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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories to Tell Children, by Sara Cone Bryant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Stories to Tell Children
+       Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling
+
+Author: Sara Cone Bryant
+
+Release Date: September 14, 2005 [EBook #16693]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES TO TELL CHILDREN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rose Koven, Juliet Sutherland and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: STORY-TELLING TIME
+
+George Cruikshank]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+STORIES TO TELL TO
+CHILDREN
+
+FIFTY-FOUR STORIES WITH SOME
+SUGGESTIONS FOR TELLING
+
+BY
+
+SARA CONE BRYANT
+AUTHOR OF "HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+LONDON
+GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD.
+2 & 3 PORTSMOUTH STREET KINGSWAY W.C.
+1918
+
+THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
+GREAT BRITAIN
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This little book came into being at the instance of my teaching friends.
+Their requests for more stories of the kind which were given in _How to
+Tell Stories to Children_, and especially their urging that the stories
+they liked, in my telling, should be set down in print, seemed to
+justify the hope that the collection would be genuinely useful to them.
+That it may be, is the earnest desire with which it is offered. I hope
+it will be found to contain some stories which are new to the teachers
+and friends of little children, and some which are familiar, but in an
+easier form for telling than is usual. And I shall indeed be content if
+its value to those who read it is proportionate to the pleasure and
+mental stimulus which has come to me in the work among pupils and
+teachers which accompanied its preparation.
+
+Among the publishers and authors whose kindness enabled me to quote
+material are Mr John Murray and Miss Mary Frere, to whom I am indebted
+for the four stories of the Little Jackal; Messrs Little, Brown &
+Company and the Alcott heirs, who allowed me the use of Louisa Alcott's
+poem, _My Kingdom_; and Dr Douglas Hyde, whose letter of permission to
+use his Irish material was in itself a literary treasure. To the
+charming friend who gave me the outline of _Epaminondas_, as told her by
+her own "Mammy," I owe a deeper debt, for _Epaminondas_ has carried joy
+since then into more schools and homes than I dare to enumerate.
+
+And to all the others,--friends in whom the child-heart lingers,--my
+thanks for the laughs we have had, the discussions we have warmed to,
+the helps you have given. May you never lack the right story at the
+right time, or a child to love you for telling it!
+
+SARA CONE BRYANT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                             PAGE
+SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STORY-TELLER
+    Additional Suggestions for Method--Two Valuable
+    Types of Story--A Graded List of Stories to dramatise
+    and retell                                                 11
+
+STORY-TELLING IN TEACHING ENGLISH
+    Importance of Oral Methods--Opportunity of the
+    Primary Grades--Points to be observed in dramatising
+    and retelling, in connection with English                  27
+
+STORIES TO TELL TO CHILDREN
+
+TWO LITTLE RIDDLES IN RHYME                                    43
+
+THE LITTLE YELLOW TULIP                                        43
+
+THE COCK-A-DOO-DLE-DOO                                         45
+
+THE CLOUD                                                      46
+
+THE LITTLE RED HEN                                             48
+
+THE GINGERBREAD MAN                                            49
+
+THE LITTLE JACKALS AND THE LION                                55
+
+THE COUNTRY MOUSE AND THE CITY MOUSE                           58
+
+LITTLE JACK ROLLAROUND                                         62
+
+HOW BROTHER RABBIT FOOLED THE WHALE AND THE ELEPHANT           66
+
+THE LITTLE HALF-CHICK                                          70
+
+THE BLACKBERRY-BUSH                                            74
+
+THE FAIRIES                                                    78
+
+THE ADVENTURES OF THE LITTLE FIELD MOUSE                       80
+
+ANOTHER LITTLE RED HEN                                         83
+
+THE STORY OF THE LITTLE RID HIN                                87
+
+THE STORY OF EPAMINONDAS AND HIS AUNTIE                        92
+
+THE BOY WHO CRIED "WOLF!"                                      96
+
+THE FROG KING                                                  97
+
+THE SUN AND THE WIND                                           99
+
+THE LITTLE JACKAL AND THE ALLIGATOR                           100
+
+THE LARKS IN THE CORNFIELD                                    106
+
+A TRUE STORY ABOUT A GIRL (Louisa Alcott)                     108
+
+MY KINGDOM                                                    113
+
+PICCOLA                                                       115
+
+THE LITTLE FIR TREE                                           116
+
+HOW MOSES WAS SAVED                                           122
+
+THE TEN FAIRIES                                               126
+
+THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER                                   130
+
+WHO KILLED THE OTTER'S BABIES?                                133
+
+EARLY                                                         136
+
+THE BRAHMIN, THE TIGER, AND THE JACKAL                        137
+
+THE LITTLE JACKAL AND THE CAMEL                               144
+
+THE GULLS OF SALT LAKE                                        147
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE                                               150
+
+MARGERY'S GARDEN                                              159
+
+THE LITTLE COTYLEDONS                                         171
+
+THE TALKATIVE TORTOISE                                        176
+
+ROBERT OF SICILY                                              178
+
+THE JEALOUS COURTIERS                                         185
+
+PRINCE CHERRY                                                 189
+
+THE GOLD IN THE ORCHARD                                       199
+
+MARGARET OF NEW ORLEANS                                       200
+
+THE DAGDA'S HARP                                              204
+
+THE TAILOR AND THE THREE BEASTS                               208
+
+HOW THE SEA BECAME SALT                                       215
+
+THE CASTLE OF FORTUNE                                         220
+
+DAVID AND GOLIATH                                             227
+
+THE SHEPHERD'S SONG                                           233
+
+THE HIDDEN SERVANTS                                           236
+
+LITTLE GOTTLIEB                                               243
+
+HOW THE FIR TREE BECAME THE CHRISTMAS TREE                    246
+
+THE DIAMOND AND THE DEWDROP                                   248
+
+
+
+
+SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STORY-TELLER
+
+
+Concerning the fundamental points of method in telling a story, I have
+little to add to the principles which I have already stated[1] as
+necessary, in my opinion, in the book of which this is, in a way, the
+continuation. But in the two years which have passed since that book was
+written, I have had the happiness of working on stories and the telling
+of them, among teachers and students in many parts, and in that
+experience certain secondary points of method have come to seem more
+important, or at least more in need of emphasis, than they did before.
+As so often happens, I had assumed that "those things are taken for
+granted"; whereas, to the beginner or the teacher not naturally a
+story-teller, the secondary or implied technique is often of greater
+difficulty than the mastery of underlying principles. The few
+suggestions which follow are of this practical, obvious kind.
+
+Take your story seriously. No matter how riotously absurd it is, or how
+full of inane repetition, remember, if it is good enough to tell, it is
+a real story, and must be treated with respect. If you cannot feel so
+toward it, do not tell it. Have faith in the story, and in the attitude
+of the children toward it and you. If you fail in this, the immediate
+result will be a touch of shamefacedness, affecting your manner
+unfavourably, and, probably, influencing your accuracy and imaginative
+vividness.
+
+Perhaps I can make the point clearer by telling you about one of the
+girls in a class which was studying stories last winter; I feel sure if
+she or any of her fellow-students recognises the incident, she will not
+resent being made to serve the good cause, even in the unattractive
+guise of a warning example.
+
+A few members of the class had prepared the story of _The Fisherman and
+his Wife_. The first girl called on was evidently inclined to feel that
+it was rather a foolish story. She tried to tell it well, but there were
+parts of it which produced in her the touch of shamefacedness to which I
+have referred.
+
+When she came to the rhyme,--
+
+     "O man of the sea, come, listen to me,
+      For Alice, my wife, the plague of my life,
+      Has sent me to beg a boon of thee,"
+
+she said it rather rapidly. At the first repetition she said it still
+more rapidly; the next time she came to the jingle she said it so fast
+and so low that it was unintelligible; and the next recurrence was too
+much for her. With a blush and a hesitating smile she said, "And he said
+that same thing, you know!" Of course everybody laughed, and of course
+the thread of interest and illusion was hopelessly broken for everybody.
