When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,

And goldenrod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields, still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,

And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.

-Helen Hunt Jackson.

OCTOBER'S PARTY.

CTOBER gave a party;

OCT

The leaves by hundreds came, The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples, And leaves of every name.

The sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand;
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed,
The lovely Misses Maple

In scarlet looked their best.

All balanced to their partners
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.

Then in the rustic hollow

At hide-and-seek they played; The party closed at sundown And everybody stayed.

Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground,

And then the party ended
In hands across, all round.

- Song Stories for Little Folk.

WH

LITTLE BY LITTLE.

HILE the new years come, and the old years go,
How, little by little, all things grow!

All things grow, and all decay

Little by little passing away.
Little by little, on fertile plain,
Ripen the harvests of golden grain,
Waving and flashing in the sun
When the summer at last is done.

Low on the ground an acorn lies
Little by little it mounts the skies,
Shadow and shelter for wandering herds,
Home for a hundred singing birds.
Little by little the great rocks grew,

Long, long ago, when the world was new;
Slowly and silently, stately and free,

Cities of coral under the sea

Little by little are builded, while so

The new years come and the old years go.

Little by little all tasks are done;

So are the crowns of the faithful won,

So is heaven in our hearts begun.

With work and with weeping, with laughter and play, Little by little, the longest day

And the longest life are passing away

Passing without return, while so

The new years come and the old years go.

P

-Selected.

"G

A CHANCE.

IVE me a chance," an acorn said,

66

And I'll grow to a mighty tree,

And then, perchance, on a summer's day,

In my shadow I'll shelter thee."

"Give me a chance," said the rose-bush small,

"And I'll bloom with a beauty rare,

And out of my heart in its gratitude
For you I will scent the air."

"Give me a chance," said a bobolink, "And I'll sing you a merry song,

That will throb in your heart like a bit of heaven Throughout your whole life long."

"Give me a chance," said a little child, "And I'll touch that heart of thine, And thou wilt feel as once thou felt When the world was all divine."

A

THE CHESTNUT BURR

WEE little nut lay deep in its nest

Of satin and brown, the softest and best,
And slept and grew while its cradle rocked,
As it hung in the boughs that interlocked.

Now the house was small where the cradle lay,
As it swung in the winds by night and day;
For a thicket of underbrush fenced it round,
This lone little cot, by the great sun browned.

This little nut grew, and erelong it found
There was work outside on the soft green ground;
It must do its part, so the world might know
It had tried one little seed to sow.

And soon the house that had kept it warm
Was tossed about by the autumn storm,
The stem was cracked, the old house fell,
And the chestnut burr was an empty shell.

But the little tree, as it waiting lay,
Dreamed a wonderful dream one day,
Of how it should break its coat of brown,
And live as a tree, to grow up and down.

- Selected.

C%

NUTTING.

OME, Robert and Harry, come, Lily and May!
October is here, and our glad holiday.

With every breath of the keen, frosty breeze,

Brown chestnuts are dropping from all the high trees.

Come here with your bags and your big baskets, quick,
And Harry's new jack-knife shall cut a long stick.
Then Robert shall climb the old chestnut-tree tall,
And thrash the big boughs till the ripe chestnuts fall.