children have to eat.

"They have four little girls and boys;
Mary's the oldest of the whole,
And hard enough she has to work,
To help her ma--poor little soul!

"As soon as strawberries are ripe,
She picks all day, and will not stop
To play or eat a single one,
Till she has filled her basket up.

"Then down she comes and sells them all,
And lays the money up at home,
To buy her stockings and her shoes,
To wear when freezing winter's come.

"For then she has to trudge away,
And gather wood through piles of snow,
To keep the little children warm,
When bites the frost, and cold winds blow.

"And then, when she comes home at night,
Hungry and tired, with cold benumbed,
How she would jump to find a bowl
Of bread and milk all nicely crumbed!

"But she, dear child, has no such thing;
Of gruel and the Indian cake,
Whether she chooses it or not,
Poor Mary must her supper make.

"Eliza, dear, will you behave
So ill again, another day?
Be cross and pert, and cry for cake,
And fling your breakfast all away?"

"Ah, never, never, dear mamma!
I'm sorry that I gave you pain;
Forgive me, and I never will
Be such a naughty girl again."

CHAPTER VI.

FRANKIE'S ROCKING HORSE.

WHEN Frankie was between three and four years old, there were a good
many words he could not pronounce distinctly. He could not say kitchen,
but called it chichen; and he called sugar chucher. He could not say
sing, but said ting. His papa was afraid he never would be able to
pronounce them; and he took a great deal of pains to have him try to
say them over and over again. He used to take Frankie on his knee, and
make him sound s-s-, and then say s-sing. But Frankie always said
s-ting.

One day his mamma was passing through the back hall, and she saw her
little boy kneeling in a chair by the table where Jane was making bread.
He was talking very earnestly, and she stopped a moment to hear what he
was saying.

He was giving Jane a lesson. "Now say knife," he began. So Jane said
"knife."

"No, that not wight; you must say s- knife."

Jane laughed: "knife is right,