wind-ward young-est

war-fare weal-thy win-ter youth-ful

ze-phyr

wasp-ish wel-fare won-der

waste-ful wha-ler wor-ship zig-zag

duce those who were reck-less of dan-ger to venture up-on them.

George and Hen-ry hav-ing just ta-ken breakfast, got the con-sent of their pa-rents to walk a-bout the grounds near the house. George, who was the eld-er, said to his bro-ther, "See, Hen-ry! look at the pond; there is ice on it, and there are some boys ska-ting and sli-ding on it. Oh! how pleas-ant it seems to be; let us try it a lit-tle." "Ah, bro-ther," was the re-ply of Hen-ry, 66 you know mam-ma has told us not to go up-on the ice." "Well, she will not see us," said George; "be-sides, you know that pa-pa says boys must show that they pos-sess bold-ness and cour-age. He e-ven said he would teach us to skate; did he not?" Yes, that is true," was the re-ply of Henry, "but pa-pa did not fail to add that it should be when we were big e-nough, and that he him-self would then con-duct us, and give us the first les-sons." "Non-sense! you say that be-cause you are a-fraid," said George; "for my part I do not fear a-ny thing, so I will go up-on the ice:" and he straight-way ran towards the pond, where he soon mix-ed with oth-er care-less boys.

Hen-ry paus-ed at first, but in a lit-tle while went on after George. As he was not so bold as his bro-ther, he walk-ed soft-ly, step by step,

on the ice; and had more than once near-ly fallen, be-fore he reach-ed the spot where the crowd of heed-less chil-dren were sli-ding a-bout.

A good old man, who was pass-ing that way, saw them, and stop-ped. Lean-ing up-on his stick, he said to the chil-dren: "My lit-tle friends, take care; the ice is not yet fro-zen hard e-nough; there-fore you run the risk of be-ing drown-ed; slide up-on the edge, where the ice is much strong-er, and the wa-ter not so deep." The lit-tle fel-lows laugh-ed at the kind old man; and e-ven, with an in-tent to op-pose his ad-vice, tried to car-ry their slides still farther. But they soon had rea-son to re-pent of their fool-ish con-duct; for the weight, be-ing too great for the thick-ness of the ice, caus-ed it to break, and all the chil-dren fell in-to the water. The hu-mane old man call-ed to some persons, who were at a dis-tance, for help; and did all that he could to as-sist these naugh-ty boys, who, af-ter some time, were got out of the water half dead. George and Hen-ry were ta-ken home to their pa-rents, who lit-tle thought to re-ceive such a shock, and were treat-ed with much great-er kind-ness than they were wor-thy of. They had the good for-tune to es-cape without a-ny oth-er e-vil than a slight cold, which last-ed on-ly a few days; but had it not been for