Various

“ It isn't easy to become famous, but it is easy—that is, if one's heart is in the work—to do a great deal of good to one's fellow-beings. Young as you are, I have no doubt there are many sad hearts you might gladden, and many gloomy homes to which you might bring brightness."
"Oh, mother, can you show me one?" said Theodora, eagerly. ”

“ The hyacinth can grow in water alone, because it has been a provident little body, and stored away enough food in the little round carpet-bag of a bulb to supply the plant for the few weeks of its life. It only asks for the water it needs to keep it alive and growing. When the thirsty little roots have sucked up water enough, the bulb begins to grow in the other direction. If you look, you will see a solid lump of pale green come up from the top like the horns of a calf, or a baby's tooth. This is the young plant coming up out of its dark cradle into the light and air and sunshine. ”

“ It is very like working the brake on a horse-car. If you do it too much, you stop the car too soon, and the ladies have to get off in the mud instead of at the clean crossing. So, in curling, if you do not sweep enough, the stone will stop before it reaches the hoose; but if, on the other hand, you sweep too much, the stone reaches the hoose, and perhaps passes the tee, and then your opponents begin to "soop," and make the ice so smooth that your stone passes clear out of the hoose, and so is lost, amid cries of "Weel soopit!" ”

“ People who know what ought to be done do not always do it at once, however, or they are flustered, lose their wits, and do something dreadful. A very loving mother once scalded her baby so that it will bear the marks of the burn for its life, because she lost her presence of mind. ”

“ I want to take some common flower, something you have seen a hundred times every summer of your lives, and show you a few of the marvellous contrivances that make it able to live and grow and bear blossoms and fruit. ”

“ Many plants are grown from roots or bulbs, but a greater majority by far come from seed. Tulips and lilies, onions and potatoes, are all instances of plants grown from roots which sprout out from the old ones. The root is in every case the beginning, the seed the ending, of the life of a plant. ”

“ Not a human being in all the country about ever remembered a sympathetic word or look from her. She was a tall grim woman of sixty, with bushy eyebrows, gray hair, and thin, bluish lips. What comfort she could take in life every one wondered, but it was whispered that she was hoarding money; that if the truth was but known, untold sums lay hidden somewhere in the old house.
Certainly Jesse Grey saw nothing of the kind. As the boy had said to Mr. North, he did not know how he had come to Holsover Farm. Jesse only knew that he had "always been there." ”

“ The busy little hose-pipe pushes its way into a little opening at the end of one of the ovules, pumps away till the pollen grain is empty, and the liquid out of it is all safely stored in the ovule, and then it withers away. The ovule when it is ripe is a seed, but if the pollen has not emptied itself in the way just described, the ovule dies.
If you look at Fig. 4 you will see the pistil of a pansy, or heart's-ease. No. 1 is a side view of the pistil sliced down so you can see into it, as you can into a baby-house. ”

“ Let us study the roots of some plant. Almost anything will do. If you can do so, get a hyacinth glass and bulb. The bulb is the root, and looks very much like an onion; the glass is a vase made for the purpose of growing hyacinths in water. It slopes in from the bottom upward, and then bulges out suddenly. The bulb rests in this bulging part, and has water below it and around its lower part. The glass being clear, you can see the roots grow as plainly as you can see a leaf or a flower bud unfold. Perhaps you have no hyacinth glass, and can not get one ”

“ Curling is a Scotch game. For centuries past everybody who has been anybody in the Land o' Cakes has played golf in the spring, summer, and autumn, and curling in the winter; and wherever Scotchmen have gone to live they have introduced their national games.
For a good game of curling a sheet of clear ice and a number of curling-stones are necessary. But what is a curling stone, or "channel stane," as it is sometimes called, from the fact that stones found in the channels of rivers were formerly used in the game? ”

“ Googens, her mother—her father was dead—when she wasn't out washing and ironing, was washing and ironing at home and having no other children besides Electa Eliza and the baby, of course the care of the small boy fell almost entirely on his sister.
This was rather hard, for she was only twelve years old, and lame besides, and it requires a great deal of patience and good nature to mind a baby, especially a lively, wide-awake baby who jumps, and "pat-a-cakes," and "goos," and "guggles," and wants to go "day-day" all the time. ”

“ There is only one opening left by which a stone can reach the "tee." The next player is unsteady. Can he get through, or had he better send a slow one to close the "port" against the next player, his adversary? He is a young player, and old heads are better than young ones in curling. His "skip" (Captain) advises the latter course. But, alas! he throws too gently. The stone seems tired out almost before it has reached the middle of the rink. ”

“ Most plants are alike in having roots, stems, and leaves, and some sort of flower and seed-vessel. But the parts look so very different in different plants that it is sometimes a little hard to tell which is which. In some the roots grow in the air, and in others the stems grow underground. It is only by studying what the parts do that it is possible to be sure what they are. The most important part of every living thing is its stomach, because everything that lives must eat and drink, or die. ”

