TOMMY'S GEOGRAPHY LESSON.
TOMMY came home from school with a cloud on his usually bright face. Auntie put her arm about her boy, and asked him how he had fared at school, and if he had been perfect in all his lessons. Tommy knit his brows in a puzzled way, and said, "I knew every one except my g'og'aphy, an' I didn't know that at all. It seems zif I can't remember how the old maps look, and when Miss May asked me if there were any mountains in New Hampshire, I couldn't remember to save me. I don't s'pose I'll get the prize, just because I can't learn g'og'aphy. If I could only go up in a balloon, and look down on the world, I could see for myself where the mountains an' lakes an' such things are, an' then I'm sure I wouldn't forget." This speech of Tommy's on behalf of learning geography by means of a balloon voyage set auntie's wits to work. She was anxious to help the little fellow gain the prize he was striving so hard for, and if maps would not answer, some other way of learning his geography lesson might be thought of. After a second or two she said, "Suppose we play that we are in a balloon, how would that do?" "Jolly!" exclaimed Tommy. "But then," the smile fading a little from his rosy lips, "I don't know that I could learn my lesson any better even if I did put my map on the floor, an' stand on a chair to look at it." Auntie laughed and said, "That isn't my idea. If you will help me, we will soon be able to look down on something much nicer than a map." "All right!" promptly returned Tommy, as he snatched up his hat, and stood ready for any command. "Has the pile of sand been taken away that I saw a little further down the street yesterday?" asked auntie. "No'm; I saw it when I came past just now." "Then tell cook to give you the two-quart tin pail, and go ask the men if you may have it twice full of sand." In a flash Tommy had gone, and almost before auntie was ready for him he was back again. "Auntie!" he shouted; "Auntie!" "Here, Tommy!" answered a voice from the direction of his play-room, and rushing in, Tommy found his aunt pinning a large sheet to the carpet. "Pour the sand right in the middle of the sheet, and go for more," and again auntie bent to her work. When Tommy came back the second time, the sand was smoothed out on the sheet until it was about an inch deep all over. The second pailful was put in a pile by itself a little way from the rest. "Now what'll I do?" demanded Tommy, becoming more excited as the mystery deepened. "Bring your atlas," said auntie, "while I look up a few things I think will be useful." The atlas was close at hand, and Tommy waited rather impatiently while auntie returned with a bunch of wooden tooth-picks, a handful of flat button moulds of different sizes, a sheet of writing paper, and a pair of scissors. With the scissors auntie commenced cutting the paper into slips about one inch wide and three inches long. "Now get the mucilage, and show me your geography lesson for to-morrow, Tommy," she said. The lesson proved to be questions on the map of the New England States, especially New Hampshire, and auntie, picking up the wooden tooth-picks, began to form with them the outlines of the State. "Oh, my!" exclaimed Tommy. "I know what you are going to do. Let me help." "To be sure you may help; but put your map in front of you, and shape your State as nearly like that as you can," said auntie, as she broke the piece of wood in her hand to form a sudden little curve in the coast line. Pretty soon, leaving Tommy to lay the outline of New Hampshire by himself, auntie took up one of the slips of paper she had cut, and pasted one end of it neatly around one end of a tooth-pick, forming a little flag. This proved satisfactory, so she made several more. "I wish I could make this look like water," Tommy remarked, after a short silence, as he laid down the sticks for the boundary between New Hampshire and Vermont formed by the Connecticut River. "Well, so you can," auntie replied. "Have you any narrow strips of glass?" Tommy jumped up, drew forth a box from among his toys, and set it down in front of his aunt. In the box were a great many narrow strips of glass of various widths and lengths, which the glazier had left, after fitting a number of panes in a window. Beside these there were some old bits of broken mirror. "This is just what you want, Tommy," auntie said. "Make your rivers of these strips of glass, and here is a nice large piece of looking-glass for Lake Winnepesaukee, and you can shape it by bringing the sand over the edges." "What fun!" exclaimed Tommy. "Let me put it in now." "Don't you think it would be better to finish the outline of your State first?" remonstrated auntie. "Yes," said Tommy, "I will. I'll put in the Connecticut and the other river, too, and I can pile up real mountains, can't I? Why, I ought to know the White Mountains 'cause I was there last summer, but perhaps I was too close to 'em to see where they were." Tommy went on tracing out the river courses with his bits of glass, building up mountains with the extra sand, placing the lakes, and chatting merrily all the while. When he had about finished he suddenly cried, "Auntie, we've forgotten the cities!" Auntie smiled a little as she said, "Is this the first time you have thought of them?" Then she produced the flags, upon which she had written the names of the cities given on the map, and, choosing the largest button moulds for the principal cities, and smaller ones for the less important, she looked on the map, found the exact spot for a city, and laid a button mould on it. Then, taking the little flag that bore the name of the city, she pushed its staff through the hole of the button mould into the sand. This held the flag erect and kept the city in its place. Tommy arranged the other cities, and as he planted the last flag-staff, auntie said:— "Now, we will ascend in our balloon and take a bird's-eye view of New Hampshire." "What's a bird's-eye view?" Tommy asked as he struggled to his feet, and stood by auntie's side. But his question was forgotten when, gazing down, he saw beneath him one of the United States in miniature. He danced and capered around, shouting: "Hooray! I'll go up in a balloon every time to learn my g'og'aphy lesson. I won't forget again that the Connecticut River is between New Hampshire and Vermont, 'cause I put it there myself. What a goose I was not to know the White Mountains were in New Hampshire! Don't they look cunning, auntie? just like the real ones, only they haven't any snow on top, but I know what I'll—" Auntie did not hear the rest of the sentence, for Tommy dashed out of the room, to return directly with something held tightly in his chubby hand. This something proved to be salt, which he proceeded to drop carefully, a little at a time, on the top of his mountains. "There!" he exclaimed triumphantly, as he straightened up, "now they really are the White Mountains, and have snow on the top, just like the ones I saw." "Yes," said auntie, "that was a bright idea, and it does look like snow. Now we will pretend we are up in a large balloon looking down on the State of New Hampshire." Then they looked down and talked of the cities they saw, calling each one by name, and remarked upon the peculiar shape and more peculiar name of the largest lake, and what course the rivers took as they passed through the State. Several times Tommy descended from his balloon to make some slight alteration in his work, and once he pasted a red star on the flag of the capital "to make it different from the other cities," he said. When they gave up the sport, Tommy had learned his lesson; and you may be sure he never forgot it, for "I made the State myself," he proudly stated to his teacher the next day.189After this first delightful experience Tommy learned all of his geography lessons with the aid of his sand, and when papa returned, after a two months' absence, he was so pleased with his little boy's progress in the study which had been such a stumbling-block, he had the tinsmith make a large, shallow tin pan three feet square and three inches deep, especially to hold Tommy's sand. The glittering new tin bottom of the pan represented the ocean nicely when islands were to be made, and also when countries to be represented had a coast line. The other advantages of the pan were that it could be set upon the table, and the sand could be left in it and need not be emptied into a box, as it had to be when the sheet was used.—Youth's Companion.