&&000 CANADA SCHOOLBOOKS         Jan 2004                             CA90404.TXT

4TH GRADE, 1990S

Edited by dph 1-17-2004
re-edited by dph 3/21/04 ridding residuals 
Re-edited 22 June 2005


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When =Mom walks me to school the next morning, I see a woman sleeping on the park bench.
"She looks lonely," I say. I feel kind of sad when I see her. =Mom says there are a lot of lonely
people these days. "That's why I'm proud of Uncle =Willie. He's doing something to help."
"But I wonder what it's like to work inside a soup kitchen. I mean, Uncle =Willie goes there
almost every single day and I've never even gone with him once." =Mom hands me my milk
money and scoots me up the front steps. "Why don't you ask Uncle =Willie to take you next
Monday?" says =Mom. "Remember, you have a day off from school."
"All set?" asks Uncle =Willie, bright and early Monday morning. "All set," I say. I check my
pocket and pull out my telescope. Uncle =Willie grabs his cap and stuffs his pockets with bread.
Mom kisses me goodbye and tells us both to keep out of trouble.
The soup kitchen is not too far from where I live, but it feels like a very long way. We pass my
school. We pass the supermarket, the drugstore, the bakery, and the laundry. When we get to Mr.
=Anthony's =Meat =Market, I am dragging my feet. "Let's stop and see if Mr =Anthony has
anything for us today," says Uncle =Willie.
Mr =Anthony's door has a little bell on top that rings whenever it opens. "Hello, already," Uncle
=Willie hollers. "Hello, yourself," Mr =Anthony says. "Have I got something special for you!"
When Mr =Anthony comes out from the back, he hands Uncle =Willie a lumpy brown bag. He
gives me a brown bag, too. "Chicken for the soup," Mr =Anthony tells us. "Food for a feast," says
Uncle =Willie. The little bell rings again when the door closes, and I wave goodbye through the
big front window.
When we turn the corner, Uncle =Willie points to a small brick building. It looks old and kind of
run-down from the outside. "Here we are," he says. A woman opens the big white door. "Good
morning, =Shanta," says Uncle =Willie. "A very good morning," says =Shanta, smiling. "You
brought us a helper today." I shake =Shanta's hand and follow Uncle =Willie inside.
The soup kitchen is small and bright. The four huge soup pots steaming on the stove make the
whole place smell delicious. There are posters on the wall that say: HAVE A NICE DAY and
NO SMOKING PLEASE. "Look!" I say. "Lunchroom tables just like.



Still, you're not from the prairie, And yet you know cold. You say you've been cold?

Do you know what to do to relieve so much pain Of burning from deep down that drives you
insane? Your ears and your hands, right into your toes. A child who's been cold on the prairie
will know!

Of all of those memories we share when we're old, None are more clear than that hard bitter cold.
You'll not find among us a soul who can say: "I've conquered the wind on a cold winter's day."

If you're not from the prairie, You don't know the cold, You've never been cold!
If you're not from the prairie, You don't know me. You just can't know ME.

You see,
My hair's mostly wind,
My eyes filled with grit, My skin's red or brown, My lips chapped and split.
I've lain on the prairie and heard grasses sigh. I've stared at the vast open bowl of the sky. I've
seen all those castles and faces in clouds, My home is the prairie, and I cry out loud.
If you're not from the prairie, you can't know my soul, You don't know our blizzards, you've not
fought our cold. You can't know my mind, nor ever my heart, Unless deep within you, there's
somehow a part. A part of these things that I've said that I know, The wind, sky and earth, the
storms and the snow. Best say you have and then we'll be one, For we will have shared that same
blazing sun.

