Part 35

"And who are the other Northmen?" said Rollo.

"The next is General Boreas," said Jonas.

"General Boreas!" repeated Rollo; "and who is he?"

"O! he is a terrible fellow," replied Jonas. "He comes roaring and thundering along the tops of the forests at midnight, in snowstorms and hail. He buries up the whole country, he breaks down the trees, and sometimes unroofs the houses. Then, if he finds any poor traveller out, he whistles and roars about his ears, and tries to frighten him; and he throws snow into his face, and heaps it up all about him in order to bury him up if he can.

"Then, besides," continued Jonas, "the old stormer has another way of making mischief. After he has got the valleys and streams covered and filled with ice and snow, he brings on a tempest of wind and rain, and fills the land with torrents, which raise the streams, and tear up the ice, and carry it down in vast, broken, and jamming blocks, which break down the bridges, and carry away dams, and spread all over the meadows, frightening a good many families out of their beds at midnight."

"Is that the way that General Boreas acts?" said Rollo.

"Yes," replied Jonas, "that's the way."

"And who is the third Northman?" said Rollo.

"His name is Old Zero," replied Jonas. "He is more than threescore years and ten, a great deal; his head is hoary, and his beard is long and gray. He creeps softly along after General Boreas has worked himself out of breath, and gone away. He curtains over all the windows with frost work in the night. He likes the night, when it is calm and still, and the stars are shining bright and cold all over the sky. And he kills more people than Boreas does."

"Kills them?" said Rollo.

"Yes," replied Jonas. "He makes no blustering, but he stings bitterly, and the poor traveller has his ears, and hands, and feet frozen before he knows what a cruel enemy is around him. Captain Jack Frost you may laugh at,--but as to Old Zero, you had better beware of him."

Rollo laughed a good deal at Jonas's account of the three Northmen, and Jonas told him that they sometimes made some splendid curiosities, which would be beautiful for a shelf in his museum, if they would only keep.

"What are the curiosities?" said Rollo.

"O, all kinds of stars, and spangles, and snow-flakes, of a great many beautiful forms,--and icicles, and frost work. But they will not keep very long, unless you make a cabinet expressly for them."

"I can't make a cabinet," said Rollo.

"O, yes, you can,--a frost-cabinet," said Jonas.

"How?" asked Rollo.

"Why, you must go down near the brook, in the middle of the winter, and make a little room of snow. Then you must get a large piece of thin, clear ice from a still place in the brook, and fix it in for a window. You must also get some sheets of white ice, or snow crust, for shelves, and put your frost curiosities upon them. If you make it in a cold place, they will keep for some time."

"I will make a frost museum," said Rollo. "I mean to go down to-day and look out a place."

"Yes," said Jonas, "and you can keep it a secret until it is done, and then take your father and mother down to see it, and surprise them."

"Yes," said Rollo, clapping his hands, "so I will."

ROLLO BOOKS.

BY JACOB ABBOTT.

Rollo at Work, Rollo at School, Rollo at Play, Rollo's Vacation, Rollo Learning to Read, Rollo Learning to Talk.

BOUND IN UNIFORM STYLE.

The publishers request the attention of the friends of the young to this popular series of books, which have been pronounced, by competent and judicious persons, the best works for children published, not even excepting the best English writers. Mr. Abbott's style is peculiarly interesting to children, being natural and simple, and portraying the trials and temptations of childhood, just as they occur in every day life, and giving them clear and distinct ideas of the right and wrong in their actions.

From the Christian Examiner.

As a whole, they make the most important series of juvenile books that have appeared, to our knowledge, since Miss Edgeworth. They are very unlike those, and yet they resemble them in some prominent features; especially in making it their chief object to be pleasing, and thus gently and imperceptibly opening a way for instruction to the mind and morals, without obtruding or forcing it in the least. For this the books before us are remarkable. They are entertaining throughout. The interest never flags, and yet there is no seeming attempt to sustain it. There is little continuous story, and no plot or romance, or grown-up folly, such as fills half of the young novels now made for children. Here is a little boy, who is first induced to learn to talk; and in order to do this, he is made to see objects for himself, and think about them, and ask questions. Next he is taught to read; to effect this, he is candidly told that learning to read is not play, but work, and at first dry and hard work. It soon becomes easy, however, because it is undertaken in earnest, and then it becomes pleasant; and parents may take a hint from this, when they are afraid to allow letters and learning to wear any form but that of playthings and pastime to their children. In the third volume, Rollo is at work; in the fourth, at play; and the morals of both play and work are as easily and pleasantly insinuated as we have often seen. There is constant occupation in both, and constant natural opportunities of learning the duty and the advantage of feeling and doing right, and thus seeing the evil of feeling and doing wrong; for Mr. Abbott fully carries out, in these books, the great principle which we rejoice to see advanced in the Preface to one of them, namely, "that it is generally better, in dealing with children, to allure them to what is right by agreeable pictures of it, than to attempt to drive them to it by repulsive delineations of what is wrong." The fifth volume presents Rollo at School, and the last his vacation. They keep up the interest, and advance in maturity of thought and illustration, as the boy advances.