"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,

Never afeared are we!"

So cried the stars to the fishermen three :

Wynken,

Blynken,

And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw

To the stars in the twinkling foam,

Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,

Bringing the fishermen home;

'T was all so pretty a sail, it seemed

As if it could not be ;

And some folks thought 't was a dream they 'd dreamed

Of sailing that beautiful sea;

But I shall name you the fishermen three:

Wynken,

Blynken,

And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,

And Nod is a little head,

And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed;

So shut your eyes while Mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,

And you shall see the beautiful things

As you rock on the misty sea,

Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three,

Wynken,
Blynken,

And Nod.

EUGENE FIELD.

CHAPTER XXII.

SECTION I.

FOR READING.

THE sea breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew the fog away; and the little waves danced for joy around the buoy on which Tom sat and looked for water-babies. The shadows of the clouds ran races over the bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up; and the breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped over the rocks to see what the green fields inside were like, and tumbled down and broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded it a bit, but mended themselves and jumped up again. And the terns hovered over Tom like huge white dragon-flies with black heads; and the gulls laughed like girls at play; and the sea-pies, with their red bills and legs, flew to and fro from shore to shore, and whistled sweet and wild.

And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, looking out to sea, and wondering when the water-babies would come back; and yet they never came.

He asked the seals, terns, sea-gulls, sun-fish, porpoises, sharks, and lobsters if they had seen any; and some said, "Yes," and some said nothing at all.

Adapted from The Water-Babies.

SECTION II.

STUDY OF POSSESSIVES.

Copy and complete the following sentences:

A seal's fur is

Seals' skins are
A tern's body is
Terns' heads are
A sea-gull's wing is
Sea-gulls' wings are
A snail's shell is
Snails' shells are
A porpoise's skin is
Porpoises' skins are

A lobster's claw is
Lobsters' claws are

Write in a list the words from the sentences you have written that name but one thing and show possession.

Write in another list the words that denote more than one and show possession.

How is the plural changed to show possession? Learn:

When the plural ends in s, add the apostrophe only to form the possessive.

SECTION III.

PLURALS AND POSSESSIVES.

Write each pair of words from the dictation of one word of each pair.

Write the following sentences from dictation. Be sure to end each possessive with the apostrophe and s ('s).

A woman's voice should be soft and low.
Women's voices should be soft and low.
A man's home is his castle.

Men's homes are their castles.

A child's tears are soon dried.

Children's tears are soon dried.

Observe that the possessives in these sentences are all formed by adding the apostrophe and s to both singular and plural names.

Learn:

To form the possessive, add the apostrophe and s ('s) to both singular and plural names, except when the plural ends in s.

Rewrite the sentences in this section, changing each possessive to a phrase beginning with of. Example: The voice of a woman should be soft and low.

SECTION IV.

REVIEW OF PUNCTUATION MARKS AND CAPITAL

LETTERS.

Copy the next four paragraphs correctly, placing all punctuation marks where they belong, and cap