wormwood, everlasting, wild basil, lavender, germander,
pennyroyal, spearmint, balm, peppermint, horehound, hyssop, thyme,
rosemary, sage, wild bergamot, catnip, motherwort, comfrey, boneset,
thoroughwort, fennel, and many other life-giving plants. They are
generally coarse-looking and rough, with strong stems and strong odors,
and no beauty, though in some cases the flowers are a pretty blue or
rose-color. All these things, even to the summer gathering of herbs for
some dear relative, become interesting to the young student, because it
is a real pleasure to become familiar with the _varieties_ which are
presented in nature's domain, and the homely growths are sometimes of
more importance than the ornamental, a consoling thought to such of us
as are possessed of but little physical beauty.

[Illustration: DO YOU KNOW HIM?]

THE BOY EMIGRANT IN RUSSIA.

A True Story.

BY DAVID KER.

Many years ago, when Peter the Great was Czar of Russia, and when the
improvements that he was making all over the country gave foreign
workmen a fine chance of earning high wages, a number of emigrants
landed one cold winter morning at one of the Russian ports on the Gulf
of Finland, to see if they could find work, as so many others had done.

A curious mixture they were--men, women, and children from every country
on either side of the Baltic. Tall, fresh-colored Swedes, in gray frocks
and thick blue stockings; stout, light-haired Germans, and ruddy,
blue-eyed Danes; big-boned Pomeranians, with low foreheads and shaggy
brown beards; and short, squat Finns, whose round puffy faces and thick
yellow hair gave them the look of overboiled apple-dumplings.

But their first taste of Russia was not at all a pleasant one. At the
port where they had landed it was the rule that all emigrants who came
ashore should be kept in one place till the Czar's agents came to
examine them; and the place where they were kept was an old warehouse,
very bare and dismal-looking, with nothing in it but a few old sails and
some heaps of straw. Here they remained for two days, while the snow
fell and the wind roared outside, their food being brought them by the
soldiers of the port. The men smoked their pipes and played cards, the
women knitted stockings or mended the clothes of their husbands and
children, while the little people played hide-and-seek in and out of the
dark corners, and made the gloomy old place quite merry with their
shouts and laught