[Illustration:  {Canadian schoolhouse}]

8.  On one day in each year the children make holiday, and plant trees in the school grounds.  The teacher tells them that when they grow up they must plant trees on their farms.

9.  Harvest is the busiest time of the year.  Then the children rise at half-past four, and work all day long in the fields.  Every one who can work at all must do so at harvest time.

10.  There is also plenty of work to be done in the autumn.  Everything needed in the house must be brought in before the snow begins to fall.

11.  Winter is the real holiday time.  No work can then be done on the land.  The rivers and lakes are frozen, and everywhere there is plenty of skating.  The wheels are taken off the carriages, and runners are put on instead.  Horses draw them very swiftly over the frozen snow.

12.  Look at the picture post-card which I send you with this letter.  It shows you how Canadian boys are dressed in winter.  On the ground you see a pair of snow-shoes.  The boys can travel very quickly on these snow-shoes without sinking into the snow.

[Illustration:  Boys of Canada in winter.]

13.  In the picture you also see a toboggan.  It is a small sledge.  The boy drags his toboggan up to the top of a hill.  He seats himself on it and pushes off.  Away he goes over the frozen snow like an arrow from a bow.  It is splendid fun.

14.  Those boys and girls whose homes are in towns live very much as you do.  They go to school, and they play in the streets and parks.  When summer comes many of them go to the seaside or to the lakeside for a holiday.

15.  Sometimes a whole family goes camping in the woods.  They then live in tents or in little huts by the side of a river or a lake.  What happy times the children have!  They go fishing, they bathe, and they dart to and fro in canoes.

16.  Most of the young folks of Canada are strong and healthy.  They are happy and bright, and they are not afraid of work.  No children are more useful to their parents than the boys and girls of Canada.

* * * * *

26.  The red men.

1.  Tom will not forgive me unless I tell you something about the Red men of America.  He has often asked me about the picture of Red men which is in my room at home.[1]

[1] See page 102. {Page 102 contains the illustration below}

[Illustration:  Red Men and White Men.

(From the picture by Cyrus Cuneo, R.I.  By kind permission of the
C.P.R.  Co.)]

2.  In the old days, before white men settled in America, the Red men were masters of the land.  They were tall and strong, and their skin was of a dark copper colour.  Their eyes were jet black, and their hair was long and straight.

[Illustration:  {Red men in wigwams}]

3.  They wore very little clothing, even though the winters in North America are very cold.  From the time when they were babies they were trained to bear heat and cold, hunger, thirst, and pain without grumbling.