+
+Now, anyone who chanced to hear Miss Shedlock?[A] tell that same story
+will remember that the absurd rhyme gave great opportunity for
+expression, in its very repetition; each time that the fisherman came to
+the water's edge his chagrin and unwillingness were greater, and his
+summons to the magic fish mirrored his feeling. The jingle _is_ foolish;
+that is a part of the charm. But if the person who tells it _feels_
+foolish, there is no charm at all! It is the same principle which
+applies to any assemblage: if the speaker has the air of finding what he
+has to say absurd or unworthy of effort, the audience naturally tends to
+follow his lead, and find it not worth listening to.
+
+Let me urge, then, take your story seriously.
+
+Next, "take your time." This suggestion needs explaining, perhaps. It
+does not mean license[A] to dawdle. Nothing is much more annoying in a
+speaker than too great deliberateness[A] or than hesitation of speech.
+But it means a quiet[A] realisation of the fact that the floor is yours,
+everybody wants to hear you, there is time[A] enough for every point and
+shade of meaning, and no one will think the story too long. This mental
+attitude must underlie proper control of speed. Never hurry. A
+business-like leisure is the true attitude of the story-teller.
+
+And the result is best attained by concentrating one's attention on the
+episodes of the story. Pass lightly, and comparatively swiftly, over the
+portions between actual episodes, but take all the time you need for the
+elaboration of those. And above all, do not _feel_ hurried.
+
+The next suggestion is eminently plain and practical, if not an all too
+obvious one. It is this: if all your preparation and confidence fails
+you at the crucial moment, and memory plays the part of traitor in some
+particular,--if, in short, you blunder on a detail of the story, _never
+admit it_. If it was an unimportant detail which you misstated, pass
+right on, accepting whatever you said, and continuing with it; if you
+have been so unfortunate as to omit a fact which was a necessary link in
+the chain, put it in, later, as skilfully as you can, and with as
+deceptive an appearance of its being in the intended order; but never
+take the children behind the scenes, and let them hear the creaking of
+your mental machinery. You must be infallible. You must be in the secret
+of the mystery, and admit your audience on somewhat unequal terms; they
+should have no creeping doubts as to your complete initiation into the
+secrets of the happenings you relate.
+
+Plainly, there can be lapses of memory so complete, so all-embracing,
+that frank failure is the only outcome; but these are so few as not to
+need consideration, when dealing with so simple material as that of
+children's stories. There are times, too, before an adult audience, when
+a speaker can afford to let his hearers be amused with him over a chance
+mistake. But with children it is most unwise to break the spell of the
+entertainment in that way. Consider, in the matter of a detail of action
+or description, how absolutely unimportant the mere accuracy is,
+compared with the effect of smoothness and the enjoyment of the hearers.
+They will not remember the detail, for good or evil, half so long as
+they will remember the fact that you did not know it. So, for their
+sakes, as well as for the success of your story, cover your slips of
+memory, and let them be as if they were not.
+
+And now I come to two points in method which have to do especially with
+humorous stories. The first is the power of initiating the appreciation
+of the joke. Every natural humorist does this by instinct, and the value
+of the power to a story-teller can hardly be overestimated. To initiate
+appreciation does not mean that one necessarily gives way to mirth,
+though even that is sometimes natural and effective; one merely feels
+the approach of the humorous climax, and subtly suggests to the hearers
+that it will soon be "time to laugh." The suggestion usually comes in
+the form of facial expression, and in the tone. And children are so much
+simpler, and so much more accustomed to following another's lead than
+their elders, that the expression can be much more outright and
+unguarded than would be permissible with a mature audience.
+
+Children like to feel the joke coming, in this way; they love the
+anticipation of a laugh, and they will begin to dimple, often, at your
+first unconscious suggestion of humour. If it is lacking, they are
+sometimes afraid to follow their own instincts. Especially when you are
+facing an audience of grown people and children together, you will find
+that the latter are very hesitant about initiating their own expression
+of humour. It is more difficult to make them forget their surroundings
+then, and more desirable to give them a happy lead. Often at the
+funniest point you will see some small listener in an agony of endeavour
+to cloak the mirth which he--poor mite--fears to be indecorous. Let him
+see that it is "the thing" to laugh, and that everybody is going to.
+
+Having so stimulated the appreciation of the humorous climax, it is
+important to give your hearers time for the full savour of the jest to
+permeate their consciousness. It is really robbing an audience of its
+rights, to pass so quickly from one point to another that the mind must
+lose a new one if it lingers to take in the old. Every vital point in a
+tale must be given a certain amount of time: by an anticipatory pause,
+by some form of vocal or repetitive emphasis, and by actual time. But
+even more than other tales does the funny story demand this. It cannot
+be funny without it.
+
+Everyone who is familiar with the theatre must have noticed how careful
+all comedians are to give this pause for appreciation and laughter.
+Often the opportunity is crudely given, or too liberally offered; and
+that offends. But in a reasonable degree the practice is undoubtedly
+necessary to any form of humorous expression.
+
+A remarkably good example of the type of humorous story to which these
+principles of method apply, is the story of _Epaminondas_ on page 92. It
+will be plain to any reader that all the several funny crises are of the
+perfectly unmistakable sort children like, and that, moreover, these
+funny spots are not only easy to see; they are easy to foresee. The
+teller can hardly help sharing the joke in advance, and the tale is an
+excellent one with which to practise for power in the points mentioned.
+
+Epaminondas is a valuable little rascal from other points of view, and
+I mean to return to him, to point a moral. But at the moment I want
+space for a word or two about the matter of variety of subject and style
+in school stories.
+
+There are two wholly different kinds of story which are equally
+necessary for children, I believe, and which ought to be given in about
+the proportion of one to three, in favour of the second kind; I make the
+ratio uneven because the first kind is more dominating in its effect.
+
+The first kind is represented by such stories as _The Pig Brother_,[1]
+which has now grown so familiar to teachers that it will serve for
+illustration without repetition here. It is the type of story which
+specifically teaches a certain ethical or conduct lesson, in the form of
+a fable or an allegory,--it passes on to the child the conclusions as to
+conduct and character, to which the race has, in general, attained
+through centuries of experience and moralising. The story becomes an
+inescapable part of the outfit of received ideas on manners and morals
+which is a necessary possession of the heir of civilisation.
+
+Children do not object to these stories in the least, if the stories are
+good ones. They accept them with the relish which nature seems ever to
+have for all truly nourishing material. And the little tales are one of
+the media through which we elders may transmit some very slight share of
+the benefit received by us, in turn, from actual or transmitted
+experience.
+
+The second kind has no preconceived moral to offer, makes no attempt to
+affect judgment or to pass on a standard. It simply presents a picture
+of life, usually in fable or poetic image, and says to the hearer,
+"These things are." The hearer, then, consciously or otherwise, passes
+judgment on the facts. His mind says, "These things are good"; or, "This
+was good, and that, bad"; or, "This thing is desirable," or the
+contrary.
+
+The story of _The Little Jackal and the Alligator_ (page 100) is a good
+illustration of this type. It is a character-story. In the naïve form of
+a folk tale, it doubtless embodies the observations of a seeing eye, in
+a country and time when the little jackal and the great alligator were
+even more vivid images of certain human characters than they now are.
+Again and again, surely, the author or authors of the tales must have
+seen the weak, small, clever being triumph over the bulky,
+well-accoutred, stupid adversary. Again and again they had laughed at
+the discomfiture of the latter, perhaps rejoicing in it the more because
+it removed fear from their own houses. And probably never had they
+concerned themselves particularly with the basic ethics of the struggle.
+It was simply one of the things they saw. It was life. So they made a
+picture of it.
+
+The folk tale so made, and of such character, comes to the child
+somewhat as an unprejudiced newspaper account of to-day's happenings
+comes to us. It pleads no cause, except through its contents; it
+exercises no intentioned influence on our moral judgment; it is there,
+as life is there, to be seen and judged. And only through such seeing
+and judging can the individual perception attain to anything of power or
+originality. Just as a certain amount of received ideas is necessary to
+sane development, so is a definite opportunity for first-hand judgments
+essential to power.
+
+In this epoch of well-trained minds we run some risk of an inundation of
+accepted ethics. The mind which can make independent judgments, can look
+at new facts with fresh vision, and reach conclusions with simplicity,
+is the perennial power in the world. And this is the mind we are not
+noticeably successful in developing, in our system of schooling. Let us
+at least have its needs before our consciousness, in our attempts to
+supplement the regular studies of school by such side-activities as
+story-telling. Let us give the children a fair proportion of stories
+which stimulate independent moral and practical decisions.