She curled closer to =Lizzie, trying to keep warm, wishing she could drift back into her dream.
She'd been running barefoot up the hill where the new house would be built. The sun was hot, a
warm breeze blew through her hair . If only the warm weather would come. It had been winter
for so long.
Early-morning sounds chased away the last bit of sleepiness-a bubbly snore as =Granny started to
wake in the bed across the room, the scratchings of a poker stirring the fire to life in the outer
room, the soft =whump of the door as her father went out to feed the animals, the creak of the
ladder as one of her brothers climbed down from the loft.
But there was another sound-a small, steady tap, tap. What could it be? Where was it? Outside?
She stared at the closed wooden shutters through which seeped cold, grey light. Tap. On and on.
Water dripping, she thought. The snow on the roof is melting. Her heart gave a bound. Snow's
melting! It's spring. It's spring!
Ignoring the icy floor, =Sarah scrambled into her clothes.
"Dress me, =Sary." =Lizzie yawned, sitting up in her warm nest.
"Ask =Meg." =Sarah skipped out of the room before =Lizzie could start to whine. "Did you hear
it, =Ma?"
"Hear what, =hinny?" Her mother was standing at the table, pounding down bread dough. "Just
give =Tommy a wee walk about, there's a good lass. He's grizzling for his breakfast."
=Sarah lifted her baby brother from the cradle and jiggled him up and down. Soon he was
sucking contentedly on his thumb. "Listen!" she said. "It's louder now. Don't you hear it?"
Her mother stopped and cocked  her head to one side. From outside came a steady, splashy plop,
plop, plop. A smile lit her face. "Spring," she said. "Spring at last."
I am hanging up the laundry for my mom. It is a sunny, hot morning, but the long grass is still
cool and damp. I can hear wasps over in the raspberries and flies buzzing on the wall of the old
chicken coop.
There is a weird bug, called a cicada, high up in the poplar trees. It keeps starting up with a
screaming buzz that fills the whole air then fades into quietness. I've never seen a cicada before,
but my dad showed me a picture of one in the Natural Science book.
I hang my shirt and a few socks on the line. The cicada buzzes loud then gets quiet again, and I
hear a little hissing on the ground. I move down the line and hang up my pants. Then the hissing
gets really frantic. I look down and all I see is an old chicken-wire fence. But wait, something is
moving in the grass. When I see that it's a fat brown snake, I jump back about a meter.
I stand there, petrified, looking at him. His body is as fat as an orange and he looks over half a
meter long. The worst part is his head    it's gigantic and flat as a pancake.
He keeps hissing and trying to peck at me. I'm so scared, I can't get my feet to move. Then I
notice his head is on one side of the chicken wire and his body is on the other. So he's stuck, and
he can't come over here to bite me.
Because dad says none of the snakes in =CoeHill are poisonous, I'm not usually too scared of
them.
Sometimes we find grass snakes that are tiny and fluorescent green. Once I picked one up behind
the head so he wouldn't bite me. When I petted him, he felt smooth and dry, and he wrapped his
tail around my arm.
We also have two green and black garter snakes that live under the porch, and sometimes I see
them cuddled up on the rock in the sun. But this new snake is big and brown.


Sometimes it's legal to hunt deer with a bow and arrow but not with a rifle. The trouble is, some
people use rifles when they shouldn't. Then, if the cheater is caught with a deer in his truck, he
says he used a bow. One person even tried to fool a wildlife officer by putting an arrow in the
bullet hole! People like that can be convicted with the help of scientists at the forensics lab.
When a gun is fired, the blast gives off tiny bits of dust that stick to the shooter's skin. To remove
the dust, wildlife officers press sticky tape onto a suspect's hands and cheeks.
=MaryJacqueMann, a lab scientist, uses an electron microscope to look at the bits of dust. She
then uses X-rays to identify the chemicals in them. If the dust bits contain lead, barium, and
antimony, she knows they could have come only from a gun.


People who sell animals and animal parts often ship them from one country to another. That can
be OK if the animals are not rare or endangered.
But if the animals are rare, shipping them or their parts may be illegal. So, at airports and
shipping docks around the world, wildlife inspectors are on guard for smuggled goods.
=MelanieRaymond works as a wildlife inspector. In the photo below, she's inspecting ten tonnes
of antlers in a shipping box. The antlers are on their way to =Korea to be made into pain
medicine.


