The lit-tle birds by God are fed
But man must earn his dai-ly bread,
  And work that he may eat;
Striv-ing his best, as John does now,
The broad ten-acre field to plough,
  Where-in to sow the wheat.

Old John, the plough-man, ne’er re-pines,
Whe-ther it blows, or rains, or shines,
  But hap-py still does seem;
And Dick, who leads the fore-most horse,
Goes whist-ling as he walks across
  The field be-side the team.

Let us per-form as glad-ly, too,
The work our Mas-ter bids us do,
  And then we need not fear;
But when from earth-ly toil we rest,
We all shall meet a-mong the blest
  Who served Him tru-ly here.

“How is the wea-ther?”

  Cold win-ter has come,
  And the cru-el winds blow—­
The trees are all leaf-less and brown;
  These two pret-ty rob-ins,
  Oh, where shall they go
To shel-ter their lit-tle brown heads from the snow? 
  Just look at the flakes com-ing down.

But see, they have found a snug shel-ter at last,
And hark, how they talk, while the storm whis-tles past: 

  Says Pol-ly to Dick-y,
  “You’re near-est the door,
And you are the gen-tle-man, too: 
  Just peep out and see
  When the storm will be o’er;
Be-cause, if the wea-ther’s as bad as be-fore,
I think we will stay, do not you?”

[Illustration:  Far up a-mong the moun-tain peaks, His food the lone-ly Con-dor seeks.]

[Illustration:  The Co-bra has a dead-ly bite.  And yet in mu-sic takes de-light.]

[Illustration:  The A-rabs through the de-sert wide, On the swift Dro-me-dary ride.]

[Illustration:  In gen-tle ri-vers, still and clear, We see the shin-ing Dace ap-pear.]

[Illustration:  “How is the Weather?”]

[Illustration:  NELLY’S new Parasol.]

NAUGH-TY NEL-LY AND HER NEW PA-RA-SOL.

“No, Nel-ly! not to-day, my child! 
  I can-not let you take it;
This cold March wind, so strong and wild,
  Your pa-ra-sol, ’twould break it!”

So said Mam-ma; but Nel-ly thought,
  “I will take my new pre-sent: 
Tis mine; to please me it was bought;
  The wea-ther’s bright and plea-sant.”

So naugh-ty Nel-ly sli-ly took
  What kind Mam-ma had bought her,
And out she went—­and, only look! 
  The wild March wind has caught her!

The silk tore up, the ribs broke out,
  In spite of Nel-ly’s sway-ing;
And peo-ple laugh-ed at her, no doubt—­
  That comes of dis-o-bey-ing.

“The flow-ers ap-pear on the earth.”

(Song of Solomon, ii. 12.)

Now the win-ter cold is past,
  And blithe March winds are blow-ing,
In shel-ter-ed nooks we find at last
  Bright flow-ers of spring are grow-ing.