+
+And now for a brief return to our little black friend. _Epaminondas_
+belongs to a very large, very ancient type of funny story: the tale in
+which the jest depends wholly on an abnormal degree of stupidity on the
+part of the hero. Every race which produces stories seems to have found
+this theme a natural outlet for its childlike laughter. The stupidity of
+Lazy Jack, of Big Claus, of the Good Man, of Clever Alice, all have
+their counterparts in the folly of the small Epaminondas.
+
+Evidently, such stories have served a purpose in the education of the
+race. While the exaggeration of familiar attributes easily awakens mirth
+in a simple mind, it does more: it teaches practical lessons of wisdom
+and discretion. And possibly the lesson was the original cause of the
+story.
+
+Not long ago, I happened upon an instance of the teaching power of these
+nonsense tales, so amusing and convincing that I cannot forbear to share
+it. A primary teacher who heard me tell _Epaminondas_ one evening, told
+it to her pupils the next morning, with great effect. A young teacher
+who was observing in the room at the time told me what befell. She said
+the children laughed very heartily over the story, and evidently liked
+it much. About an hour later, one of them was sent to the board to do a
+little problem. It happened that the child made an excessively foolish
+mistake, and did not notice it. As he glanced at the teacher for the
+familiar smile of encouragement, she simply raised her hands, and
+ejaculated, "'For the law's sake!'"
+
+It was sufficient. The child took the cue instantly. He looked hastily
+at his work, broke into an irrepressible giggle, rubbed the figures out,
+without a word, and began again. And the whole class entered into the
+joke with the gusto of fellow-fools, for once wise.
+
+It is safe to assume that the child in question will make fewer needless
+mistakes for a long time because of the wholesome reminder of his
+likeness with one who "ain't got the sense he was born with." And what
+occurred so visibly in his case goes on quietly in the hidden recesses
+of the mind in many cases. One _Epaminondas_ is worth three lectures.
+
+I wish there were more of such funny little tales in the world's
+literature, all ready, as this one is, for telling to the youngest of
+our listeners. But masterpieces are few in any line, and stories for
+telling are no exception; it took generations, probably, to make this
+one. The demand for new sources of supply comes steadily from teachers
+and mothers, and is the more insistent because so often met by the
+disappointing recommendations of books which prove to be for reading
+only, rather than for telling.
+
+For the benefit of suggestion to teachers in schools where story-telling
+is newly or not yet introduced in systematic form, I am glad to append
+the following list of additional stories which will be found to be
+equally tellable and likeable. The list is not mine, although it
+embodies some of my suggestions. I offer it merely as a practical result
+of the effort to equalise and extend the story-hour throughout the
+schools. The list is roughly graded in four groups. Stories in the
+present volume have been excluded.
+
+
+STORIES FOR REPRODUCTION
+
+FIRST GROUP
+
+     The Lion and the Mouse, Æsop
+     The Fox and the Crow, Æsop
+     The Hare and the Tortoise, Æsop
+     The Wolf and the Kid, Æsop
+     The Crow and the Pitcher, Æsop
+     The Fox and the Grapes, Æsop
+     The Dog and his Shadow, Æsop
+     The Hare and the Hound, Æsop
+     The Wolf and the Crane, Æsop
+     The Elf and the Dormouse[1]
+     The Three Little Pigs[1]
+     Henny Penny
+     The Three Bears[1]
+     Why the Woodpecker's Head is Red[2]
+     Little Red Riding-Hood
+     The Cat and The Mouse, Grimm
+     Snow White and Rose Red, Grimm
+
+
+SECOND GROUP
+
+     The Boasting Traveller, Æsop
+     The Wolf and the Fox, Æsop
+     The Boy and the Filberts, Æsop
+     Hercules and the Wagoner, Æsop
+     The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf, Æsop
+     The Star Dollars[1]
+     The Pied Piper[1]
+     King Midas[1]
+     Raggylug[1]
+     Peter Rabbit, B. Potter
+     The Tar-Baby, Joel Chandler Harris
+          (from _Uncle Remus_)
+     The Tailor and the Elephant
+     The Blind Men and the Elephant
+          (_Harrap's Dramatic Readers_, Book II.)
+     The Valiant Blackbird, Wm. Canton
+          (from _The True Annals of Fairyland_)
+     The Wolf and the Goslings, Grimm
+     The Ugly Duckling, Andersen
+     The Old Woman and Her Pig[1]
+     The Cat and the Parrot[1]
+
+
+THIRD GROUP
+
+     Little Black Sambo
+     Why the Bear has a Short Tail[2]
+     Why the Fox has a White Tip to his Tail[2]
+     Why the Wren flies low[2]
+     Jack and the Beanstalk
+     The Golden Fleece[3]
+     The Pig Brother[1]
+     The Ugly Duckling, Andersen
+     How the Mole became Blind[2]
+     How Fire was brought to the Indians[2]
+     Echo[4]
+     Why the Morning Glory Climbs[1]
+     The Bay of Winds[3]
+     Pandora's Box[4]
+     The Little Match Girl, Andersen
+     The Story of Wylie[1]
+
+
+FOURTH GROUP
+
+     Arachne[4]
+     The Nürnberg Stove[3]
+     Clytie[3]
+     Latona and the Frogs[4]
+     Dick Whittington and his Cat
+     Proserpine[4]
+     The Bell of Atri[5]
+     The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Edgar
+          (from _Stories from the Earthly Paradise_)
+     The Guardians of the Door, Wm. Canton
+          (from _A Child's Book of Saints_)
+     The Little Lame Prince, Mrs Craik
+     Narcissus[5]
+     The Little Hero of Haarlem[6]
+     The Bar of Gold[5]
+     The Golden Fish[5]
+     Saint Christopher[5]
+     The Four Seasons[7]
+
+A further source for excellent stories put into a form which is
+suggestive for purposes of retelling to children is the series of graded
+reading books known as _Harrap's Dramatic Readers_.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _How to Tell Stories to Children._
+
+[2] In _How to Tell Stories to Children_, page 145.
+
+[3] _How to Tell Stories to Children._
+
+[4] _Nature Myths_, Florence Holbrook.
+
+[5] _Favourite Greek Myths_, Lilian S. Hyde.
+
+[6] _Legends of Greece and Rome_, G.H. Kupfer.
+
+[7] _Folk Tales from Many Lands_, Lilian Gask.
+
+
+
+
+STORY-TELLING IN TEACHING ENGLISH
+
+
+I have to speak now of a phase of elementary education which lies very
+close to my warmest interest, which, indeed, could easily become an
+active hobby if other interests did not beneficently tug at my skirts
+when I am minded to mount and ride too wildly. It is the hobby of many
+of you who are teachers, also, and I know you want to hear it discussed.
+I mean the growing effort to teach English and English literature to
+children in the natural way: by speaking and hearing,--orally.
+
+The structure of the language and the choice of words are dark matters
+to most of our young people; this has long been acknowledged and
+struggled against. But even darker, and quite equally destructive to
+English expression, is their state of mind regarding pronunciation,
+enunciation, and voice. It is the essential connection of these elements
+with English speech that we have been so slow to realise. We have felt
+that they were externals, desirable but not necessary adjuncts--pretty
+tags of an exceptional gift or culture. Many an intelligent person will
+say, "I don't care much about _how_ you say a thing; it is _what_ you
+say that counts." He cannot see that voice and enunciation and
+pronunciation are essentials. But they are. You can no more help
+affecting the meaning of your words by the way you say them than you can
+prevent the expressions of your face from carrying a message; the
+message may be perverted by an uncouth habit, but it will no less surely
+insist on recognition.
+
+The fact is that speech is a method of carrying ideas from one human
+soul to another, by way of the ear. And these ideas are very complex.
