and little dipper, so that I could find them any night when I had command of the sky; but what could be done in this timber? I had enough hope that I might see the great dipper, to look out through a slight opening of the trees. There it was, standing out as brilliantly as stars ever shine. I gave a yell, and the dogs broke into the darkness in quest of game they supposed to be near. Lewis, the older boy, said:

"What's the matter now, Rodney! Better wait till we get out of here before you take a fit!"

"We will go out now," I said. "Come here a minute you and Ambrose."

The boys came and stood behind me. One said:

"What do you see now-a 'coon, and what do you want with him?"

"No; do you see that bright star just in the edge of the leaves of that hackberry?"

"Yes."

"That is the North Star."

"O pshaw!" said Lewis.

"I don't know

where we are; but I know that is nearer south than north."

"Now, you two boys listen to me, or I will leave you here in the woods. I am going out of

here.

Put your heads as close to mine as you can get them now, and let me show you. Do you see four large stars out here, nearly in the form of a square—the upper ones slightly farther apart than the lower ones?"

"Yes; what of that?"

"That is the bowl of the great dipper."
"Dipper fiddlesticks," said Lewis.

"Now, do you see three large stars running out from this bowl, and making a curve away into the top of that sycamore?"

"Yes; but yer handle is on the bottom of yer bowl," said Lewis, in reply.

"Maybe that is the way they make dippers up there," retorted Ambrose, beginning to yield the point, or beginning to catch at a straw, I do not know which.

"Now, you see the two outer stars in the bowl of that dipper are in a line with that great star yonder, and that is the North Star. Come this way now about ten feet. Do you see four smaller stars almost in a square, as you look to the left of that dead snag, and then three stars running out from them to the North Star ?"

"No."

"Look awhile."

"O yes, I see it!" said Ambrose.

"So do I," said Lewis.

"The stars in the handle of that point toward the North Star."

I had carried my point. Lewis, now, by right of the sovereignty of superior age, became the leader of the expedition out of the woods.

What a difficult matter it is to trace a star through the tree-tops at night! Lewis cleared the way, and Ambrose cut a joint-pole by which I was led, so that I had one business-that of keeping my eye on the star. We came to a bayou. I stood on the bank and watched the star, while a boy ran each way to see if there was any way around. They returned after a time, reporting no way around. We must wade or swim. Lewis started in and waded across, the water up to his breast. In the middle of the bayou, he asked me if I saw the star. Ambrose, with the water up to his chin, asked the same question. When I was in the water up to my neck, both boys on the other bank, simultaneously asked me if I saw that star. For two hours we groped our way on the other side, and at the last we came to the river-road, and were at home in half an hour. The folks at the house were getting ready to go in search. We were tired then. We were wet and hungry, and we were wiser and less presumptuous.

How great are the things to attract and interest the mind in this overshadowed world! And it is not out of harmony with the fitness of things that we enter into all that they have for

but like the North Star from the woodland, we need to keep our eye on the realities that are so great that no change is apparent from any point of view. The movements of the planets, we are told, are double. One is the motion around their own axes; the other is in the planes of their movements with the other planets around a common center. Life has two focals of influence: one is the hunt, the other is the compass-point for service after the hunt is over. The orbit of this life has its attraction and value; but we are in the sweep of that larger orbit from time to eternity. This is a momentous fact. It is as if we had been taken by one hand to be lifted to that city which hath foundations, while the other has been left free to hammer the iron, or push the plane, or drive a nail, or hold the plow, or garner the grain, or execute the law, or wield the sword, or dig in the mines, or guide a ship, or write a poem, or build a palace, or carve a statue, or train a child, or save a soul.

"Thus, then, to man the voice of nature spake :
'Co, from the creatures thy instruction take.
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
The arts of building from the bee receive;

T

Learn from the mole to plow, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here, too, all forms of social union find,
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind.'"

-POPE.

O learn and know the characteristics of ani

mals and birds, tame and wild, is an education in itself. It is a kind of acquisition not received from books. It is laboratory-work. The small attention given now to this sort of knowledge, and the little importance attached to it, is not to the credit of our educational methods. Mr. Darwin strongly hints that these are our kinfolks. If this be so, then a knowledge of