Don't you wish you'd thought to ask Chick-a-dee, chick-a-dee, Don't you want some crumbs to eat, Pretty chick-a-dee? 3 Hungry little chick-a-dees! Chick-a-dee, chick-a-dee, Pretty chick-a-dee, Don't you want some crumbs to eat, 4 Jolly little chick-a-dees! Have you had enough? Chick-a-dee, chick-a-dee, F 82 THE ORANGES. Don't you want some crumbs to eat, 1. MARY and Alice Grey lived with their mother in a neat little cottage in a small village in Kent. 2. One day a lady with whom their mother had lived as nurse called at the cottage, and when she left she gave each of them a bright new sixpence. 3. The children were very pleased with their present, for they had never had so much money before. 4. For many weeks they had longed to have two story-books which they had seen in a shop window, and they now asked their mother if they could buy them. THE ORANGES. 83 5. Their mother told them they might do so, as the lady had said that she wished them to do what they liked with the money. 6. The little girls at once put on their shawls and bonnets and started for the shop. 7. On the way they called to see a sick school-fellow named Susie Hunt, who had been ill for many weeks. 8. They found poor Susie very hot and thirsty, and longing for something to moisten her parched mouth. A kind lady had sent some fruit a few days before, but it was all gone, and Susie's mother was too poor to buy more. 9. When the two sisters left the house, Mary told Alice that she should buy some fruit for her sick friend with the money that had been given to her. 10. Alice said that she thought her sister very foolish to do so, as no one was likely to give her another sixpence. 11. When they reached the book-shop Alice went in to choose her book, but Mary went to buy some fruit for sick Susie. large oranges piled up in the She saw some window of a small shop a little further on, and for six of the finest she gave her bright new sixpence. 12. Alice ran home quickly to read the book that she had bought, but Mary went back to the house of her little friend. When she saw the eyes of poor Susie brighten as one orange after another was placed upon her bed, she felt very glad that she had bought the oranges instead of the book. Which of these little girls do you think made the best use of her sixpence? 1. You have already learnt something about tea and coffee. Now I am going to tell you something about the sugar with which we sweeten our tea and coffee. 2. We get sugar from a cane that grows only in very hot countries. 3. The sugar cane is not grown from seed, but from cuttings. Have you ever seen your mother cut small slips from a plant, and put them in the ground, or in a flower pot ? Just in the same way they cut pieces from the sugar cane, and plant them in the ground. 4. By and by the cuttings take root, and many stems begin to grow from each cutting. These stems or canes are of a bright yellow colour, and some of them grow to a great height. 5. When the sugar canes are ripe they are cut down and carried to the sugar mill. 6. At the mill they are crushed between rollers in order to press out all the juice. 7. The juice is then boiled, and as it boils all that is not pure rises to the top, and is skimmed off. The juice is boiled until it becomes thick. It is then left to cool. 8. As the juice cools, a great part of it turns to sugar; that which does not turn to sugar is called treacle, which I daresay some of you have eaten on your bread. |