+They are not unmixed emanations of pure intellect, transmitted to pure
+intellect: they are compounded of emotions, thoughts, fancies, and are
+enhanced or impeded in transmission by the use of word-symbols which
+have acquired, by association, infinite complexities in themselves. The
+mood of the moment, the especial weight of a turn of thought, the desire
+of the speaker to share his exact soul-concept with you,--these seek far
+more subtle means than the mere rendering of certain vocal signs; they
+demand such variations and delicate adjustments of sound as will
+inevitably affect the listening mind with the response desired.
+
+There is no "what" without the "how" in speech. The same written
+sentence becomes two diametrically opposite ideas, given opposing
+inflection and accompanying voice-effect. "He stood in the front rank
+of the battle" can be made praiseful affirmation, scornful scepticism,
+or simple question, by a simple varying of voice and inflection. This is
+the more unmistakable way in which the "how" affects the "what." Just as
+true is the less obvious fact. The same written sentiment, spoken by a
+Lord Rosebery and by a man from White chapel or an uneducated ploughman,
+is not the same to the listener. In one case the sentiment comes to the
+mind's ear with certain completing and enhancing qualities of sound
+which give it accuracy and poignancy. The words themselves retain all
+their possible suggestiveness in the speaker's just and clear
+enunciation, and have a borrowed beauty, besides, from the associations
+of fine habit betrayed in the voice and manner of speech. And, further,
+the immense personal equation shows itself in the beauty and power of
+the vocal expressiveness, which carries shades of meaning, unguessed
+delicacies of emotion, intimations of beauty, to every ear. In the other
+case, the thought is clouded by unavoidable suggestions of ignorance and
+ugliness, brought by the pronunciation and voice, even to an
+unanalytical ear; the meaning is obscured by inaccurate inflection and
+uncertain or corrupt enunciation; but, worst of all, the personal
+atmosphere, the aroma, of the idea has been lost in transmission
+through a clumsy, ill-fitted medium.
+
+The thing said may look the same on a printed page, but it is not the
+same when spoken. And it is the spoken sentence which is the original
+and the usual mode of communication.
+
+The widespread poverty of expression in English, which is thus a matter
+of "how," and to which we are awakening, must be corrected chiefly, at
+least at first, by the elementary schools. The home is the ideal place
+for it, but the average home in many districts is no longer a possible
+place for it. The child of parents poorly educated and bred in limited
+circumstances, the child of powerful provincial influences, must all
+depend on the school for standards of English.
+
+And it is the elementary school which must meet the need, if it is to be
+met at all. For the conception of English expression which I am talking
+of can find no mode of instruction adequate to its meaning, save in
+constant appeal to the ear, at an age so early that unconscious habit is
+formed. No rules, no analytical instruction in later development, can
+accomplish what is needed. Hearing and speaking; imitating, unwittingly
+and wittingly, a good model; it is to this method we must look for
+redemption from present conditions.
+
+I believe we are on the eve of a real revolution in English
+teaching,--only it is a revolution which will not break the peace. It
+will introduce a larger proportion of oral work than has hitherto been
+contemplated in secondary school work. It will recognise the fact that
+English is primarily something spoken with the mouth and heard with the
+ear. And this recognition will have greatest weight in the systems of
+elementary teaching.
+
+It is as an aid in oral teaching of English that story-telling in school
+finds its second value; ethics is the first ground of its usefulness,
+English the second,--and after these, the others. It is, too, for the
+oral uses that the secondary forms of story-telling are so available. By
+secondary I mean those devices which I have tried to indicate, as used
+by many teachers, in the chapter on "Specific Schoolroom Uses," in my
+earlier book. They are retelling, dramatisation, and forms of seat-work.
+All of these are a great power in the hands of a wise teacher. If
+combined with much attention to voice and enunciation in the recital of
+poetry, and with much good reading aloud _by the teacher_, they will go
+far toward setting a standard and developing good habit.
+
+But their provinces must not be confused or overestimated. I trust I may
+be pardoned for offering a caution or two to the enthusiastic advocate
+of these methods,--cautions the need of which has been forced upon me,
+in experience with schools.
+
+A teacher who uses the oral story as an English feature with little
+children must never lose sight of the fact that it is an aid in
+unconscious development; not a factor in studied, conscious improvement.
+This truth cannot be too strongly realised. Other exercises, in
+sufficiency, give the opportunity for regulated effort for definite
+results, but the story is one of the play-forces. Its use in English
+teaching is most valuable when the teacher has a keen appreciation of
+the natural order of growth in the art of expression: that art requires,
+as the old rhetorics used often to put it, "a natural facility,
+succeeded by an acquired difficulty." In other words, the power of
+expression depends, first, on something more fundamental than the
+art-element; the basis of it is something to say, _accompanied by an
+urgent desire to say it_, and _yielded to with freedom_; only after this
+stage is reached can the art-phase be of any use. The "why" and "how,"
+the analytical and constructive phases, have no natural place in this
+first vital epoch.
+
+Precisely here, however, does the dramatising of stories and the
+paper-cutting, etc., become useful. A fine and thoughtful principal of a
+great school asked me, recently, with real concern, about the growing
+use of such devices. He said, "Paper-cutting is good, but what has it
+to do with English?" And then he added, "The children use abominable
+language when they play the stories; can that directly aid them to speak
+good English?" His observation was close and correct, and his
+conservatism more valuable than the enthusiasm of some of his colleagues
+who have advocated sweeping use of the supplementary work. But his point
+of view ignored the basis of expression, which is to my mind so
+important. Paper-cutting is external to English, of course. Its only
+connection is in its power to correlate different forms of expression,
+and to react on speech-expression through sense-stimulus. But playing
+the story is a closer relative to English than this. It helps,
+amazingly, in giving the "something to say, the urgent desire to say
+it," and the freedom in trying. Never mind the crudities,--at least, at
+the time; work only for joyous freedom, inventiveness, and natural forms
+of reproduction of the ideas given. Look for very gradual changes in
+speech, through the permeating power of imitation, but do not forget
+that this is the stage of expression which inevitably precedes art.
+
+All this will mean that no corrections are made, except in flagrant
+cases of slang or grammar, though all bad slips are mentally noted, for
+introduction at a more favourable time. It will mean that the teacher
+will respect the continuity of thought and interest as completely as she
+would wish an audience to respect her occasional prosy periods if she
+were reading a report. She will remember, of course, that she is not
+training actors for amateur theatricals, however tempting her
+show-material may be; she is simply letting the children play with
+expression, just as a gymnasium teacher introduces muscular play,--for
+power through relaxation.
+
+When the time comes that the actors lose their unconsciousness it is the
+end of the story-play. Drilled work, the beginning of the art, is then
+the necessity.
+
+I have indicated that the children may be left undisturbed in their
+crudities and occasional absurdities. The teacher, on the other hand,
+must avoid, with great judgment, certain absurdities which can easily be
+initiated by her. The first direful possibility is in the choice of
+material. It is very desirable that children should not be allowed to
+dramatise stories of a kind so poetic, so delicate, or so potentially
+valuable that the material is in danger of losing future beauty to the
+pupils through its present crude handling. Mother Goose is a hardy old
+lady, and will not suffer from the grasp of the seven-year-old; and the
+familiar fables and tales of the "Goldilocks" variety have a firmness of
+surface which does not let the glamour rub off; but stories in which
+there is a hint of the beauty just beyond the palpable--or of a dignity
+suggestive of developed literature--are sorely hurt in their
+metamorphosis, and should be protected from it. They are for telling
+only.
+
+Another point on which it is necessary to exercise reserve is in the
+degree to which any story can be acted. In the justifiable desire to
+bring a large number of children into the action one must not lose sight
+of the sanity and propriety of the presentation. For example, one must
+not make a ridiculous caricature, where a picture, however crude, is the
+intention. Personally represent only such things as are definitely and
+dramatically personified in the story. If a natural force, the wind, for
+example, is represented as talking and acting like a human being in the
+story, it can be imaged by a person in the play; but if it remains a
+part of the picture in the story, performing only its natural motions,
+it is a caricature to enact it as a rôle. The most powerful instance of
+a mistake of this kind which I have ever seen will doubtless make my
+meaning clear. In playing a pretty story about animals and children,
+some children in an elementary school were made by the teacher to take
+the part of the sea. In the story, the sea was said to "beat upon the
+shore," as a sea would, without doubt. In the play the children were
+allowed to thump the floor lustily, as a presentation of their watery
+functions! It was unconscionably funny. Fancy presenting even the
+crudest image of the mighty sea, surging up on the shore, by a row of
+infants squatted on the floor and pounding with their fists! Such
+pitfalls can be avoided by the simple rule of personifying only
+characters that actually behave like human beings.
