The Book of One Syllable | Page 4

that there should not be jam cake.

THE AIR.
What is air? Look up and look round; there is air, though it is not to be seen. It fills all things. The glass jug which seems to be quite void is still full of air.
[Illustration: THE LESSON ON AIR. Page 23.]
It is the air we feel when the wind blows. We do not see the wind, but it can blow with such force as to throw down trees. When the wind blows it makes ships sail on the seas to all parts of the world, and brings them back home. It turns mills, to grind corn; and in some parts they use the force of wind to do all kinds of work. The wind is but the air, and it does all these things, though it is not to be seen.
But the air does more than this. If it were not for the air we could not live. It is the air we breathe; and if the breath were stopt, we all know that we should die. How it is that the air does this would take a long time to tell, and you must learn a great deal more of such things than you have yet done, to know why air keeps up life. But so it is. The air is the breath.
It is the breath, too, that makes us warm and keeps us so; for if it were not for the air we breathe, we should be as cold as stones.
The air it is that makes fire burn. The fire in the grate would soon go out if it were not for the air. The flame in a lamp burns dim when it has not so much air as it wants; and when the air is shut from the flame it goes out.
Trees and plants could not live if they had not air. The birds fly by means of the air, which helps to keep them up, while their wings flap up and down. If there were no air, they could not rise from the ground at all, nor could they live if they did not breathe.
It is the air which makes sound. We could not hear men talk, nor bells ring, if the air did not bring the sound to our ears.
Of such great use is the air, though we can not see it, that no one thing could move, or be heard, or live, if it were not with us and round us.

SAIB, THE BLACK BOY.
In a far-off part of the world there is a place where the boys and girls have not the white fair skins that boys and girls have here, but whose skins are quite black, and whose hair is short and thick, like black wool. Some of these poor things know not what it is to have a home, they know not what it is to have kind friends, they know not what it is to do as they would like to do: they must do all that he who has bought them bids them do.
Yes, he who has bought them! for these poor boys and girls can be bought and sold. They are put on board ships that sail far from the homes of their hearts; they are torn from all they like best in the world, from all they have had to love. Far, far off from these scenes do they sail, and with swoln hearts, and tears too big to fall, they feel that they must work or die. Some would think it a joy to die, for death would put an end to what they feel. They think, too, that when they die they will go back to the home round which their thoughts cling.
Saib was one of these poor boys--he was born in that far-off place. As long as he was there, each day was to him a day of joy. Saib had a dear friend, who was near him at all times, and who took part in all his sports, and had a tear for all his pains.
Boa was the name of this friend, and she would sit in the same deep shade with him, and they would climb the same tall tree, and eat the same fruits. They would row in the same boat, and go fast down the dark deep stream. There were, too, those who were glad to see their joy, and who would watch them as they went on and on, till they were far out of sight. They knew no fear--they had no cause for fear, but in the shape of a white man.
It was in one of these sails down the stream that they drew their boat to the shore at a place that was quite strange to them. They got out