Languidly leaning,

In purple gauze dressed;-
All are assembled,

This sweet Sabbath day,
To hear what the priest
In his pulpit will say..

Look! what Indian pipes
On the green mosses lie!
Who has been smoking
Profanely so nigh?
Rebuked by the preacher,
The mischief is stopped;
But the sinners, in haste,
Have their little pipes dropped.
Let the wind, with the fragrance
Of fern and black birch,

Blow the smell of the smoking
Clean out of the church.

So much for the preacher;

The sermon comes next.

Shall we tell how he preached it And what was his text?

Alas! like too many

Grown-up folks who play

At worship in churches
Man-builded to-day,

We heard not the preacher
Expound or discuss;

But we looked at the people,
And they looked at us.

We saw all their dresses,
Their colors and shapes,
The trim of their bonnets,
The cut of their capes.
We heard the wind-organ,
The bee and the bird,
But of Jack in the Pulpit

We heard not a word.

pōuring fōrtu nāte

certain mis fortunes

narrow ly

tailor

LXXIV. THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN.

In a small village lived a poor old woman. One day she gathered a dish of beans, which she wished to cook for her dinner. So she

made a fire upon the hearth and threw a handful of straw upon it to make the fire burn more quickly.

As she was pouring the beans into the pot, one of them dropped upon the floor and rolled near a straw. Soon after this a glowing coal popped from the fire, and fell near the straw and the bean.

The straw began to speak: "Good friends, where did you come from?"

"I had the good luck to spring from the fire," answered the coal. "If I had not had the strength to leap away, my death was certain, for I should have been burnt to ashes."

"I also narrowly escaped with a whole skin," said the bean; "for if the old woman had put me in the kettle, I should have been cooked to pieces, like my comrades."

"And I too!" cried the straw, "my fate would have been no better. All my brothers went up in the fire and smoke. The old woman seized sixty at one time and took away their lives. How fortunate for me that I slipped through her fingers."

"What shall we do now ?" asked the coal.

"I think," said the bean, "that we were fortunate in escaping together. Let us keep together as good friends, leave this place, and travel into strange lands."

This pleased the straw and the coal, and they set out at once on their travels. They

had not gone far until they came to a small stream. There was neither bridge nor boat. They did not know how to get to the other side of the stream. Finally the straw said:

"I will throw myself across the stream, and you can walk over me as if I were a bridge." So the straw stretched himself from one

bank to the other, and the coal, who was hotheaded, walked boldly out on the new-made bridge. When he reached the middle he became frightened, stopped, and dared not move another step.

The straw began to burn, and, breaking into two pieces, fell into the stream. The coal tumbled head foremost after him. They were both drowned.

The bean saw all this, and was so amused that she laughed loud and long. Now a bean should never laugh at the misfortunes of others, and so it happened that as she laughed her sides suddenly burst!

Her fate would have been no better than that of the straw and the coal had it not been for a tailor who happened to be resting near the stream. He felt sorry for the little bean when he saw her burst in two, and, taking out his needle and thread, he hastily sewed her together.

The bean thanked the tailor for his goodness; but as he used black thread to sew her up, from that day to this every bean has a black mark upon it.