To the solving of this problem Teacher bent all her energies. Through diligent research she learned that the reading aloud of standard poems has been known to do wonders of mental and moral uplifting. But standard poems are not commonly adapted to minds six years old and of foreign extraction, so that Miss Bailey, though she explained, paraphrased, and commented, hardly flattered herself that the result was satisfactory. In courteous though puzzled silence the First Reader Class listened to enough of the poetry of the ages to have lifted them as high as Heaven. Wordsworth, Longfellow, Browning, any one who had seen and written of the beauty of bird or growing thing, was pressed into service. And then one day Miss Bailey brought her Shelley down and read his "Ode to the Skylark." "Now, don't you think that's a pretty thing?" she asked. "Did you hear how the lark went singing, bright and clear, up and up and up into the blue sky?" The children were carefully attentive, as ever, but not responsive. Morris Mogilewsky felt that he had alone understood the nature of this story. It was meant to amuse; therefore it was polite that one should be amused. "Teacher fools," he chuckled. "Larks ain't singin' in skies." "How do you know?" asked Miss Bailey. "'Cause we got a lark by our house. It's a from tin lark mit a cover." "A tin lark! With a cover!" Miss Bailey exclaimed. "Are you sure, dear, that you know what you are talking about?" "Teacher, yiss ma'an, I know," Morris began deliberately. "My papa, he has a lark. It's a from tin lark mit a cover. Und its got a handle too. Und my papa he takes it all times on the store for buy a lark of beer." "Lager beer! Oh, shade of Shelley!" groaned Miss Bailey's spirit, but aloud she only said: "No, my dear, I wasn't reading about lager beer. A lark is a little bird." "Well," Morris began with renewed confidence, "I know what is a bird. My auntie she had one from long. She says like that, she should give it to me, but my mamma she says, 'No, birds is foolishness.' But I know what is a bird. He scups on a stick in a cage." "So he does," agreed Miss Bailey, rightly inferring from Morris's expressive pantomime that to "scup" was to swing. "But sometimes he flies up into the sky in the country, as I was reading to you. Were you ever in the country?" "What country?" asked Morris. "Russia? I comes out of Russia." "No, not Russia. Not any particular country. Just the open country where the flowers grow." "No ma'an, I ain't seen it," said the child gently. "But I was once to Tompkins Square. On'y it was winter und snow lays on it. I ain't seen no flowers." "And do none of you know anything about the country?" asked Teacher sadly. "Oh, yiss ma'an, I know," said Eva Gonorowsky. "The country is the Fresh Air Fund." "Then you've been there," cried Miss Bailey. "Tell us about it, Eva."