It is a new idea to call a bird Trouble, after the trouble he gave, isn't it? It would be fair to change his name to Pleasure, now that he sings so well. I hope, dear, that you have by this time quite recovered from your illness.
BIRDIE M.--Please pardon me for not having sooner thanked you for the pretty daffodil which you sent in your letter all the way from Cherokee, Kansas. Now, to pay you for it, let me give you a pretty poem from the poet Wordsworth, to copy into your little book of extracts. In fact, I would be glad to hear that a great many of my little friends had done the same. It is a good plan to copy gems of thought from great authors into little books of our own. Even though you may not quite understand the poet's meaning in these verses, you will like their musical sound, and, believe me, that when you are older the meaning will be plain to you:
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of the bay; Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee; A poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company. I gazed and gazed, but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude, And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
A LITTLE BOY'S COMPOSITION.--The subject assigned by mamma was "Quadrupeds." Ernest retired to the attic, and wrote very patiently until he had finished this, which is not so bad for a first attempt:
"Quadrupeds are animals. Animals live on grass, hay, oats, bran, and water. A quadruped is anything that has four legs."
That was all Ernest could possibly think of. But mamma, who sends it, wants the children to say whether everything with four legs is, of course, a quadruped.
Here is another little composition, by a wee girlie, who writes about kittens: