A fun-ny old fel-low is Win-ter, I trow,
    A mer-ry old fel-low for glee: 
  He paints all the no-ses a beau-ti-ful hue,
  He counts all our fin-gers, and pinch-es them too;
  Our toes he gets hold of through stock-ing and shoe;
    For a fun-ny old fel-low is he.

  Old Win-ter is blow-ing his gusts a-long,
    And mer-ri-ly shak-ing the tree: 
  From morn-ing to night he will sing us his song,
  Now moan-ing and short, now bold-ly and long;
  His voice it is loud, for his lungs are so strong,
    And a mer-ry old fel-low is he.

  Old Win-ter’s a rough old chap to some,
    As rough as ev-er you’ll see. 
  “I with-er the flow-ers when-ev-er I come,
  I qui-et the brook that went laugh-ing a-long,
  I drive all the birds off to find a new home
    I’m as rough as rough can be.”

  A cun-ning old fel-low is Winter, they say,—­
    A cun-ning old fel-low is he: 
  He peeps in the crev-i-ces day by day,
  To see how we’re pass-ing our time a-way,
  And mark all our do-ing from so-ber to gay;
    I’m a-fraid he is peep-ing at me!

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The hard lesson.

“I can nev-er, nev-er learn it,” said Bell; and she burst in-to tears.

“Car-rie has learned it,” said Miss Gray; “and I am sure you can.  Try, try a-gain.”

“Yes, Bell,” said Car-rie; “and then per-haps we can have a romp in the hay-field.  You will have to hur-ry, for the men are cart-ing it in-to the barn.”

Thus urged, Bell made a fresh ef-fort; and soon the les-son was learned and re-cit-ed.

Off scam-pered the two girls to the hay-field.  Soon Miss Gray fol-lowed, but there was noth-ing to be seen of them.  She looked all a-bout, and at last walked up to the man who was load-ing the hay on the cart.

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“Can you see an-y thing of two lit-tle girls from where you are?” she asked.

“I don’t see them,” he an-swered, stand-ing up and look-ing a-round.

Miss Gray turned a-way, when all at once she heard a laugh be-hind her.  She looked back, and there were the laugh-ing fa-ces of Bell and Car-rie.  They had been on the cart, all hid-den un-der the hay in or-der to play a lit-tle joke on Miss Gray.  Then they scram-bled down, and came run-ning to her.

The man on the cart smiled to see their fun.  Then he said sadly, “Dear me, I wish my lit-tle lass could run a-bout like that.”

[Illustration]

“Is she ill?” asked Car-rie.

“Yes,” said the man; “but she is get-ting bet-ter now.”

“We’ll ask mam-ma to take us to see her,” said Bell.

The ver-y next day their mam-ma did take them.  They found Ruth sit-ting pil-lowed up in a chair, ver-y pale and white.  Bell had picked her a bunch of flow-ers, which she seemed ver-y glad to get; and the three girls soon be-came good friends.  Car-ree found a lit-tle gray kitten with which she played.