+
+A caution which directly concerns the art of story-telling itself, must
+be added here. There is a definite distinction between the arts of
+narration and dramatisation which must never be overlooked. Do not,
+yourself, half tell and half act the story; and do not let the children
+do it. It is done in very good schools, sometimes, because an enthusiasm
+for realistic and lively presentation momentarily obscures the faculty
+of discrimination. A much loved and respected teacher whom I recently
+listened to, and who will laugh if she recognises her blunder here,
+offers a good "bad example" in this particular. She said to an attentive
+audience of students that she had at last, with much difficulty, brought
+herself to the point where she could forget herself in her story: where
+she could, for instance, hop, like the fox, when she told the story of
+the "sour grapes." She said, "It was hard at first, but now it is a
+matter of course; _and the children do it too, when they tell the
+story_." That was the pity! I saw the illustration myself a little
+later. The child who played fox began with a story: he said, "Once there
+was an old fox, and he saw some grapes"; then the child walked to the
+other side of the room, and looked at an imaginary vine, and said, "He
+wanted some; he thought they would taste good, so he jumped for them";
+at this-point the child did jump, like his rôle; then he continued with
+his story, "but he couldn't get them." And so he proceeded, with a
+constant alternation of narrative and dramatisation which was enough to
+make one dizzy.
+
+The trouble in such work is, plainly, a lack of discriminating analysis.
+Telling a story necessarily implies non-identification of the teller
+with the event; he relates what occurs or occurred, outside of his
+circle of consciousness. Acting a play necessarily implies
+identification of the actor with the event; he presents to you a picture
+of the thing, in himself. It is a difference wide and clear, and the
+least failure to recognise it confuses the audience and injures both
+arts.
+
+In the preceding instances of secondary uses of story-telling I have
+come some distance from the great point, the fundamental point, of the
+power of imitation in breeding good habit. This power is less noticeably
+active in the dramatising than in simple retelling; in the listening and
+the retelling, it is dominant for good. The child imitates what he
+hears you say and sees you do, and the way you say and do it, far more
+closely in the story-hour than in any lesson-period. He is in a more
+absorbent state, as it were, because there is no preoccupation of
+effort. Here is the great opportunity of the cultured teacher; here is
+the appalling opportunity of the careless or ignorant teacher. For the
+implications of the oral theory of teaching English are evident,
+concerning the immense importance of the teacher's habit. This is what
+it all comes to ultimately: the teacher of young children must be a
+person who can speak English as it should be spoken,--purely, clearly,
+pleasantly, and with force.
+
+It is a hard ideal to live up to, but it is a valuable ideal to try to
+live up to. And one of the best chances to work toward attainment is in
+telling stories, for there you have definite material, which you can
+work into shape and practise on in private. That practice ought to
+include conscious thought as to one's general manner in the schoolroom,
+and intelligent effort to understand and improve one's own voice. I hope
+I shall not seem to assume the dignity of an authority which no personal
+taste can claim, if I beg a hearing for the following elements of manner
+and voice, which appeal to me as essential. They will, probably, appear
+self-evident to my readers, yet they are often found wanting in the
+public school teacher; it is _so_ much easier to say "what were good to
+do" than to do it!
+
+Three elements of manner seem to me an essential adjunct to the
+personality of a teacher of little children: courtesy, repose, vitality.
+Repose and vitality explain themselves; by courtesy I specifically do
+_not_ mean the habit of mind which contents itself with drilling the
+children in "Good-mornings" and in hat-liftings. I mean the attitude of
+mind which recognises in the youngest, commonest child the potential
+dignity, majesty, and mystery of the developed human soul. Genuine
+reverence for the humanity of the "other fellow" marks a definite degree
+of courtesy in the intercourse of adults, does it not? And the same
+quality of respect, tempered by the demands of a wise control, is
+exactly what is needed among children. Again and again, in dealing with
+young minds, the teacher who respects personality as sacred, no matter
+how embryonic it be, wins the victories which count for true education.
+Yet, all too often, we forget the claims of this reverence, in the
+presence of the annoyances and the needed corrections.
+
+As for voice: work in schoolrooms brings two opposing mistakes
+constantly before me: one is the repressed voice, and the other, the
+forced. The best way to avoid either extreme, is to keep in mind that
+the ideal is development of one's own natural voice, along its own
+natural lines. A "quiet, gentle voice" is conscientiously aimed at by
+many young teachers, with so great zeal that the tone becomes painfully
+repressed, "breathy," and timid. This is quite as unpleasant as a loud
+voice, which is, in turn, a frequent result of early admonitions to
+"speak up." Neither is natural. It is wise to determine the natural
+volume and pitch of one's speaking voice by a number of tests, made when
+one is thoroughly rested, at ease, and alone. Find out where your voice
+lies when it is left to itself, under favourable conditions, by reading
+something aloud or by listening to yourself as you talk to an intimate
+friend. Then practise keeping it in that general range, unless it prove
+to have a distinct fault, such as a nervous sharpness, or hoarseness. A
+quiet voice is good; a hushed voice is abnormal. A clear tone is
+restful, but a loud one is wearying.
+
+Perhaps the common-sense way of setting a standard for one's own voice
+is to remember that the purpose of a speaking voice is to communicate
+with others; their ears and minds are the receivers of our tones. For
+this purpose, evidently, a voice should be, first of all, easy to hear;
+next, pleasant to hear; next, susceptible of sufficient variation to
+express a wide range of meaning; and finally, indicative of personality.
+
+Is it too quixotic to urge teachers who tell stories to little children
+to bear these thoughts, and better ones of their own, in mind? Not, I
+think, if it be fully accepted that the story hour, as a play hour, is a
+time peculiarly open to influences affecting the imitative faculty; that
+this faculty is especially valuable in forming fine habits of speech;
+and that an increasingly high and general standard of English speech is
+one of our greatest needs and our most instant opportunities in the
+schools of to-day.
+
+And now we come to the stories!
+
+
+
+
+STORIES TO TELL TO CHILDREN
+
+TWO LITTLE RIDDLES IN RHYME[8]
+
+
+     There's a garden that I ken,
+     Full of little gentlemen;
+     Little caps of blue they wear,
+     And green ribbons, very fair.
+           (Flax.)
+
+     From house to house he goes,
+     A messenger small and slight,
+     And whether it rains or snows,
+     He sleeps outside in the night.
+           (The path.)
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE YELLOW TULIP
+
+
+Once there was a little yellow Tulip, and she lived down in a little
+dark house under the ground. One day she was sitting there, all by
+herself, and it was very still. Suddenly, she heard a little _tap, tap,
+tap_, at the door.
+
+"Who is that?" she said.
+
+"It's the Rain, and I want to come in," said a soft, sad, little voice.
+
+"No, you can't come in," the little Tulip said.
+
+By and by she heard another little _tap, tap, tap_ on the window-pane.
+
+"Who is there?" she said.
+
+The same soft little voice answered, "It's the Rain, and I want to come
+in!"
+
+"No, you can't come in," said the little Tulip.
+
+Then it was very still for a long time. At last, there came a little
+rustling, whispering sound, all round the window: _rustle, whisper,
+whisper_.
+
+"Who is there?" said the little Tulip.
+
+"It's the Sunshine," said a little, soft, cheery voice, "and I want to
+come in!"
+
+"N--no," said the little Tulip, "you can't come in." And she sat still
+again.
+
+Pretty soon she heard the sweet little rustling noise at the keyhole.
+
+"Who is there?" she said.
+
+"It's the Sunshine," said the cheery little voice, "and I want to come
+in, I want to come in!"
+
+"No, no," said the little Tulip, "you cannot come in."
+
+By and by, as she sat so still, she heard _tap, tap, tap_, and _rustle,
+whisper, rustle_, up and down the window-pane, and on the door and at
+the keyhole.
+
+"_Who is there?_" she said.
+
+"It's the Rain and the Sun, the Rain and the Sun," said two little
+voices, together, "and we want to come in! We want to come in! We want
+to come in!"
