for the lesson of the story is surely not hidden. Chloe was
fastened to the chaise, a cat secured to serve as a passenger, and
"Francis drove his little chaise along the walk." But "when he had been
long enough among the gooseberry trees, his mama took him in the garden
and told him the names of the flowers." We are thus led to suppose that
Francis had never been in the garden before! The mother is called away.
We feel sure that the trouble anticipated is at hand. "As soon as she
was gone Francis began whipping the dog," and of course when the dog
dashed forward the cat tumbled out, and "poor Chloe was terrified by the
chaise which banged on all sides. Francis now heartily repented of his
cruel behaviour and went into the house crying, and looking like a very
simple boy."

[Illustration: _A Kind and Good Father_]

"I see very plainly the cause of this misfortune," said the father, who,
however, soon forgave his repentant son. Thereafter every day Francis
learned his lesson, and was rewarded by facts and pictures about
animals, by table-talks, or by walks about the country.

Knowledge offered within small compass seems to have been a novelty
introduced in Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson, who had a juvenile library
in High Street.

In eighteen hundred and three he printed two tiny volumes entitled "A
Description of Various Objects." Bound in green paper covers, the
two-inch square pages were printed in bold type. The first volume
contained the illustrations of the objects described in the other. The
characterizations were exceedingly short, as, for example, this of the
"Puppet Show:" "Here are several little boys and girls looking at a
puppet show, I suppose you would like to make one of them."

Four years later Johnson improved upon this, when he printed in better
type "People of all Nations; an useful toy for Girl or Boy." Of
approximately the same size as the other volumes, it was bound with
stiff sides and calf back. The plates, engraved on copper, represent men
of various nationalities in the favorite alphabetical order. A is an
American. V is a Virginian,--an Indian in scant costume of feathers
with a long pipe,--who, the printed description says, "is generally
dressed after the manner of the English; but this is a poor African, and
made a slave of." An orang-outang represents the letter O, and according
to the author, is "a wild man of the woods, in the East Indies. He
sleeps under trees, and builds himself a hu