecker, after their visit. "Is he not very disagreeable! His vanity, shapeless feet, and his harsh voice are unbearable. Don't you think so?" "Indeed I had no time," said the gentle dove, "to notice these things; I was so occupied with the beauty of his head, the gorgeousness of his colors, and the majesty of his train."

Sing: "Life is What We Make It," from Merry Melodies.

8 AUTUMN

Summer's a step behind us,

And Autumn's a thought before,

And each fleet, sweet day that we meet on the way
Is an angel at the door.

Read: "The Anxious Leaf," from Household Stories, by Klingensmith.

"Autumn Leaves," from Songs in Season.

Sing: "Autumn," from American School Songs, or Birthdays: Ludovico Ariosto, a famous Italian poet, born at Reggio, Italy, September 8, 1474; died in Ferrara, Italy, June 6, 1533.

Antonin Dvorak, a noted musician, born in Mühlhausen, Bohemia, September 8, 1841; died in Prague, Bohemia, May 1, 1904.

9 HABITS

How shall I a habit break?
As you did that habit make.
As we builded stone by stone,
We must toil unhelped, alone,

'Till the wall is overthrown.

-O'Reilly