+
+"Dear, dear!" said the little Tulip, "if there are two of you, I s'pose
+I shall have to let you in."
+
+So she opened the door a little wee crack, and in they came. And one
+took one of her little hands, and the other took her other little hand,
+and they ran, ran, ran with her right up to the top of the ground. Then
+they said,--
+
+"Poke your head through!"
+
+So she poked her head through; and she was in the midst of a beautiful
+garden. It was early springtime, and few other flowers were to be seen;
+but she had the birds to sing to her and the sun to shine upon her
+pretty yellow head. She was so pleased, too, when the children exclaimed
+with pleasure that now they knew that the beautiful spring had come!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] These riddles were taken from the Gaelic, and are charming examples
+of the naïve beauty of the old Irish, and of Dr Hyde's accurate and
+sympathetic modern rendering. From _Beside the Fire_ (David Nutt).
+
+
+
+
+THE COCK-A-DOO-DLE-DOO[9]
+
+
+A very little boy made this story up "out of his head," and told it to
+his papa. I think you littlest ones will like it; I do.
+
+Once upon a time there was a little boy, and he wanted to be a
+cock-a-doo-dle-doo. So he was a cock-a-doo-dle-doo. And he wanted to fly
+up into the sky. So he did fly up into the sky. And he wanted to get
+wings and a tail So he did get some wings and a tail.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] From _The Ignominy of being Grown Up_, by Dr. Samuel M. Crothers, in
+the _Atlantic Monthly_ for July 1906.
+
+
+
+THE CLOUD[10]
+
+
+One hot summer morning a little Cloud rose out of the sea and floated
+lightly and happily across the blue sky. Far below lay the earth, brown,
+dry, and desolate, from drought. The little Cloud could see the poor
+people of the earth working and suffering in the hot fields, while she
+herself floated on the morning breeze, hither and thither, without a
+care.
+
+"Oh, if I could only help the poor people down there!" she thought. "If
+I could but make their work easier, or give the hungry ones food, or the
+thirsty a drink!"
+
+And as the day passed, and the Cloud became larger, this wish to do
+something for the people of earth was ever greater in her heart.
+
+On earth it grew hotter and hotter; the sun burned down so fiercely that
+the people were fainting in its rays; it seemed as if they must die of
+heat, and yet they were obliged to go on with their work, for they were
+very poor. Sometimes they stood and looked up at the Cloud, as if they
+were praying, and saying, "Ah, if you could help us!"
+
+"I will help you; I will!" said the Cloud. And she began to sink softly
+down toward the earth.
+
+But suddenly, as she floated down, she remembered something which had
+been told her when she was a tiny Cloud-child, in the lap of Mother
+Ocean: it had been whispered that if the Clouds go too near the earth
+they die. When she remembered this she held herself from sinking, and
+swayed here and there on the breeze, thinking,--thinking. But at last
+she stood quite still, and spoke boldly and proudly. She said, "Men of
+earth, I will help you, come what may!"
+
+The thought made her suddenly marvellously big and strong and powerful.
+Never had she dreamed that she could be so big. Like a mighty angel of
+blessing she stood above the earth, and lifted her head and spread her
+wings far over the fields and woods. She was so great, so majestic, that
+men and animals were awe-struck at the sight; the trees and the grasses
+bowed before her; yet all the earth-creatures felt that she meant them
+well.
+
+"Yes, I will help you," cried the Cloud once more. "Take me to
+yourselves; I will give my life for you!"
+
+As she said the words a wonderful light glowed from her heart, the sound
+of thunder rolled through the sky, and a love greater than words can
+tell filled the Cloud; down, down, close to the earth she swept, and
+gave up her life in a blessed, healing shower of rain.
+
+That rain was the Cloud's great deed; it was her death, too; but it was
+also her glory. Over the whole country-side, as far as the rain fell, a
+lovely rainbow sprang its arch, and all the brightest rays of heaven
+made its colours; it was the last greeting of a love so great that it
+sacrificed itself.
+
+Soon that, too, was gone, but long, long afterward the men and animals
+who were saved by the Cloud kept her blessing in their hearts.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Adapted from the German of Robert Reinick's _Märchen-, Lieder-und
+Geschichtenbuch_ (Velhagen und Klasing, Bielefeld and Leipsic).
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE RED HEN
+
+
+The little Red Hen was in the farmyard with her chickens, when she found
+a grain of wheat.
+
+"Who will plant this wheat?" she said.
+
+"Not I," said the Goose.
+
+"Not I," said the Duck.
+
+"I will, then," said the little Red Hen, and she planted the grain of
+wheat.
+
+When the wheat was ripe she said, "Who will take this wheat to the
+mill?"
+
+"Not I," said the Goose.
+
+"Not I," said the Duck.
+
+"I will, then," said the little Red Hen, and she took the wheat to the
+mill.
+
+When she brought the flour home she said, "Who will make some bread with
+this flour?"
+
+"Not I," said the Goose.
+
+"Not I," said the Duck.
+
+"I will, then," said the little Red Hen.
+
+When the bread was baked, she said, "Who will eat this bread?"
+
+"I will," said the Goose.
+
+"I will," said the Duck.
+
+"No, you won't," said the little Red Hen. "I shall eat it myself. Cluck!
+cluck!" And she called her chickens to help her.
+
+
+
+
+THE GINGERBREAD MAN[11]
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a little old woman and a little old man, and
+they lived all alone in a little old house. They hadn't any little
+girls or any little boys, at all. So one day, the little old woman made
+a boy out of gingerbread; she made him a chocolate jacket, and put
+raisins on it for buttons; his eyes were made of fine, fat currants; his
+mouth was made of rose-coloured sugar; and he had a gay little cap of
+orange sugar-candy. When the little old woman had rolled him out, and
+dressed him up, and pinched his gingerbread shoes into shape, she put
+him in a pan; then she put the pan in the oven and shut the door; and
+she thought, "Now I shall have a little boy of my own."
+
+When it was time for the Gingerbread Boy to be done she opened the oven
+door and pulled out the pan. Out jumped the little Gingerbread Boy on to
+the floor, and away he ran, out of the door and down the street! The
+little old woman and the little old man ran after him as fast as they
+could, but he just laughed, and shouted,--
+
+"Run! run! as fast as you can!
+
+"You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"
+
+And they couldn't catch him.
+
+The little Gingerbread Boy ran on and on, until he came to a cow, by the
+roadside. "Stop, little Gingerbread Boy," said the cow; "I want to eat
+you." The little Gingerbread Boy laughed and said,--
+
+"I have run away from a little old woman,
+
+"And a little old man,
+
+"And I can run away from you, I can!"
+
+And, as the cow chased him, he looked over his shoulder and cried,--
+
+"Run! run! as fast as you can!
+
+"You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"
+
+And the cow couldn't catch him.
+
+The little Gingerbread Boy ran on, and on, and on, till he came to a
+horse, in the pasture. "Please stop, little Gingerbread Boy," said the
+horse, "you look very good to eat." But the little Gingerbread Boy
+laughed out loud. "Oho! oho!" he said,--
+
+"I have run away from a little old woman,
+
+"A little old man,
+
+"A cow,
+
+"And I can run away from you, I can!"
+
+And, as the horse chased him, he looked over his shoulder and cried,--
+
+"Run! run! as fast as you can!
+
+"You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"
+
+And the horse couldn't catch him.
+
+By and by the little Gingerbread Boy came to a barn full of threshers.
+When the threshers smelt the Gingerbread Boy, they tried to pick him up,
+and said, "Don't run so fast, little Gingerbread Boy; you look very good
+to eat."
+
+But the little Gingerbread Boy ran harder than ever, and as he ran he
+cried out,--
+
+"I have run away from a little old woman,
+
+"A little old man,
+
+"A cow,
+
+"A horse,
+
+"And I can run away from you, I can!"
+
+And when he found that he was ahead of the threshers, he turned and
+shouted back to them,--
+
+"Run! run! as fast as you can!
+
+"You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"
+
+And the threshers couldn't catch him.
