Brooks's Readers, Third Year Part 26

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HOW BIRDS LEARN TO SING

How do birds first learn to sing?

From the whistling wind so fleet, From the waving of the wheat, From the rustling of the leaves, From the raindrop on the eaves, From the children's laughter sweet, From the plash when brooklets meet.

Little birds begin their trill As they gayly float at will In the gladness of the sky, When the clouds are white and high; In the beauty of the day Speeding on their sunny way, Light of heart and fleet of wing-- That's how birds first learn to sing.

--MARY MAPES DODGE.

THE GREATEST OF BEASTS

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Nandi, the Great One, was the baby's nurse. He was one of the strongest nurses that ever took care of a baby anywhere on this round earth.

In the first place Nandi was large, as you have already guessed. He was twice as high as the baby's father, and he was almost as tall as the roof of the tiny hut where the baby lived.

Nandi had a long nose. It was a very long nose indeed. Perhaps you will not believe it, but his nose was as long as you are tall, my little reader.

And it was a wonderful nose. It was always moving, always feeling, always smelling. With his nose Nandi could rock the cradle, and brush away the flies that buzzed about the baby's face. With it he could pick up the smallest toys from the ground, or open the door of the hut.

But you, my little readers, have another name for this wonderful, long nose. You call it a trunk.

Nandi had two long, sharp teeth. They were longer than a man's arm, and they were very strong. With them he could lift heavy logs and move great stones.

But you have another name for these long, strong teeth. You call them tusks. And you have already guessed that the baby's nurse was an elephant.

The baby was a little Hindu boy, and he lived on the other side of the world. He had a brown skin, black eyes, and black hair.

The Hindu baby had played with great Nandi's trunk ever since he could grasp anything with his tiny hands. He had crawled around the elephant's feet and slept on the ground in the shadow of the great beast. For, in the warm country of India, where the baby lived, it is always summer.

One morning, the baby's father perched himself upon the elephant's head and rode away from his home. The child screamed with grief for his companion.

"Be still, love of my life," said the mother. "Thy father has need of Nandi. He can no longer be idle. There is harder work for him to do than to care for thee, O small one."

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The elephant's work was to pile heavy timbers in the lumber yard, and to help unload the s.h.i.+ps. Often he worked alone, for he needed no driver to urge him to his task. His piles of wood were always straight, and his work always well done.

Once Nandi belonged to a Hindu prince and walked in long processions through the streets of cities. Then he wore gold rings in his ears and silver rings around his tusks. Red cloth, trimmed with gold, covered his great sides and hung almost to his feet. And he proudly bore upon his back the officers of the prince.

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And longer ago than that, when he was young, he had lived in the jungle. Ah! those were happy days! Then, with other elephants, he roamed the forest, ate the tender branches, and swam the rivers.

But one day he was driven by the hunters through the forest and across the hills. Suddenly he found himself shut in on every side by a strong, high fence. Then he was caught and chained to a tame elephant who afterwards taught him how to work.

Nandi often took part in great hunts for wild beasts, and he bore the marks of a fierce tiger's claws upon his side. He helped to catch other elephants in the dark forest, and taught great beasts like himself to do many kinds of work.

Nandi did not care to be free. Truly, if he had wished to go back to the jungle what could hinder? For he worked without chain or harness.

He was well cared for. He loved the evening bath in the river and the evening meal of fresh leaves. He loved his master, who was always kind.

But best of all he loved the brown baby who fed him with bananas, and always welcomed his return with childish glee. How old Nandi's bright eyes would sparkle when his little friend came near.

And when the baby could run to meet him, and sit upon his great strong neck, there was no prouder elephant in all the land of India.

THE STORY OF GIANT SUN

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"Sister, I wish you would tell me a story about the sun," said Harry.

"Where does it go at night, and where does it come from in the morning?"

"We live on a big round globe called the earth," replied his sister, "and we travel around the sun once every year. The sun is like a great lamp in the sky. When we face the lamp, we see the light, and when we turn away from it, we are in darkness.

"As the earth travels around the sun, it whirls like a huge top. When the side of the earth on which we live is turned toward the sun, we have day. But when the earth turns around so that the sun can not s.h.i.+ne on us, we have night.

"If the sun stopped s.h.i.+ning, there would be no daylight, and soon there would be no heat on the earth.

"The sun is very, very hot. If it should come nearer and nearer to the earth, every plant and animal in the world would die. The rivers and the seas would dry up, and at last the great earth would melt like a ball of wax."

"How far away is the sun?" asked Harry.

"It is so far away that it would take more than a hundred years to travel the distance by the fastest railroad train."

"Is it more than a thousand miles?"

"Yes, it is more than a million miles."

"Suppose there were a road all the way to the sun. How long would it take me to walk there?"

"Let me see," said sister Mary, taking out her notebook. "If you should walk four miles an hour and ten hours a day, you would be more than six thousand years old before you could finish your journey."

"But suppose," asked Harry, his eyes bright with wonder, "some one fired a big cannon at the sun. How long would it take the cannon ball to get there?"

Mary looked in her notebook again. "If a cannon ball could be shot to the sun, it would take nine years to reach it. Now what else do you want to know about the sun, little brother?"