You can gently move the boxes and specimens, and wipe off the shelves, and the sides of the boxes. Then blow, or fan, the dust from the specimens. Even minerals should have the dust blown from them, not wiped off. It is easy to rub the bloom and the little fine points, and edges, from a mineral specimen. When you have made up your minds to have a cabinet in your school, look about and see what your friends have to give you for it. Many people have a few natural history curiosities, for which they do not really care. Such persons would gladly give their treasures to a school cabinet. But there should be some bright little lad or lass to say: “Oh, we have a cabinet at our school. Would you not be willing to send these things there?” Correct pictures of birds, fish, insects, and flowers, are useful in a cabinet, but you must be sure that they are correct before you give them a place. You must not put the pictures into your cabinet merely because they are pretty. If they are wrong they will give you false ideas. I have seen colored pictures of insects with some of the legs set upon the hinder part of the body instead of all upon the chest part. Such a picture is of no use. Keen eyes to see what comes in your own way, and keen wits to suggest to other people what they can do for you, will steadily help to build up the school cabinet. LESSON XVI. THE OLD MAN OF THE MEADOW. [Illustration: THE OLD MAN AND HIS FAMILY.] When I was about seven years old, I caught a grasshopper and put him into a bottle. Then I sat down outside the bottle, and looked at the grasshopper. He sat inside the bottle, and looked at me. It began to grow upon my mind that the grasshopper looked much like an old man. His face, with the big, solemn eyes, and straight mouth, was like an old man’s face. He wore a gray coat, like a loose duster. He had a wrinkled greenish vest. He wore knee-breeches and long red stockings. The more I looked at him, the more he looked like a little, grave, old-time man who came to visit my aged grandfather. I had a cousin who at dusk would sit with me in a corner of the big sofa, and repeat to me a poem, called the “Prisoner of Chillon.” That sad poem had made me feel very sorry for all prisoners. I thought my grasshopper in the bottle felt like a prisoner. I said, “Now you may go, my Old Man of the Meadow.” I took the cork out of the bottle. The grasshopper at once leaped up, and sat on the rim of the bottle. Then a strange thing happened! The Old Man of the Meadow spread out two wide brown wings. They had a broad, lemon-colored band on them. They were gay as the wings of a butterfly! On them he sailed away! I could hardly believe my eyes. I ran after him to a tall stalk of golden-rod. There he sat a plain, gray-green old man. But again he spread out the wide wings, and was gone!