Brooks's Readers, Third Year Part 14

Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night!

Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine.

Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine.

Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and white.

Christmas where cornfields lie sunny and bright!

Christmas where children are hopeful and gay, Christmas where old men are patient and gray, Christmas where peace, like a dove in his flight, Broods o'er brave men in the thick of the fight, Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night.

For the Christ-Child who comes is the Master of all; No palace too great and no cottage too small.

--PHILLIPS BROOKS.

THE CHRISTMAS SONG

And suddenly there was with the angel a mult.i.tude of the heavenly host praising G.o.d, and saying: "Glory to G.o.d in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to man."

--ST. LUKE.

The shepherds were watching their flocks On a beautiful starlit night, When the sky was suddenly filled With a band of angels bright.

Oh! shepherds fear not but rejoice, For we bring good news, they sing; In Bethlehem is born this day, A saviour who is Christ your King!

A glad and wonderful song Rang through the heavens then; It was "Glory to G.o.d on high, Peace on earth, good will toward men."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHRISTMAS SONG.]

THE NEW YEAR

The New Year comes in the midnight hour When the beautiful world is still, And the moonlight falls in a silver stream Over meadow and wood and hill.

We can not hear the tread of his feet, For so silently comes he; But the ringing bells the good news tell As they sound over land and sea.

Where'er he steps new joys upspring, And hopes, that were lost or dim, Grow sweet and strong in the golden hours, That he everywhere bears with him.

He brings us snow from the fleecy clouds; He sends us the springtime showers; He gladdens our world with the light of love And fills its lap with flowers.

Some day, as softly as he came, He will pa.s.s through the open door, And we who sing at his coming now Will never see him more.

--MARIE ZETTERBERG.

HOW PLANTS GROW

trunk halves dissolves juice swells course openings blood

Cut an apple into halves and take out one of the little brown seeds.

How small it is! Now look at an apple tree. Did the apple tree come out of a little brown seed like the one you hold in your hand?

[Ill.u.s.tration]

You say that it did. Look again. Which is larger, the seed or the apple tree? And now you laugh, as you say: "Of course an apple tree is larger than an apple seed." Then there must be something in the apple tree that was not in the seed.

The tree has a trunk or stem. It has leaves and it has roots. How were all these made?

Do you say that the apple tree grew? But what do you mean by growing?

Something must have come into the apple seed to make it grow into a plant. And something must have come into the little green apple plant to make it grow into a tree.

What was it? Where did the plant get it? Cut into a green stem of the apple tree. See how the juice runs out!

The apple tree was made from this juice which we call sap. This sap is the blood of the plant. It makes the plant grow just as your blood makes you grow.

The sap came to the little apple plant all the time it was growing.

But where did the plant get the sap?

The food of a plant lies all about its roots. The rain, or water from your watering pot, falls around the plant. It sinks into the ground.

Then the water dissolves the earth just as it dissolves sugar.

The seed swells, and the brown seed coat bursts. Then a little root runs down into the earth. This root has hundreds of openings or mouths. The little openings are so small that our eyes can not see them.

The roots suck in the water from the ground. The earth that is dissolved in the water creeps up into the plant. This juice or sap makes the plant grow.

But the plant must have air as well as food. The sap can not turn into wood and bark and fruit until it has met the air. So the sap flows up into the leaves and meets the air.

Then it finds its way into every part of the plant. It changes into the rough bark and hard wood of the apple tree. It changes into pink apple blossoms and buds. It changes into red apples and yellow apples.

The same sap makes sweet apples and sour apples. Every part of a plant is made from sap. Is not that very strange?

[Ill.u.s.tration: Apple Blossoms.]

We have learned that the roots take the food of plants from the earth.

They do more than this. The roots are the feet of the plant.

You could not stand without your feet. You would fall on the ground or the floor. And so the tree or the plant could not stand without its roots.

Other plants grow just as the apple tree grows. The roots of a plant get food from the earth and keep the plant in its place in the ground.

The stem makes the plant strong and holds it up in the air. And the leaves draw in just what the plants need from the air around them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fruit of the Apple Tree.]