them up, and, after he has eaten all he can reach standing, he goes down on his knees, and reaches out with his long tongue, and picks up every oat he can find.

Outside of his stall, on one side, is a watering-trough, where Jim is taken to drink. The water comes through a pipe, and is turned on by a faucet. Two or three times the water was found running, so that the trough overflowed, when no one had been near to meddle with it.

At last the men suspected that Jim was the rogue, and they kept very still, and watched one night till Jim thought he was all alone. Then they saw him twist himself almost double in his stall, stretch his long neck out, take the faucet in his teeth, turn on the water, and get a good drink. But he could not shut it off again.

Jim is a brave horse to go to a fire; but there is one thing that frightens him dreadfully, and that is—a feather duster! He is not afraid of any thing he sees in the streets, and the greatest noise of the Fourth of July will not scare him; but show him a feather duster, and his heels will fly up, and he will act as if he were going out of his senses.

The firemen think Jim a most amusing horse; and they sometimes say that he understands as much as some people do, and can do most every thing but talk.

SECOND LESSON IN ASTRONOMY.

Did any of you find the red star I asked you to look for last month? I hope you did; for I want you to look at it again while I tell you something about the "twinkle" of it.

Look very carefully, first at the red star, and then at just as large a white star; and, if your eyes are bright, you will see that the white one twinkles the most. I wish I could tell you why; but I think nobody knows.

Be very careful, though, not to choose a white star that is not a star; for, as that twinkles very little, you may think I am mistaken.

"A star that is not a star?" I think I hear you say, "How I wonder what you are!" Well, I will tell you.

Although most of the "diamonds in the sky," commonly called stars, are real stars, or suns like our sun, a few of them are not suns, but solid globes or worlds like that which we inhabit, warmed and lighted by our sun. When the sun is shining on them, they look bright to us; but it is only the light of our own sun thrown back, or reflected. They give no light themselves.

Because they have our sun, we and they are like members of one family. We call them "planets" (just as our earth is called "a planet"), and are as familiar with their names as if they were our brothers and sisters. One of them, for instance, is called Venus; another, Jupiter; and another, Saturn. Can you remember these hard names?

Now you would never notice the difference between these few stars and all the others, if you did not look very carefully to see whether they twinkle or not. And I would advise you to ask somebody to point them out to you whenever they are in sight.

I cannot tell you exactly where to look for them, because they wander about a good deal, and I do not know where they will be when you happen to read this number of "The Nursery."

From all this you will see that you will have to be very particular what kind of a star you look at when you say,—

HOW A RAT WAS ONCE CAUGHT.

Do you know what sly and cunning creatures rats are? The picture shows how they sometimes contrive to carry off eggs. The old fox in the background seems to be watching the performance with great interest.

But, cute as they are, they sometimes get caught. I am going to tell you how a rat was once caught by a clam. It happened when I was a little child, and lived with my mother. Whether such a thing ever happened before or since, I do not know; but this is a true story.

One day, my father went to town, and bought some clams. When he came home, I took them down cellar in a basket, and laid them on the brick floor of the cellar. Now, when clams are put where it is dark and cool and quiet, they open their shells. If you should go softly up, and put a straw in one of their mouths, it would clasp its shells together so tightly, that you could not get them open.

The cellar was under my mother's bed-room; and in the night she heard a great noise, like something bumping and slamming, down below. Being a brave woman, she lighted a candle, and went down stairs; and what do you think she found? I will tell you; for I am sure you would never guess.

When the house came to be still with the night-stillness, and every one was in bed, an old rat had come out of his hole, and gone foraging around for his supper. As he walked majestically along, swinging his long tail after him, it happened to switch into a clam's opened shell, when, presto change! the clam was no longer only a clam: it was a rat-trap.

It pinched hard; and I am sure it hurt the old rat very much. He ran across the cellar to his hole; and the clam bounced on the bricks as he went; and that was what my mother had heard. The rat could not get the clam into the hole. It held him fast by the tail all the rest of his life, which was not long; for he was killed soon after.

TO SEA IN A TUB.

Here is a picture of a boy trying his new boat in a tub of water. His brothers and sisters are looking on. His elder brother seems to be pointing out some fault in the rig of the boat. Perhaps he thinks the sails are too large. The dog Tray takes a good deal of interest in the matter. I wonder what he thinks of it.

But the story I am going to tell you is about a little girl named Emma, and what happened one day, when she went out in the yard to play. Her mother had told her not to go outside the gate: so she looked around the doorway to see what she could find to play with. There stood a great tub full of water; and there, close by, was a pile of chips. "Boats!" said Emma to herself: "I'll sail boats!"

It didn't take a minute to get six of the nicest chips well afloat; but after all they were not much better than rafts.

"I must put on sails," said Emma. And running into the sitting-room, and getting some pins, and then putting a bit of paper on each pin, and sticking a pin upright in each chip, at last she had her little boats with little sails, going straight across the tub with a fair wind.