y do you sing that to us? How can we be happy
away from our beautiful home?"

Still the bird sang "cheer up! chirrup! The sun is smiling at you and I
am singing to you. We are trying to make you glad. How nice it would
be if you would only blossom and make some one happy instead of hanging
your heads and trying to die. Do you think I like to be shut up here? If
some one would leave the door of my cage open, I would spread my wings
and fly out of the window, far away to the green woods and the blue sky.
But while I am here, I may as well sing and be glad. Cheer up! chirrup!"

"Perhaps he is right," said the buds, and they lifted up their heads
and began to grow. One bright spring morning Mother Nature passed by the
window and gave them each a lovely violet cap. Then they were, glad, and
Ruth was happy, too, because her buds had blossomed.

The cheery canary sang his sweetest carol to them, and the whole day was
bright because Mother Nature's little violet children had tried their
best to be happy and so had made others happy, too.

As the great red sun went down into the west, he heard the happy bird
still singing "cheer up! chirrup!"

Baby Caterpillar

Baby Caterpillar was tired. All summer long she had been travelling
slowly through the green world where she lived, and feeding on the green
leaves that grew near her home. Now Autumn had come and Mother Nature
had given a holiday to the leaves, who put on their new dresses of red
and gold and played tag with the breezes. Baby Caterpillar wanted to
play, too, but could not run so fast as the happy little leaves, and she
grew very tired and thought she would take a nap. So she found a cozy
place among the branches of a grape vine, and made herself a soft, silky
blanket. Then she rolled herself away within it, and then, in her queer
little cradle, went to sleep.

One night, late in the fall, Jack Frost came over the hill. He spied the
cradle swinging to and fro, and began to play roughly with it, for he is
a roguish little fellow, and touches everything that comes in his way.
But the warm blanket hid the little sleeper so that Jack could not find
her.

By and by King Winter came, bringing beautiful snow blankets to Mother
Nature's flower babies. He gently rocked the cradle as he passed, and
whispered, "Sleep, baby, sleep! You have no need of my blankets."

At last Spring came with the sunbeams, the best and merriest of Mother
Nature's helpers. They awoke the