Maggie was frightened lest she had been doing something wrong, as usual, but presently Tom drew out her line and brought a large tench bouncing on the grass. 66 5 Tom was excited. "O Magsie! you little duck! Empty the basket." Maggie was not conscious of unusual merit, but it was enough that Tom called her Magsie, and was pleased with her. There was nothing to mar 10 her delight in the whispers and the dreamy silences, when she listened to the light dipping sounds of the rising fish, and the gentle rustling, as if the willows, and the reeds, and the water had their happy whisperings also. Maggie thought it would make 15 a very nice heaven to sit by the pool in that way, and never be scolded. She never knew that she had a bite until Tom told her, but she liked fishing very much. It was one of their happy mornings. They 20 trotted along and sat down together, with no thought that life would ever change much for them; they would only get bigger and not go to school, and it would always be like the holidays; they would always live together and be fond of 25 each other. And the mill with its booming, the great chestnut tree under which they played at houses, their own little river, the Ripple, where the banks seemed like home, and Tom was always seeing the water rats, while Maggie gathered the purple plumy tops of the reeds, which she forgot and dropped afterward, above all, the great Floss, 5 along which they wandered with a sense of travel, to see the rushing spring tide, the awful Eagre, come up like a hungry monster, or to see the Great Ash which had once wailed and groaned like a man, these things would always be just the same 10 to them. Tom thought people were at a disadvantage who lived on any other spot on the globe; and Maggie, when she read about Christian's passing "the river over which there is no bridge,' always saw the Floss between the green pastures. 15 Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in believing that the thoughts and loves of these first years would always make part of their lives. We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, — if 20 it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to 25 call "God's birds," because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known? The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with 5 the young yellow-brown foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white star flowers, and the blue-eyed speedwell, and the ground ivy at my feet, what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid broad-petaled blossoms, could ever 10 thrill such deep and delicate fibers within me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird notes, this sky with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capri15 cious hedgerows, such things as these are the mother tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed 20 grass to-day might be no more than the faint per ception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off years, which still live in us and transform our perception into love. mysterious water fish. sameness. secret and hard to understand. - tench: a fresheagre: a flood tide moving up the river. — monotony : capricious changeable. subtle: mysterious. BRUCE'S ADDRESS ROBERT BURNS ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796) was the son of a poor Scottish peasant, in whose simple home books were the only luxury. Of a collection of English songs Burns says, "I pored over them driv ing my cart or walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse." He In his twenty-sixth year Burns published a volume of poems that went to the hearts of the Scottish people and made him famous. spent two years at Edinburgh, where he received much honor, but his lack of selfcontrol made his life a disappointment to himself and to his friends. 5 10 15 20 The memory of Burns, every man's, every boy's, every girl's head carries snatches of his songs, and they say them by heart, and what is strangest of all, never learned them from a book, but from mouth to mouth. The wind whispers them, the birds 25 whistle them, the corn, barley, and bulrushes hoarsely rustle them, nay the music boxes at Geneva are framed and toothed to play them; the hand organs of the Savoyards in all cities repeat, them, and the chimes of bells ring them in spires. They are the property and solace of mankind. - RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 30 5 10 15 Scots, who have with Wallace bled, Now's the day, and now 's the hour; See approach proud Edward's power- Who will be a traitor knave? Who so base as be a slave? Let him turn and flee! Who for Scotland's king and law SELF-CONTROL Reader, attend! whether thy soul Know, prudent, cautious self-control Is wisdom's root. From A Bard's Epitaph |