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in finding out the truth, and they found out a great deal of truth about this wonderful influence which they called electricity.

5. Some of the wise men, too, had their suspicions that electricity was the same as lightning, the sparkle corresponding to the flash, the crackling noise to the thunder,but they had no way to prove their suspicions to be true; they had no way of going up to the clouds to examine the lightning, and they had no way to bring it down to earth.

6. But Benjamin Franklin got a notion into his wise head that if he could get on top of a high steeple during a thunder-storm, he could get enough lightning to experiment with. There were no high steeples in Philadelphia at that time, so he thought of another way. He made a kite, the most famous kite that ever went sailing up from this wide world of ours.

It

7. It was a small cross-shaped kite, just like any boy's kite, only it was covered with thin silk instead of paper,for the rain would have spoiled paper, and it had some sharp, metallic points sticking out from the corners. was a gallant little messenger; it rode fearlessly on the wings of the wind away up into the sky; it entered bravely at the portals of a dark and threatening cloud.

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8. "Good-morning, thunder and lightning!" called out the little messenger; 'my master sent me to inquire if you are any relation to the snaps and sparkles he makes in his electrical machine. If you are, just send a shock down this tow-string; my master has hold of the other end, and he will understand what you mean in a minute."

9. "Mind your own business!" returned thunder and lightning with a terrible flash and groan. “If your master wants to know about my family relations, he must find out in some other way; that tow-string will carry no message of mine."

10. At this tow-string began to bristle up and look excited, and the rain-water, that had been keeping house in

HOW THE GIANT WAS CAUGHT AND SET TO WORK. 171

the next-door cloud, and was just starting earthward, flashed out angrily :

"Thunder and lightning, you are too proud to own your poor relations ! Ever since the world was made, you have been careering through the heavens with your great flashings and groanings, pretending you did not have anything to do on the earth except to frighten men to death and tumble down their houses. But I'll tell of you; I'll soon let that wise man know that you are not a terrible and mysterious heavenly being, but a very common resident of earth, just as I am. I've been aching to tell about you for thousands of years, but I've never found any one on earth wise enough to understand my talk."

11. Thunder and lightning roared and flashed in great fury when it heard this, but rain-water slid down the towstring with great glee, and with a series of jerks and shocks soon informed the wise doctor all he wanted to know about the distinguished relations of electricity.

12. That must have been a sad day for the old giant that had ranged the heavens and terrified the earth since the creation; he must have felt humbled when he had to come down the string and get into a bottle and perform experiments for the doctor.

13. Ah, but it was a great day for the world! The wise doctor rejoiced, and all the wise men all over the world were glad at the news when they heard it.

14. So the people lost their terror of this giant, and he did not dare to go zigzagging around through the air, knocking down people's houses, for the people put sharp-pointed rods of iron on their dwellings, and the great giant did not dare to touch a house thus protected, because the sharp sentinel was ever on the lookout.

15. "Don't touch my house! This way, my friend. I'll take you safe to a good place." And the first thing the old giant knew he was whisked underground, tight in prison, where he could do no mischief.

16. But men were not content to keep the old fellow

out of mischief; they longed to set him to work. The chemists found out how to make him useful in their laboratories. The doctors set him to healing their patients, and the silversmiths made him plate their wares. But still some wise men were sure that he was able to do many more useful things. They were certain that, if they could only invent the right sort of a road and the right sort of a harness, they could make the great giant travel from place to place carrying the news.

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17. "Ah," said the wise men, he is just the one to carry the news; he is so strong, so tireless, so swift, so secret, just the one, if we can only make him do it.”

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So they worried their wise heads night and day for many a year; they devised plans and invented machines. But the old giant laughed their plans to scorn; he broke in pieces their machines, he shocked and stunned the wise heads themselves. He pranced away from them and danced in the air.

19. It happened, a quarter of a century ago, that a small thought entered into a wise man's head, and dwelt there until it worked itself out into life and action in the shape of Morse's Telegraph.

20. And the old giant knew, as soon as he saw this .machine, that he was caught and harnessed and must go to work. He knew he was mastered, so he never winced or flinched the least bit; he settled himself in the traces; the harness fitted so well he could not keep from working in it. The road suited his tastes far better than the old ragged, zigzag route he used to engineer out for himself.

21. All over the round world to-day the track of the giant is gleaming in crystal and steel; from north to south, from east to west, in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, he ceases not to toil for man. Silent, omnipresent, sleepless, and tireless, this grand ally of civilization, with his heart of fire and his sinews of steel, keeps the deep pulses of humanity

THE LARK AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

173

throbbing with the same beat, rejoicing for the same joy, mourning for the same sorrow.

22. So the giant Electricity works joyfully in the service of mankind; he works according to his own nature; he obeys the laws that were set for him from the creation of the world. When the mind of a man conquered these laws, it conquered him.

23. The earth is a great storehouse of hidden forces; the strong men and wise men of the future shall draw the bolts and turn the rusted keys, and bring forth its treasures to enrich and exalt the whole human race. Boys and girls! knowledge and thought are the keys. Grasp them surely, use them skilfully, enter upon the heritage secured to you from the beginning of time.

T. S. Arthur.

LXXI. — THE LARK AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

T

1.

IS sweet to hear the merry lark,

That bids a blithe good morrow ;

But sweeter to hark in the twinkling dark,
To the soothing song of sorrow.

O nightingale! What doth she ail?
And is she sad or jolly?

For ne'er on earth was sound of mirth

So like to melancholy.

II.

The merry lark, he soars on high,

No worldly thought o'ertakes him;
He sings aloud to the clear blue sky,
And the daylight that awakes him.
As sweet a lay, as loud, as gay,
The nightingale is trilling;
With feeling bliss, no less than his,
Her little heart is thrilling.

III.

Yet, ever and anon, a sigh,

Peers through her lavish mirth;
For the lark's bold song is of the sky,
And hers is of the earth.

By night and day she tunes her lay,
To drive away all sorrow;

For bliss, alas! to-night must pass,
And woe may come to-morrow.

Hartley Coleridge.

LXXII THE QUARREL OF SQUIRE BULL AND HIS SON JONATHAN.

OHN BULL was a choleric old fellow, who held a

J good manor in the middle of a great mill-pond, and

which, by reason of its being quite surrounded by water, was generally called "Bullock Island." Bull was an ingenious man, an exceedingly good blacksmith, a dexterous cutler, and a notable weaver besides. He also brewed capital porter, ale, and small beer; and was, in fact, a sort of Jack-at-all-trades, and good at each.

2. In addition to these, he was a hearty fellow, a jolly companion, and passably honest, as the times go. But what tarnished all these qualities, was an exceedingly quarrelsome, overbearing disposition, which was always getting him into some scrape or other. The truth is, he never heard of a quarrel going on among his neighbors, but his fingers itched to take a part in it; so that he was hardly ever seen without a broken head, a black eye, or a bloody nose.

3. Such was Squire Bull, as he was commonly called by the country people, his neighbors, one of those odd, testy, grumbling, boasting old codgers, that never get credit for what they are, because they are always pretending to be what they are not. The squire was as tight

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