The following citations are taken from U.S. reading textbooks published between 1830 and 1990. Guess, if you can, the period during which each piece was written, and the age of students for which it was intended. You'll find the answers on the next web page.

1)
     Hilda was a hen--a small, brown hen. She lived on Biddick's Farm in a village called Little Dollop.
     Hilda was very excited. Her aunt had just hatched five baby chicks. Hilda couldn't wait to see them, but her aunt lived five miles away. How was Hilda going to get there? It was much too far to walk. She sat in her favorite spot under the hedge to think. Suddenly Hilda had an idea. Of course! She would have to get a ride.
     Hilda squeezed through the thick hedge and hurried down the muddy lane from the farm. Anyone could see that she was a hen who was going somewhere.
     She went down the farm lane and along the main road toward much Wallop. She went right through the village of Little Dollop, and past the few houses on the other side. She found nothing she could ride except a wagon in somebody's front yard. That was not much good without somebody to pull it….

2)
     Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in retired privacy; for ornament, in discourse; and for ability, in the arrangement and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and, perhaps, judge of particulars, one by one; but general councils and the plots and marshaling of affairs, come best from the learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to form one's judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, and need pruning by study; and studies themselves give forth directions too much at large, unless they are hedged in by experience.
     Crafty men condemn studies; simple men admire and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use, but that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe or take for granted; nor to find matter merely for conversation; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to be swallowed; and some few, to be chewed and digested; that is some books are to be only glanced at; others are to be read, but not critically; and some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books, also, may be read by deputy, and extracts received from them which are made by others; but they should be only the meaner sort of books, and the less important arguments of those which are better: otherwise, distilled books are, like common, distilled waters, flashy things.

3)
     I had once a favorite black hen--'a great beauty,' she was called by everyone, and so I thought her; her feathers were so jetty, and her topping so white and full! She knew my voice as well as any dog, and used to run cackling and bustling to my hand, to receive the crumbs that I never failed to collect from the breakfast-table for 'Yarico'--so she was called.
     Yarico, when about a year old, brought forth a respectable family of chickens--little, cowering, timid things at first, but in due time they became fine chubby ones; and old Nora, the hen-wife, said, 'If I could only keep Yarico out of the copse, it would do; but the copse is full of weasels, and, I am sure, of foxes also. I have driven her back twenty times; but she watches till some one goes out of the gate, and then she's off again: it's always the way with young hens, miss--they think they know better than their keepers; and nothing cures them but losing a brood or two of chickens.' I have often thought since, that young people, as well as young hens, buy their experience equally dear….

4)
     It was a typical wagon train of the 1840s. The swaying wagons, plodding animals, and walking people stretched out along the trail for almost a mile.
     Near the end of the train, a boy holding a hickory stick moved slowly through the dust. He used the stick to poke and prod the cows that trudged beside him, mooing and complaining.
     "Get along!" he shouted. "Hey! Hey! Get along!"
     Dust floated in the air. It clogged the boy's nose, parched his throat, and coated his face. His cheeks were smeared where he had brushed away the big mosquitoes that buzzed about everywhere.
     Up ahead, his family's wagon bounced down the trail. He could hear the crack of his father's whip above the heads of the oxen that pulled wagon. The animals coughed and snorted. The chains on their yokes rattled with every step they took.…