+
+Then the little Gingerbread Boy ran faster than ever. He ran and ran
+until he came to a field full of mowers. When the mowers saw how fine he
+looked, they ran after him, calling out, "Wait a bit! wait a bit, little
+Gingerbread Boy, we wish to eat you!" But the little Gingerbread Boy
+laughed harder than ever, and ran like the wind. "Oho! oho!" he said,--
+
+"I have run away from a little old woman,
+
+"A little old man,
+
+"A cow,
+
+"A horse,
+
+"A barn full of threshers,
+
+"And I can run away from you, I can!"
+
+And when he found that he was ahead of the mowers, he turned and shouted
+back to them,--
+
+"Run! run! as fast as you can!
+
+"You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"
+
+And the mowers couldn't catch him.
+
+By this time the little Gingerbread Boy was so proud that he didn't
+think anybody could catch him. Pretty soon he saw a fox coming across a
+field. The fox looked at him and began to run. But the little
+Gingerbread Boy shouted across to him, "You can't catch me!" The fox
+began to run faster, and the little Gingerbread Boy ran faster, and as
+he ran he chuckled,--
+
+"I have run away from a little old woman,
+
+"A little old man,
+
+"A cow,
+
+"A horse,
+
+"A barn full of threshers,
+
+"A field full of mowers,
+
+"And I can run away from you, I can!
+
+"Run! run! as fast as you can!
+
+"You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"
+
+"Why," said the fox, "I would not catch you if I could. I would not
+think of disturbing you."
+
+Just then, the little Gingerbread Boy came to a river. He could not swim
+across, and he wanted to keep running away from the cow and the horse
+and the people.
+
+"Jump on my tail, and I will take you across," said the fox.
+
+So the little Gingerbread Boy jumped on the fox's tail, and the fox
+began to swim the river. When he was a little way from the bank he
+turned his head, and said, "You are too heavy on my tail, little
+Gingerbread Boy, I fear I shall let you get wet; jump on my back."
+
+The little Gingerbread Boy jumped on his back.
+
+A little farther out, the fox said, "I am afraid the water will cover
+you, there; jump on my shoulder."
+
+The little Gingerbread Boy jumped on his shoulder.
+
+In the middle of the stream the fox said, "Oh, dear! little Gingerbread
+Boy, my shoulder is sinking; jump on my nose, and I can hold you out of
+water."
+
+So the little Gingerbread Boy jumped on his nose.
+
+The minute the fox reached the bank he threw back his head, and gave a
+snap!
+
+"Dear me!" said the little Gingerbread Boy, "I am a quarter gone!" The
+next minute he said, "Why, I am half gone!" The next minute he said, "My
+goodness gracious, I am three quarters gone!"
+
+And after that, the little Gingerbread Boy never said anything more at
+all.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] I have tried to give this story in the most familiar form; it
+varies a good deal in the hands of different story-tellers, but this is
+substantially the version I was "brought up on."
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE JACKALS AND THE LION[12]
+
+
+Once there was a great big jungle; and in the jungle there was a great
+big Lion; and the Lion was king of the jungle. Whenever he wanted
+anything to eat, all he had to do was to come up out of his cave in the
+stones and earth and _roar_. When he had roared a few times all the
+little people of the jungle were so frightened that they came out of
+their holes and hiding-places and ran, this way and that, to get away.
+Then, of course, the Lion could see where they were. And he pounced on
+them, killed them, and gobbled them up.
+
+He did this so often that at last there was not a single thing left
+alive in the jungle besides the Lion, except two little Jackals,--a
+little father Jackal and a little mother Jackal.
+
+They had run away so many times that they were quite thin and very
+tired, and they could not run so fast any more. And one day the Lion was
+so near that the little mother Jackal grew frightened; she said,--
+
+"Oh, Father Jackal, Father Jackal! I b'lieve our time has come! the Lion
+will surely catch us this time!"
+
+"Pooh! nonsense, mother!" said the little father Jackal. "Come, we'll
+run on a bit!"
+
+And they ran, ran, ran very fast, and the Lion did not catch them that
+time.
+
+But at last a day came when the Lion was nearer still and the little
+mother Jackal was frightened almost to death.
+
+"Oh, Father Jackal, Father Jackal!" she cried; "I'm sure our time has
+come! The Lion's going to eat us this time!"
+
+"Now, mother, don't you fret," said the little father Jackal; "you do
+just as I tell you, and it will be all right."
+
+Then what did those cunning little Jackals do but take hold of hands and
+run up towards the Lion, as if they had meant to come all the time. When
+he saw them coming he stood up, and roared in a terrible voice,--
+
+"You miserable little wretches, come here and be eaten, at once! Why
+didn't you come before?"
+
+The father Jackal bowed very low.
+
+"Indeed, Father Lion," he said, "we meant to come before; we knew we
+ought to come before; and we wanted to come before; but every time we
+started to come, a dreadful great lion came out of the woods and roared
+at us, and frightened us so that we ran away."
+
+"What do you mean?" roared the Lion. "There's no other lion in this
+jungle, and you know it!"
+
+"Indeed, indeed, Father Lion," said the little Jackal, "I know that is
+what everybody thinks; but indeed and indeed there is another lion! And
+he is as much bigger than you as you are bigger than I! His face is much
+more terrible, and his roar far, far more dreadful. Oh, he is far more
+fearful than you!"
+
+At that the Lion stood up and roared so that the jungle shook.
+
+"Take me to this Lion," he said; "I'll eat him up and then I'll eat you
+up."
+
+The little Jackals danced on ahead, and the Lion stalked behind. They
+led him to a place where there was a round, deep well of clear water.
+They went round on one side of it, and the Lion stalked up to the other.
+
+"He lives down there, Father Lion!" said the little Jackal. "He lives
+down there!"
+
+The Lion came close and looked down into the water,--and a lion's face
+looked back at him out of the water!
+
+When he saw that, the Lion roared and shook his mane and showed his
+teeth. And the lion in the water shook his mane and showed his teeth.
+The Lion above shook his mane again and growled again, and made a
+terrible face. But the lion in the water made just as terrible a one,
+back. The Lion above couldn't stand that. He leaped down into the well
+after the other lion.
+
+But, of course, as you know very well, there wasn't any other lion! It
+was only the reflection in the water!
+
+So the poor old Lion floundered about and floundered about, and as he
+couldn't get up the steep sides of the well, he was at last drowned. And
+when he was drowned, the little Jackals took hold of hands and danced
+round the well, and sang,--
+
+"The Lion is dead! The Lion is dead!
+
+"We have killed the great Lion who would have killed us!
+
+"The Lion is dead! The Lion is dead!
+
+"Ao! Ao! Ao!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[12] The four stories of the little Jackal, in this book, are adapted
+from stories in _Old Deccan Days_, by Mary Frere (John Murray), a
+collection of orally transmitted Hindu folk tales, which every teacher
+would gain by knowing. In the Hindu animal legends the Jackal seems to
+play the rôle assigned in Germanic lore to Reynard the Fox, and to
+"Bre'r Rabbit" in the negro stories of Southern America; he is the
+clever and humorous trickster who usually comes out of an encounter with
+a whole skin, and turns the laugh on his enemy, however mighty he may
+be.[A]
+
+
+
+
+THE COUNTRY MOUSE AND THE CITY MOUSE[13]
+
+
+Once a little mouse who lived in the country invited a little mouse
+from the city to visit him. When the little City Mouse sat down to
+dinner he was surprised to find that the Country Mouse had nothing to
+eat except barley and grain.
+
+"Really," he said, "you do not live well at all; you should see how I
+live! I have all sorts of fine things to eat every day. You must come to
+visit me and see how nice it is to live in the city."
+
+The little Country Mouse was glad to do this, and after a while he went
+to the city to visit his friend.
+
+The very first place that the City Mouse took the Country Mouse to see
+was the kitchen cupboard of the house where he lived. There, on the
+lowest shelf, behind some stone jars, stood a big paper bag of brown
+sugar. The little City Mouse gnawed a hole in the bag and invited his
+friend to nibble for himself.
+
+The two little mice nibbled and nibbled, and the Country Mouse thought
+he had never tasted anything so delicious in his life. He was just
+thinking how lucky the City Mouse was, when suddenly the door opened
+with a bang, and in came the cook to get some flour.