=Tsitika and most of her family are going around the headland where I am floating, but seconds
after they pass me I see them turn and head back, fast. =Strider, =Blackney, and =Pointer are
close behind =Tsitika.
When they get back to the point, =Tsitika makes a very loud call from right beneath my boat. The
needles on my tape recorder go all the way to the end of the red zone. I wonder what is wrong
and then I see =Clio porpoising full speed towards her mom. (When a whale moves very fast, it
curves its back high out of the water to take a breath. This is called porpoising.)
I guess that, when =Tsitika went around the point of land, she could no longer hear her baby and
dashed back to check on her. =Clio must have been concerned too, because, as soon as she heard
her mother again, she dashed to her side. This makes me realize how carefully the whales listen
for each other all the time.

before the King Bear could say =boo, =Sally grabbed a warm dumpling from the pot and stuffed
it in his mouth.
The dumpling tasted so good, the =KingBear's eyes winked with tears. But then he started to
think that =Sally might taste pretty good, too. So opening and closing his big old mouth, he
backed her right into a corner.
Sally was plenty scared, with her knees a-knocking and her heart a-hammering. But just as the
=KingBear blew his hot breath in her face, she gathered the courage to say, "Would you like to
dance?"
As everybody knows, no bear can resist an invitation to a square dance, so of course the old
fellow forgot all about eating =Sally and said, "Love to."
Then he bowed real pretty, and the two got to kicking and whooping and swinging each other
through the air, as =Sally sang:
We are on our way to =Baltimore,
With two behind, and two before: Around, around, around we go,
Where oats, peas, beans, and barley grow!
And while she was singing, =Sally tied a string from the bear's ankle to her butter churn, so that
all
the time the old fellow was kicking up his legs and dancing around the room, he was also
churning
her butter!
And folks loved to tell the story about =Sally's encounter with another stinky varmint-only this
one was a human varmint. It seems that =MikeFink, the riverboat man, decided to scare the
toenails off =Sally because he was sick and tired of hearing =DavyCrockett talk about how great
she was.
One evening =Mike crept into an old alligator skin and met =Sally just as she was taking off to
forage in the woods for berries. 


She went in and stood waiting. Meat simmered in a pot over the fire, but she did not touch it. The
skins over the entrance parted and =Kotura swept in on a blast of cold air. "Why are you here?"
he asked.
"My father sent me to plead for my people. They are cold and starving. They will die if you do
not stop the storm."
"Build up the fire and we'll eat some meat," he said. "I'm hungry and you must be also. I can see
that you've eaten nothing."
=YoungestDaughter took the meat from the pot and gave it to the giant. When they had eaten, he
put meat on a wooden platter and told her to take it to the neighboring tent and wait. 
=YoungestDaughter took the platter and stepped out into the blizzard. She peered into the swirling
whiteness. The wind howled in her ears. She had no idea where to go.

It was the tiny bird from the mountaintop. It darted toward her, flew away, then circled
back.
"I will follow the bird," she thought. Where the bird went, she went. Then she saw sparks
flashing and came upon a large mound. Smoke was curling from the top of it. She walked around
looking for an entrance. Suddenly the side of the mound opened and an old woman looked out.
"Whatever are you doing here?" she cried.
=Kotura sent this meat for you."
"=Kotura you say? Very well then, let me have it and wait here."
=YoungestDaughter stood by the mound and waited for a long time. After a while the side of the
mound opened again and the old woman handed back the platter. There was something on it, but
=YoungestDaughter couldn't see what it was.
She returned to =Kotura's tent. "Have you delivered the meat?"
"I have," she replied. "Show me the plate."

The boy smiled a mysterious smile. "The day begins at dawn," he replied. "I get my energy from
the first light of day." He chuckled. "Besides, I'm much younger than you are!"
The old man was still puzzled, but he decided not to ask any more questions. After all, =Kileken
had been a great help, and he was good company too. They spent the rest of the evening sitting
quietly together out under the stars.
Just before going to bed the boy said, "We're almost out of water. I'll take the donkeys to the
spring in the morning."
"Good," the old man replied. "While you do that, I'll look after the cattle."
The boy shook his head. "No, no. I'll fetch the water and take the cattle to pasture. As long as I'm
here, I'll do all the work for you."
It was the old man's turn to chuckle. "Look, it takes two whole days to go to the spring and back.
And it takes another day just to load the donkeys with water. That's a big job for a boy your size.
You can't possibly care for the cattle if you're going to the spring."
Again, =Kileken looked mysterious. "If you trust me, I can do it," he said.
By sunrise the next morning, the boy not only had fetched the water, but had done the morning
chores as well. The cattle were out grazing by the time the old man woke up.
When =Kileken returned in the evening, the old man stared at him in silent wonder. His mind
burned with curiosity, but something about the boy stopped him from asking questions.
By and by, the rains fell and the land turned a glistening green. The old man's heart was full of
joy. His face became
brighter and his step more youthful.
=Kileken continued to amaze the old man with his strange deeds. But though he was curious, he
asked no questions. In time he regarded =Kileken as the son he'd never had.
The rains were followed by drought. The sun hooked its claws into the soil and a flaming sky.

