England has done for Freedom, or will show you what Americans of the old time did and thought when they were building their free land for you to dwell in and to protect. And, last of all, there are stories of life in our America-old legends and stories that will make you smile, and stories of workers and their work. When you have finished the last section you will be happier and a better citizen, ready to do your share every chance you get.

One word more. You know that, in order to work enchantment, people have had to do certain things. There was the fern-seed, you know, or the charm like "open sesame," or you have to rub the wonderful lamp. Now to use this book rightly, you must not think of it as a lesson book, containing tasks. If you do that, it will be no Aladdin's lamp at all but just a dull old smoky lamp that would not even guide you to the cellar. You must do these things: First, get that chair or that corner and make yourself comfortable. Second, look at the program. What is that? Why, the "Table of Contents," of course. You must know where you are going and what you are to see. In this book everything is arranged in such a way as to help the charm to work. Third, you will find little questions and studies every now and then, and a glossary, guide-posts so that you will not lose your way. And, last of all, you are to try to see the book as a whole and not as a sort of scrapbook about all sorts of things. For it all deals, in one way or another, with the Enchanted Forest and the Castle of Life.

PART I

STORIES AND POEMS OF NATURE

"Go forth, under the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings."

-William Cullen Bryant.

10

THE BUFFALO

FRANCIS PARKMAN

BRINGING HOME THE MEAT

Four days on the Platte, and yet no buffalo! The wagons one morning had left the camp; Shaw and I were already on horseback, but Henry Chatillon still sat cross-legged by the dead embers of the fire, playing pensively with the lock of his rifle, 5 while his sturdy Wyandot pony stood quietly behind him, looking over his head. At last he got up, patted the neck of the pony (whom, from an exaggerated appreciation of his merits, he had christened "Five Hundred Dollar"), and then mounted with a melancholy air.

"What is it, Henry?"

"Ah, I feel lonesome; I never been here before; but I see away yonder over the buttes, and down there on the prairie, black-all black with buffalo!"

In the afternoon he and I left the party in search of an ante15 lope; until, at the distance of a mile or two on the right, the tall white wagons and the little black specks of horsemen were just visible, so slowly advancing that they seemed motionless; and far on the left rose the broken line of scorched, desolate sand

J.H.L. 1-2

hills. The vast plain waved with tall rank grass that swept our horses' bellies; it swayed to and fro in billows with the light breeze, and far and near, antelope and wolves were moving through it, the hairy backs of the latter alternately appearing and dis5 appearing as they bounded awkwardly along; while the antelope, with the simple curiosity peculiar to them, would often approach us closely, their little horns and white throats just visible above the grass tops as they gazed eagerly at us with their round, black

10

eyes.

I dismounted, and amused myself with firing at the wolves. Henry attentively scrutinized the surrounding landscape; at length he gave a shout, and called on me to mount again, pointing in the direction of the sand-hills. A mile and a half from us, two minute black specks slowly traversed the face of one of the bare, 15 glaring declivities, and disappeared behind the summit. "Let us go!" cried Henry, belaboring the sides of Five Hundred Dollar; and I following in his wake, we galloped rapidly through the rank grass toward the base of the hills.

From one of their openings descended a deep ravine, widening 20 as it issued on the prairie. We entered it, and galloping up, in a moment were surrounded by the bleak sand-hills. Half of their steep sides were bare; the rest were scantily clothed with clumps of grass and various uncouth plants, conspicuous among which appeared the reptile-like prickly-pear. They were gashed with 25 numberless ravines; and as the sky had suddenly darkened and a cold gusty wind arisen, the strange shrubs and the dreary hills looked doubly wild and desolate. But Henry's face was all eagerness. He tore off a little hair from the piece of buffalo robe under his saddle, and threw it up, to show the course of the wind. 30 It blew directly before us. The game were therefore to windward, and it was necessary to make our best speed to get round them.

We scrambled from this ravine, and galloping away through the hollows, soon found another, winding like a snake among the hills, and so deep that it completely concealed us. We rode 35 up the bottom of it, glancing through the shrubbery at its edge, till Henry abruptly jerked his rein and slid out of his saddle. Full a quarter of a mile distant, on the outline of the farthest