The standard first reader - -fifth Author:Martin Grove Brumbaugh Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: When Spring with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mold, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. ... more » By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung. There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay, And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there ! III. -- THE LITTLE MATCH-SELLER. Hans Christian Andersen. How cold it was ! It was almost night on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and darkness, a poor little girl with bare head and naked feet roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. They were very large -- so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her mother; and the poor little girl had lost them in running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a rapid rate. One of the slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle when he had children of his own. So the little girl went on; her little naked feet quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her hand. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had any one given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along. Poor little child, she looked the picture of misery! The snow-flakes fell on her long fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders; but she regarded them not. Lights were shining from every window, and there was a savory smell of roast goose, for it was New Year's eve, -- yes; she remembered that. In a corner, between two houses, one of w...« less