I waited for her to tell me to write my name on the board. Instead she pointed her finger at my
desk. Speaking extremely slowly and wearily, she said, "Take your seat. Just take your seat."
I tried to keep a solemn expression on my face. But it was hard not to grin. I sat down and did not
turn my head as a buzz of whispers broke out behind me. I had missed the mental arithmetic test.
I had not had to write my name on the board. And I had kept every single person transfixed with
my exciting story.
At least three blissful minutes went by before I realized I had no cut on my knee and no bandage,
either. Not only that, but I could not remember whether I had told her which knee I was supposed
to have cut.
She had believed me. I was sure of that. Yet any second she was going to discover that I had told
her a stupendous lie.
I hooked one knee over the other and clasped my hands around the knee on top. I spent the entire
morning that way. When I was required to write, I used only one hand. Miss =Marr did not ask
me a direct question. When recess time came and she said, "Class, stand," I stayed where I was.
=Jean, aren't you going out for recess?" she asked when the others had marched out and there I
still sat.
"Oh, Miss =Marr," I said in my smallest, most pathetic voice, "I am so tired from saving that
girl's life that I have to stay in and have a rest."
Still clutching my knee with both hands, I laid my head down on my desk and shut my eyes. She
did not say a word.
At noon, when she had her back turned, I ran out of the classroom, dashed home, sneaked
=Bandaids from my parents' office and plastered them over both knees, to be on the safe side.
When I returned to school, Miss =Marr smiled and did not ask why both my knees were
bandaged.
I sat through the afternoon thinking over what had.

She thought for a moment. "Oh, I've sold some. Given some away. I've still got many of them,
though." She smiled. "Haven't you been through the spare room?"
I shook my head.
"Well, go and have a look," she said. "Quite a lot of my old work is there."
The curtains were drawn in the spare room; it was dark, damp, and musty. The room seemed like
part of a forgotten art gallery. Untidy piles of sketch books were everywhere, and there were
dozens of paintings of country streams, old towns and cities, and lots of other things. Even in the
weak light they looked real. But there was one that seemed especially real.
It was of two people, a little girl and an old man, sitting before a dying fire. They were talking as
she stared at the last tiny flames. The old man was carving a small figure out of wood. The room
they were in was dark and old-it was the sort of house a farmer might have built for himself long
ago.
I stared at the painting, hardly able to believe that something so wonderful could have been
created out of tubes of paint. It was so warm and peaceful, so full of the calmness of evening. I
thought it was Mrs =Spencer's best painting and I told her so.
"It's fantastic," I said. "Like a special window looking in on another time."



a honeybee discovers a rich supply of nectar, she flies back
to the hive to tell the other bees exactly where the food is. The bee even tells them what kind it is
and how good it is. How can an insect with a brain no bigger than a grass seed pass on all this
information?
Dr =KarlvonFrisch was the first person to find out. He put a dot of red dye on a worker bee that
had found some flowers and watched as she returned to the hive. As he watched thousands of
bees in this way, Dr =vonFrisch figured out how they send their messages. They dance!
He called it the "waggle dance." The pattern of a
bee's dance is a figure eight. She repeats it over and over again as her sister bees watch. The most
important part of the dance is the straight run through the middle of the figure eight. That shows
the direction from the hive to the food. If the bee is dancing outside the hive on a flat surface, she
lines up with the sun, then turns to point toward the food. If the bee is inside, on the wall of the
dark hive, her head points up, as if the sun were overhead. Then she turns right or left to show
where the food is.
As she runs through the figure eight, the bee waggles her head and tail from side to side. The
farther away the food is, the faster she dances. Different kinds of bees have different waggle
signals. For =German honeybees, one waggle.

