FANNY'S CUCKOO CLOCK.
FANNY MAY was six years old. On her birthday she opened her eyes very early in the morning; and what do you think she saw? Right opposite her bed was the prettiest clock she ever saw,—a real English cuckoo clock! The cuckoo, you know, is an English bird. It doesn't sing, but it says "Cuckoo, cuckoo," just as plain as you can say it.
Fanny's clock is called a "cuckoo" clock because, when it strikes the hours, it says "Cuckoo!"
At one o'clock it calls "Cuckoo" once, at two o'clock twice, and so on. At twelve o'clock a little door on the top of the clock flies open, and out pops the cuckoo himself. He bows his head politely, and "cuckoos" twelve times. Every time he says "Cuckoo", he opens his mouth and flaps his wings. Then he hops back into his little parlor, and shuts the door behind him.
This was a real pretty birthday present that Fanny's father gave her. It was a useful one, too. Fanny was a very wide-awake little girl when she was awake. But sometimes it was dreadful hard work to get her eyes open in the morning. They would shut down again so quick, she said. But she made up her mind, as this was her sixth birthday, that when her little clock "cuckooed" six times, she would get right up, whether her eyes were open or shut. 'When little girls, or boys either, make up their minds to do anything, and are in real earnest, they are pretty sure to succeed. After two or three mornings, Fanny found it easy enough.
She said her eyes "opened of themselves" when her little cuckoo called her at six o'clock. And so her cuckoo clock made Fanny an early riser.
—Our Little Ones.
IF you take care that the heart is right,
it will take care of the life;
for out of the heart are
the issues of life