n the spring,
Would you know the reason that you love to sing?
Hear the merry children, shouting as they play,
"Listen to the bobolinks, telling us 'tis May!"

[Illustration: Dot and The Lemons]

DOT AND THE LEMONS.

Dot's father is a funny man. One night, he brought home some lemons for
mamma,--twelve long, fat, yellow lemons, in a bag. Dot was sitting at
the piano with mamma when his father came in, and did not run, as usual,
to greet him with a kiss. So Dot's father opened the bag, and let the
lemons drop one by one, and roll all over the floor.

Then Dot looked around, and cried, "Lemons, lemons! Get down; Dot get
down!" And he ran and picked up the lemons one by one, and put them all
together in the great black arm-chair. As he picked them up, he counted
them: "One, two, three, five, six, seven, nine, ten!"

When Dot got tired of seeing them on the chair, he began to put them on
the floor again, one at a time, and all in one spot. While he was doing
this, his father stooped down, and when the little boy's back was
turned, took the lemons, slily from the spot where Dot was placing
them, and put them behind his own back,--some behind his right foot, and
some behind his left.

He took only a few of them at first, so that Dot should not miss them.
But, when Dot came to put the last lemon on the floor, he could not see
any thing of the others, and was very much surprised. Then mamma,
grandmamma, and grandpapa all burst out laughing. His father stepped
aside, and there Dot saw the lemons in two rows.

Then father said, "That was only a joke. Now, Dot, put them back again
on the chair--quick!" And Dot ran and began to take away the lemons from
the first row, and lay them on the black cushion of grandpapa's great
arm-chair, one by one. One--two--three--four--five: he had only one more
lemon to pick up from the first row; but when he came for it--my! there
were two.

Well, to tell the truth, Dot didn't notice this at first. He picked up
one of the two, and thought to himself, "Only one left, Dot." But, I
declare! there were _two_ left when he came back. "This is a long row,"
thought Dot. And every time he left _one_, he found _two_, till papa had
quite used up the second row, from which he had been filling up the
first.

At last Dot _did_ see the last lemon, and then again he didn't see it,
for when he looked for it, it wasn't _two_, as before, it wasn't there
at all!

"O papa! you have it