5.  Harry found that the stump had roots that spread out all round for a long way.

‘How thick and hard they are!’ he said; ‘come and feel this one!’

[Illustration:  It is all marked in rings.]

‘It is not like the roots we saw on the ivy,’ she said.  ’Now look at the top of the stump.  It is all marked in rings.’

6.  ’In the very middle there is a little light spot, and then come dark rings, and then more rings outside.  Father once told me these rings showed how old the trees were.  And do you see lines coming away from the middle?’

7.  ‘They look like the rays of the sun, which I draw on my slate,’ said Dora.  ’What a rough coat this tree had!  Come and feel the outside of the log.’

‘That is the bark!  I have heard father talk about bark.’

8.  ’Well, I shall call it the coat.  It is the tree’s overcoat to keep him warm and dry.  But trees do not all seem to have rough coats.  Look at that one!’ and she ran over to a little birch, and pulled off some of its thin bark.

9.  ‘I have found a fine tree!’ cried Harry; and Dora came running to look at it.

[Illustration:  Leaves of the Beech and the Oak.]

10.  It was a beech, with a great round smooth trunk and long strong branches.  Harry jumped up and caught at a leaf or two, and then went to pick an oak-leaf.  He laid them side by side on his hand and looked at them, and found they were not at all alike.

BRICKS.

stopped emp’-ty mor’-tar sound trow’-el struck picked size teach’-er re’-al-ly clay win’-ter breaks moulds nice’-ly ov’-en

1.  Two men were making a wall by the road-side, and Harry and Dora stopped to look at them.

2.  Another man was going away with a horse and cart.  The cart was empty, but it had been full of red bricks.  The men were putting these bricks on the wall and making them fast with mortar.

3.  Dora liked the sound which the trowel made when it struck against the wall.  Harry picked up one of the bricks and looked at it, and then Dora must look at one too.

4.  They found that the bricks were light and easy to lift.  They also saw that they were all of the same size and shape, as if they had been made, and not dug out of the ground.

[Illustration]

5.  They did not like to ask the men about them, and so they put the bricks down, and set off on their way home.

6.  As they went they met their teacher, who stopped and spoke to them, so Harry asked her to tell them what bricks really were.

7.  ‘I wish there were a brick-field near,’ she said, ’and then we would go and see it!  But I can tell you a little about it.

8.  ’Bricks are made of clay, and clay is dug out of the ground.  Men dig it before winter comes, and let it lie out all the winter, and the frost breaks it up nicely for them.