first time. He thought his
mother very cruel to make him go, and, I am sorry to say, not only
cried before he started, but all the way to the school-house. The
Dominie took no notice of this, and Charlie soon found that school was
not such a very dreadful place. And there was the nice playtime in the
middle of the day. And, when school was out, the Dominie took him on
his knee and gave him a big apple, and showed him a book full of
bright pictures, and told him a story about every one of them.

You can see the little fellow on the Dominie's lap, looking earnestly
at a picture in the book; and the old man is pleased that the child is
pleased. The Dominie is sitting in his big chair, and his dinner-bag
is hanging on the back of it. On the black-board over his head you see
little Charlie's lesson for that day. It is on the right, and consists
of the letters A, B, C, which the child has been staring at until he
knows them perfectly in any book that is given to him. On the left, is
a sum; and somebody has tried to draw an almanac sun on the lower part
of the board. Across the top the Dominie has written a copy. You can
read it plainly. It was a favorite saying of his; and a very good one
too.

Have we not, all of us, a great deal to make us happy? What pleasure
is it to you to go about with a cross or melancholy face? Try to think
of something pleasant, and call up a smile. Put the ill-natured
feelings out of your heart, and then the brightness will come to your
face without further trouble. If you have a hard task to do, being
cross won't help you along one bit. Go to work at it with a will, and
you will be surprised to find how soon it will be done. Then, with a
clear conscience and a glad heart, you can sit waiting for the welcome
sound, "School's out!"

NEST-BUILDERS.

"Birds in their little nests agree," but they do not at all agree in
their manner of building the said nests.

They have all sorts of ideas on this subject. Nearly every species of
bird has a nest peculiar to itself, and the variety is astonishing.
There are nests like cups, and nests like saucers; nests which are
firmly fixed among the solid rocks, and nests which wave about on the
ends of slender branches; nests which are perched on the very tops of
the tallest trees, and nests which are hidden in the ground. There are
great nests, which will hold a bushel or two of eggs, and little bits
of things, into which you could scarcely put half a d