“ I live in the sweetest little city in Kentucky. We have nice hills to coast on in the winter, and the finest river in the world to go swimming in in the summer; it is clear as glass on account of its gravel bottom. ”

“ A FIRST VALENTINE.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Here is a pastime for winter evenings that will compel the players to keep wide awake unless they want to incur any number of forfeits. The name of each person playing should be written on little pieces of card, shaken together in a wide vase or bag, and drawn from it, so that all the players have exchanged names, but they do not tell their new names until they appear in the course of the game.
At the beginning, one player alone does not put in his name, and does not draw for a new one. ”

“ If a person is wounded or cut, the way to stop the flow of blood is to bandage tightly above the wound, between that and the heart; but instances are not rare where people bleed to death because nobody at hand has enough knowledge or presence of mind to attend to this simple thing at once. Like other desirable qualities, this one can be cultivated, and you may possess it as well as another.
MISS HOLSOVER'S "TREASURE." A Story of St. Valentine's Day. BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE.
"Mr. North!—please, Mr. North!" ”

“ My grandmistress had company, and my mate ran right under the rockers, and was killed instantly. My troubles seemed to come right in a bunch, for a few days after, my little daughter was carried down stairs by the old cat. My mistress weighed me and my little son this morning, and I heard her say I weighed one-sixteenth of an ounce, and my son one-fourth of an ounce. My mistress takes Young People, and I often hear her say it is the nicest little paper she ever read. I have travelled about a great deal, and my name is
Little Mother Mouse. ”

“ A Professor is a kind of man who wears spectacles up on the top of his head and takes snuff and doesn't talk English very plain. I believe Professors come from somewhere near Germany, and I wish this one had staid in his own country. They live mostly on cabbage and such, and Mr. Travel's says they are dreadfully fierce, and that when they are not at war with other people, they fight among themselves, and go on in the most dreadful way. ”

“ Each player has two stones, and they take turns to throw their stones along the rink, and try to let them stop as near the "tee" as they can.
It may seem easy to throw the stone along the glassy surface of the ice to that distance, and so it is. There are instances on record of a curling-stone having been thrown across a pond a mile in width; but it is not so easy to make the stone stop just where the player wants it to. There are all sorts and varieties of play in this game. See, [Pg 249] nearly all the men have played their stones. The rink is thick with them at the far end. ”

“ If a fire break out in a building where a crowd is assembled, there is often a panic, and people trample upon and kill each other in their fright. Some months ago an alarm of fire was caused by the appearance of smoke in a New York public school. Fortunately the lady principal was a person who had presence of mind. ”

“ Wagon? Horse? Mule? Blanket? All kind of plunder?"
"Make a divide. We'll help ourselves when we take the Apache ponies. You keep one wagon. We keep one. Same way with horses and mules—divide 'em even. You give up prisoners right away. Give 'em their rifles and pistols and knives."
"Ugh! Good! Fight Apaches. Then pale-faces take care of themselves. Give them one day after fight."
That was the sort of treaty that was made, and it saved the lives of Bill and his mates, for the present at least.
It was all Captain Skinner could have expected, but the faces of the miners were sober enough over it. ”

“ I go to school every day. We have Harper's Young People in our school, and I have taken it at home from the first number. We are soon to have an entertainment, which is going to be splendid. I wish you could attend it. Our principal is a very nice man when he has no boys to punish. I think he does not like to punish boys. We have a very nice teacher. ”

“ The questioner must have ten counters—marbles, shells, or anything small—to give away, and a counter has to be taken by any one who stirs for his own name, and by any one who hesitates, forgetting to answer to the name which is drawn by lot.
When the ten counters are given away, the questioner sits down, puts his name in the bag, and draws out another name, the owner of which has to be questioner instead, and goes at once to stand in the middle. It will be his object to get rid of the ten counters now, and the object of the players to keep their wits clear, and not be taken by surprise. ”

“ The balloon didn't stay up very long. It began to come slowly down, and when it struck the ground, the way that cat started on a run for the barn, and tried to get underneath it with the balloon all on fire behind her, was something frightful to see. By the time I could get to her and cut her loose, a lot of hay took fire and began to blaze, and Tom ran for the fire-engine, crying out "Fire!" with all his might.
The firemen happened to be at the engine-house, though they're generally all over town, and nobody can find them when there is a fire. ”

“ When the last stone of the head has been played, the excitement of counting begins. Only one side can count at one time, and that side can only count as many as it has stones nearer to the tee than the nearest stone belonging to the other side. Thus the nearest stone may belong to the Scotchmen, and the next to the Americans, and after that the Scotchmen may have three or four nearer than the next American stone ”

“ There are some very curious plants which have regular stomachs into which their food goes, just as it does in an animal, and is digested, but these are not very common. Some day, however, when we have learned a little more about simpler things, I mean to tell you something about these strange plants. Ordinary plants have roots to supply them with food and water in the place of a stomach. ”

“ This young girl, who was about three years older than Electa Eliza, and whose name was Theodora Judson, and her little brother were her mother's only children, just as Electa Eliza and her baby were her mother's only children. ”