ree
ladies rowing with parasols."

How the children laughed, and pretended to see the parasols rowing,
till Harry explained that he meant that the ladies had the parasols,
and the gentlemen were rowing. His mother said she would have to give
him a dish of boiled grammar for his breakfast, if he did not mind his
antecedents better.

"Grammar!" cried George; "dreadful! Aren't you all glad school-days
are over for the summer?"

At this blissful recollection all the children clapped their hands at
such a rate, that a fat old lady jumped up in a hurry and gave a queer
little squeak, because she thought the boiler was bursting; and
although they were now in the very middle of the broad Tappaan Sea,
she waddled off to order the captain to set her immediately on shore;
and a select company of blue jays, who had just started from the
Palisades to take tea with some brown sparrows on the other side,
turned somersets and flew back again, almost tripping each other up in
their hurry.

"Yes, indeed," answered Annie, "glad enough. Just think; no more hard
sums either. I do believe arithmetic is meant on purpose to torment
us, and that's the reason Willie made that mistake with such a grave
face, when the lady asked him how far he had gotten in his sums."

"So it is," cried Clara; "Willie said he had got to _dis_traction; I,
for one, wish that all the people that make the arithmetic books had
to eat them with pepper-sauce the moment they were printed--and that
would be the end of them."

"But compositions! Just think of compositions!" cried Harry; "they are
the most hateful things. Just because I wrote in my last one, that 'a
mule is a beast of burden which draws a rail-car shaped like a zebra,
and is sometimes used for carts with two long ears and a miserable
tail,' they all burst out laughing at me, and I very nearly cried--I
_did_ cry."

"Well, never mind, Harry," cried George; "it is all over now, and we
are going to that delightful West Point: I wonder if those soldiers we
saw parading with the Japanese last Saturday came from West Point?
they were such splendid fellows."

"Yes, indeed," cried Harry; "I dare say they did; they looked as if
they were afraid of nothing, but would be really glad to have an arm
or a leg shot off in every battle, and are so brave, that they would
keep on fighting the enemies of America, if they had only an ear and
one great-toe left."

Charley lifted his head and laughed at this, for he c