y they all sailed to a desolate land
Where never a lettuce-leaf grew,
All the white rabbits but two, my dears,
All the white rabbits but two.

THE WOODEN HORSE.

"Come and have a ride," the big brother said.

"I am afraid," the little one answered; "the horse's mouth is wide
open."

"But it's only wooden. That is the best of a horse that isn't real. If
his mouth is ever so wide open, he cannot shut it. So come," and the
big brother lifted the little one up, and dragged him about.

"Oh, do stop!" the little one cried out in terror; "does the horse make
that noise along the floor?"

"Yes."

"And is it a real noise?"

"Of course it is," the big brother answered.

"But I thought only real things could make real things," the little one
said; "where does the imitation horse end and the real sound begin?"

At this the big brother stood still for a few minutes.

"I was thinking about real and imitation things," he said presently.
"It's very difficult to tell which is which sometimes. You see they get
so close together that the one often grows into the other, and some
imitated things become real and some real ones become imitation as they
go on. But I should say that you are a real coward for not having a
ride."

"No, I am not," the little one laughed; and, getting astride the wooden
horse, he sat up bravely. "Oh, Jack, dear," he said to his brother, "we
will always be glad that we are real boys, or we too might have been
made with mouths we were never able to shut!"

THE DUCK POND.

So little Bridget took the baby on her right arm and a jug in her left
hand, and went to the farm to get the milk. On her way she went by the
garden-gate of a large house that stood close to the farm, and she told
the baby a story:--

"Last summer," she said, "a little girl, bigger than you, for she was
just able to walk, came to stay in that house--she and her father and
mother. All about the road just here, the ducks and the chickens from
the farm, and an old turkey, used to walk about all the day long, but
the poor little ducks were very unhappy, for they had no pond to swim
about in, only that narrow ditch through which the streamlet is
flowing. When the little girl's father saw this, he took a spade, and
worked and worked very hard, and out of the ditch and the streamlet he
made a little pond for the ducks, and they swam about and were very
happy all through the summer days. Every morning I u