wore green joke Jessie pres’ents

jol’ly deal trim ex pect’ leg’gings

MAMMA’S PRESENT.

1.  Jessie played a good joke on her mamma.  This is the way she did it.

2.  Jessie had gone to the woods with Jamie and Joe to get green branches to trim up the house for Christmas.  She wore her little cap, her white furs, and her red leggings.

[Illustration:  Three girls carrying a small Christmas tree.]

3.  She was a merry little girl, indeed; but she felt sad this morning because her mother had said, “The children will all have Christmas presents, but I don’t expect any for myself.  We are too poor this year.”

4.  When Jessie told her brothers this, they all talked about it a great deal.  “Such a good, kind mamma, and no Christmas present!  It’s too bad.”

5.  “I don’t like it,” said little Jessie, with a tear in her eye.

6.  “Oh, she has you,” said Joe.

7.  “But I am not something new,” said Jessie.

8.  “Well, you will be new, Jessie,” said Joe, “when you get back.  She has not seen you for an hour.”

9.  Jessie jumped and laughed.  “Then put me in the basket, and carry me to mamma, and say, ‘I am her Christmas present.’ "

10.  So they set her in the basket, and put green branches all around her.  It was a jolly ride.  They set her down on the doorstep, and went in and said, “There’s a Christmas present out there for you, mamma.”

11.  Mamma went and looked, and there, in a basket of green branches, sat her own little laughing girl.

12.  “Just the very thing I wanted most,” said mamma.

13.  “Then, dear mamma,” said Jessie, bounding out of her leafy nest, “I should think it would be Christmas for mammas all the time, for they see their little girls every day.”

LESSON XLV.

pur’ple plumes pail hap’pened coat

shal’low wad’ed Charles nap yes’ter day

[Illustration:  Two girls playing in water; two boats are beached on the sand behind them.]

MARY’S STORY.

1.  Father, and Charles, and Lucy, and I went to the beach yesterday.  We took our dinner, and stayed all day.

2.  Father and Charles went out a little way from the shore in a boat, and fished, while Lucy and I gathered sea mosses.

3.  We took off our shoes and stockings, and waded into the shallow water.  We had a pail to put our seaweeds in.

4.  We found such beautiful ones.  Some wore purple, some pink, and some brown.  When they were spread out in the water, the purple ones looked like plumes, and the brown ones like little trees.

5.  Such a funny thing happened to Lucy.  She slipped on a stone, and down she went into the water.  How we both laughed!  But the wind and sun soon dried Lucy’s dress.