 "Just mine, and nobody else's?"
=Grandpa was washing his paintbrush. He nodded. "I built it just for you," he said.
So =Chrissy used her markers and made a sign. =CHRISSY's House, the sign said. KEEP OUT!
She tacked it to the door. Then she took her favorite books into the tree house, curled up on the
pillows, and began to read.
"=Chrissy?" The voice came from the next yard, from just across the fence.
=Chrissy got up and looked through the tree house window. "Hi, =Leah," she said to the girl who
lived next door. "How do you like my tree house, now that it's all done?"
It's beautiful," =Leah said. "What do you have inside?"
"A table and two chairs and a rug and some pillows," =Chrissy told her. "And some secret stuff,"
she added, though she didn't have secret stuff, really. She planned to.
"Can I come up and see?" =Leah asked.
"No," =Chrissy said. "It's just for me. That's why I made the sign." =Leah stood silently for a
moment. Then she said, "I hate you,
=Chrissy."
"I hate you, too," =Chrissy replied. She went back to the pillows and opened her book again.
A short time later, she heard voices in the next yard. She peered through her window and saw
that =Leah's father was there with =Leah. They had a wheelbarrow full of old boards, and a jar of
nails. As =Chrissy watched from her window, she saw =Leah's father prop an old ladder against
the trunk of the tree on the other side of the fence. Then, after he jiggled the ladder and made
certain it was steady, he climbed up, carrying a board, and began to nail it into place where the
branches came together.
He was making =Leah a tree house. =Chrissy laughed to herself. =Leah's father was at home
because he had lost his job. She knew they didn't have extra money now for things like paint and
brass hinges. And =Leah's tree house would never be as good as hers. Never in a million years.
=Chrissy went back to her book and turned the pages while the hammering continued.

"Yes, yes, here you are," laughed =Grandpa. He handed =Sanjay two long thin packages.
"Thank you, thank you!" yelled =Sanjay, ripping them open. "What are they?"
"One is a specially made, wooden wriggly snake, and the other is an =Indian flute. Later I will
teach you some tunes, but for now, you can just blow. It makes a lovely sound. Snakes love the
sound of the flute. It makes them sway and puts them into a good mood."
=Sanjay flung his arms round his old grandfather. "Thank you, thank you, Grandpa =Chatterji!"
and he rushed off to show his mom and dad.
=Neetu waited patiently. Which package was for her? He bent over and handed her one of the
larger ones. "What a beauty you are, my dearest, little granddaughter! This is for you."
When =Neetu opened up her package, she found a beautiful pink and green and gold sari. It was
a special small-sized sari for little girls. In =India they have to wait until they are nearly
grown-up before they can wear a sari, but all little girls love to have a sari they can dress up in,
and this is what her grandfather had brought for her.
It made =Neetu feel very solemn and proud. "Oh thank you, =Grandpa!" she declared in a
grown-up voice, "I'll go and ask =Mom to help me put it on."
Later, when Grandpa =Chatterji had bathed and changed, =Neetu, all dressed up in her sari, and
=Sanjay, with his snake and flute, went upstairs to find him. They knocked on his door.
"Come in!" he said in his soft, high voice.
They went in. =Grandpa was sitting on the floor on his old rug. He was sitting very straight, his
eyes staring in front and his arms stretched over his cross-legged knees.
"What are you doing, =Grandpa?" asked =Sanjay.
"I'm being a lotus flower floating quietly on a sea of milk."

=Neetu and her little brother =Sanjay have two grandpas =Mom's dad and =Dad's dad.
=Mom's dad lives in =India and they have never ever seen him. But =Dad's dad lives in
=Leicester and they see him quite often.
Although they love and respect =Dad's dad, as head of the family, =Neetu and =Sanjay are a little
afraid of him. Whenever he comes to visit, they all have to be on their toes.
If =Neetu wears jeans, Grandpa =Leicester frowns at her and snorts, "I don't like my
granddaughter wearing jeans," so she has to go and put on a dress. If =Sanjay, who is a terrible
chatterbox, sometimes interrupts, Grandfather glares at him sternly and says, "I don't like little
boys who interrupt," and =Sanjay has to bite his lip and try so hard not to speak.
When their mother got a job and went out to work, =Grandfather was very disapproving. "I don't
like my daughter-in-law going out to work." =Mom just smiled politely, and went anyway, and
=Dad took his father aside to try to explain how with =Mom going to work, they could afford a
new car.
Perhaps the worst time is when =Dad's dad comes to stay and they can't eat their favorite pizza
and chips. Instead, they have to eat vegetable curry, runny spinach with eggs, and horrible stuff
like that.

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