twenty pounds.

The beautiful August lilies make the fields and meadows gay; the stately pale yellow lily spotted with brown or purple, the darker yellow, and the fiery red lily, contrasted with the white spiranthes, or ladies-tresses.

Now the radiant heads of countless composite flowers are highest and most showy, and a walk or drive along any country road reveals such masses of color as to arrest and enchant the most unobservant eye.

On one woodland road at Orange, New Jersey, the shades of asters, from the deepest violet-blue and purple to the palest lilac, are bewilderingly beautiful, while the splendid varieties of liatris, or button snakeroot, the rose-purple and white ox-eyed daisies and white asters, golden-rod, and the great open-eyed corn-flowers, or rudbeckias, are certainly beyond description.

Try to find the elegant golden asters, which are more rare. At Cape Cod, Massachusetts, at Nantucket, and on the pine barrens of New Jersey, they may be found.

Look for the compass-plant, if you have the command of prairies. It is not pretty, is rough and coarse-looking, but is immortalized by Longfellow. The peculiarity consists in the arrangement of the leaves, the lower and root leaves, which, being very large, spread out on the open prairies, and are disposed to present their edges pointing north and south, thus sometimes guiding the bewildered traveller.

Another beautiful prairie plant, two or three feet high, is found in dry and sandy soils and in rocky crevices. The flowers are numerous, of a beautiful bright blue or bluish-white, and what makes it interesting is that it is supposed to prefer localities where lead ore prevails, and is called lead-plant.

Now is the time for any so disposed to make a collection of herbs, as they are called. In old-fashioned days these herbs were considered great treasures, and cures for many of the ills of humanity. They were tied carefully in bunches, and hung in the garret of the farm-house to dry. The odor of dried herbs comes to me now as I think of a dear old garrets—a favorite play-place of early childhood.

No child familiar with the garret of a country home can ever forget its mysterious charm. But I must remember that I am writing of flowers, and leave the captivating subject of garrets. Multitudes of potent herbs may now be found in the woods, by the road-side, everywhere: tansy, camomile, wormwood, everlasting, wild basil, lavender, germander, pennyroyal, spearmint, balm, peppermint, horehound, hyssop, thyme, rosemary, sage, wild bergamot, catnip, motherwort, comfrey, boneset, thoroughwort, fennel, and many other life-giving plants. They are generally coarse-looking and rough, with strong stems and strong odors, and no beauty, though in some cases the flowers are a pretty blue or rose-color. All these things, even to the summer gathering of herbs for some dear relative, become interesting to the young student, because it is a real pleasure to become familiar with the varieties which are presented in nature's domain, and the homely growths are sometimes of more importance than the ornamental, a consoling thought to such of us as are possessed of but little physical beauty.

DO YOU KNOW HIM?

THE BOY EMIGRANT IN RUSSIA.

A True Story.

BY DAVID KER.

Many years ago, when Peter the Great was Czar of Russia, and when the improvements that he was making all over the country gave foreign workmen a fine chance of earning high wages, a number of emigrants landed one cold winter morning at one of the Russian ports on the Gulf of Finland, to see if they could find work, as so many others had done.

A curious mixture they were—men, women, and children from every country on either side of the Baltic. Tall, fresh-colored Swedes, in gray frocks and thick blue stockings; stout, light-haired Germans, and ruddy, blue-eyed Danes; big-boned Pomeranians, with low foreheads and shaggy brown beards; and short, squat Finns, whose round puffy faces and thick yellow hair gave them the look of overboiled apple-dumplings.

But their first taste of Russia was not at all a pleasant one. At the port where they had landed it was the rule that all emigrants who came ashore should be kept in one place till the Czar's agents came to examine them; and the place where they were kept was an old warehouse, very bare and dismal-looking, with nothing in it but a few old sails and some heaps of straw. Here they remained for two days, while the snow fell and the wind roared outside, their food being brought them by the soldiers of the port. The men smoked their pipes and played cards, the women knitted stockings or mended the clothes of their husbands and children, while the little people played hide-and-seek in and out of the dark corners, and made the gloomy old place quite merry with their shouts and laughter.

But there was one boy (a bright-eyed little fellow with brown curly hair) who took no part in the fun, but sat in a corner by himself, chalking curious figures on the wall, which he seemed to copy from the book in his other hand. Any one who had looked closely at these figures would have seen that they were letters—Russian letters—and that sometimes he would write a whole word at once, and then put the meaning opposite it in German. In fact, he was teaching himself the language of this new country that he had got into, and seemed to be pretty well on with it, for every now and then he would leave off writing, and read a page of his book without meeting a single word that he could not master.

"Look at Karl Osterman yonder, slaving away at that book of his!" said one of the men. "Much good that'll do him! As if one could saw a plank or hammer a rivet any better for knowing that crack-jaw lingo!"

"He's going to teach the Russians their own language—that's what he's at!" grinned another. "A regular professor, ain't he? far too clever for poor fellows like us!"

"Ay, he'll be a great man one of these days," chimed in a third, with a hoarse laugh, "and then perhaps he'll be kind enough to give us a job."

Little Karl's eyes sparkled, and he set his lips firmly, as if making up his mind that he would be a great man yet, somehow or other; but he said nothing, and went quietly on with his work.

Suddenly the door flew open, and in came a Russian soldier in a shabby green uniform trimmed with faded gold lace. He was a very tall and powerful man, with a dark, weather-beaten face framed in close-cropped hair, and great black eyes that seemed to pierce right through any one whom they looked at.

"I say, my good fellows," cried he, "here's an order from the Czar, which I'm to paste up in this room; and I want to have it in German and Swedish as well as Russian, that every one who comes in may be able to read it. Perhaps one of you would kindly lend me a hand with the job, for I'm not very glib at foreign languages myself."

The men glanced meaningly at each other, and the two who had been making fun of Osterman looked rather sheepish, as if thinking that they had better have been learning Russian themselves instead of laughing at him.

"I'll do it for you, Mr. Soldier," said little Osterman, stepping boldly forward, "if there aren't any very big words in it. I've only got as far as three-syllable words in Russian yet, you know."

The soldier stared at him for a moment, and then began to laugh.

"Well, my boy, I don't think you'll find many big words on this paper; it's pretty plain sailing so far as it goes. See if you can read it."

Karl took the paper, and read it off easily enough.

"Well done, my fine fellow!" cried the Russian;