+
+"Run!" whispered the City Mouse. And they ran as fast as they could to
+the little hole where they had come in. The little Country Mouse was
+shaking all over when they got safely away, but the little City Mouse
+said, "That is nothing; she will soon go away and then we can go back."
+
+After the cook had gone away and shut the door they stole softly back,
+and this time the City Mouse had something new to show: he took the
+little Country Mouse into a corner on the top shelf, where a big jar of
+dried prunes stood open. After much tugging and pulling they got a large
+dried prune out of the jar on to the shelf and began to nibble at it.
+This was even better than the brown sugar. The little Country Mouse
+liked the taste so much that he could hardly nibble fast enough. But all
+at once, in the midst of their eating, there came a scratching at the
+door and a sharp, loud _miaouw_!
+
+"What is that?" said the Country Mouse. The City Mouse just whispered,
+"Sh!" and ran as fast as he could to the hole. The Country Mouse ran
+after, you may be sure, as fast as _he_ could. As soon as they were out
+of danger the City Mouse said, "That was the old Cat; she is the best
+mouser in town,--if she once gets you, you are lost."
+
+"This is very terrible," said the little Country Mouse; "let us not go
+back to the cupboard again."
+
+"No," said the City Mouse, "I will take you to the cellar; there is
+something specially fine there."
+
+So the City Mouse took his little friend down the cellar stairs and into
+a big cupboard where there were many shelves. On the shelves were jars
+of butter, and cheeses in bags and out of bags. Overhead hung bunches of
+sausages, and there were spicy apples in barrels standing about. It
+smelt so good that it went to the little Country Mouse's head. He ran
+along the shelf and nibbled at a cheese here, and a bit of butter there,
+until he saw an especially rich, very delicious-smelling piece of cheese
+on a queer little stand in a corner. He was just on the point of putting
+his teeth into the cheese when the City Mouse saw him.
+
+"Stop! stop!" cried the City Mouse. "That is a trap!"
+
+The little Country Mouse stopped and said, "What is a trap?"
+
+"That thing is a trap," said the little City Mouse. "The minute you
+touch the cheese with your teeth something comes down on your head
+hard, and you're dead."
+
+The little Country Mouse looked at the trap, and he looked at the
+cheese, and he looked at the little City Mouse. "If you'll excuse me,"
+he said, "I think I will go home. I'd rather have barley and grain to
+eat and eat it in peace and comfort, than have brown sugar and dried
+prunes and cheese,--and be frightened to death all the time!"
+
+So the little Country Mouse went back to his home, and there he stayed
+all the rest of his life.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] The following story of the two mice, with the similar fables of
+_The Boy who cried Wolf_, _The Frog King_, and _The Sun_ _and the Wind_,
+are given here with the hope that they may be of use to the many
+teachers who find the over-familiar material of the fables difficult to
+adapt, and who are yet aware of the great usefulness of the stories to
+young minds. A certain degree of vividness and amplitude must be added
+to the compact statement of the famous collections, and yet it is not
+wise to change the style-effect of a fable, wholly. I venture to give
+these versions, not as perfect models, of course, but as renderings
+which have been acceptable to children, and which I believe retain the
+original point simply and strongly.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE JACK ROLLAROUND[14]
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a wee little boy who slept in a tiny
+trundle-bed near his mother's great bed. The trundle-bed had castors on
+it so that it could be rolled about, and there was nothing in the world
+the little boy liked so much as to have it rolled. When his mother came
+to bed he would cry, "Roll me around! roll me around!" And his mother
+would put out her hand from the big bed and push the little bed back and
+forth till she was tired. The little boy could never get enough; so for
+this he was called "Little Jack Rollaround."
+
+One night he had made his mother roll him about, till she fell asleep,
+and even then he kept crying, "Roll me around! roll me around!" His
+mother pushed him about in her sleep, until her slumber became too
+sound; then she stopped. But Little Jack Rollaround kept on crying,
+"Roll around! roll around!"
+
+By and by the Moon peeped in at the window. He saw a funny sight: Little
+Jack Rollaround was lying in his trundle-bed, and he had put up one
+little fat leg for a mast, and fastened the corner of his wee shirt to
+it for a sail; and he was blowing at it with all his might, and saying,
+"Roll around! roll around!" Slowly, slowly, the little trundle-bed boat
+began to move; it sailed along the floor and up the wall and across the
+ceiling and down again!
+
+"More! more!" cried Little Jack Rollaround; and the little boat sailed
+faster up the wall, across the ceiling, down the wall, and over the
+floor. The Moon laughed at the sight; but when Little Jack Rollaround
+saw the Moon, he called out, "Open the door, old Moon! I want to roll
+through the town, so that the people can see me!"
+
+The Moon could not open the door, but he shone in through the keyhole,
+in a broad band. And Little Jack Rollaround sailed his trundle-bed boat
+up the beam, through the keyhole, and into the street.
+
+"Make a light, old Moon," he said; "I want the people to see me!"
+
+So the good Moon made a light and went along with him, and the little
+trundle-bed boat went sailing down the streets into the main street of
+the village. They rolled past the town hall and the schoolhouse and the
+church; but nobody saw little Jack Rollaround, because everybody was in
+bed, asleep.
+
+"Why don't the people come to see me?" he shouted.
+
+High up on the church steeple, the Weather-vane answered, "It is no time
+for people to be in the streets; decent folk are in their beds."
+
+"Then I'll go to the woods, so that the animals may see me," said Little
+Jack. "Come along, old Moon, and make a light!"
+
+The good Moon went along and made a light, and they came to the forest.
+"Roll! roll!" cried the little boy; and the trundle-bed went trundling
+among the trees in the great wood, scaring up the squirrels and
+startling the little leaves on the trees. The poor old Moon began to
+have a bad time of it, for the tree-trunks got in his way so that he
+could not go so fast as the bed, and every time he got behind, the
+little boy called, "Hurry up, old Moon, I want the beasts to see me!"
+
+But all the animals were asleep, and nobody at all looked at Little Jack
+Rollaround except an old White Owl; and all she said was, "Who are
+you?"
+
+The little boy did not like her, so he blew harder, and the trundle-bed
+boat went sailing through the forest till it came to the end of the
+world.
+
+"I must go home now; it is late," said the Moon.
+
+"I will go with you; make a path!" said Little Jack Rollaround.
+
+The kind Moon made a path up to the sky, and up sailed the little bed
+into the midst of the sky. All the little bright Stars were there with
+their nice little lamps. And when he saw them, that naughty Little Jack
+Rollaround began to tease. "Out of the way, there! I am coming!" he
+shouted, and sailed the trundle-bed boat straight at them. He bumped the
+little Stars right and left, all over the sky, until every one of them
+put his little lamp out and left it dark.
+
+"Do not treat the little Stars so," said the good Moon.
+
+But Jack Rollaround only behaved the worse: "Get out of the way, old
+Moon!" he shouted, "I am coming!"
+
+And he steered the little trundle-bed boat straight into the old Moon's
+face, and bumped his nose!
+
+This was too much for the good Moon; he put out his big light, all at
+once, and left the sky pitch-black.
+
+"Make a light, old Moon! Make a light!" shouted the little boy. But the
+Moon answered never a word, and Jack Rollaround could not see where to
+steer. He went rolling criss-cross, up and down, all over the sky,
+knocking into the planets and stumbling into the clouds, till he did not
+know where he was.
+
+Suddenly he saw a big yellow light at the very edge of the sky. He
+thought it was the Moon. "Look out, I am coming!" he cried, and steered
+for the light.
+
+But it was not the kind old Moon at all; it was the great mother Sun,
+just coming up out of her home in the sea, to begin her day's work.
+
+"Aha, youngster, what are you doing in my sky?" she said. And she picked
+Little Jack Rollaround up and threw him, trundle-bed boat and all, into
+the middle of the sea!
+
+And I suppose he is there yet, unless somebody picked him out again.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] Based on Theodor Storm's story of _Der Kleine Häwelmann_ (George
+Westermann, Braunschweig). Very freely adapted from the German story.
+
+
+
+
+HOW BROTHER RABBIT FOOLED THE WHALE AND THE ELEPHANT[15]
+
+
+One day little Brother Rabbit was running along on the sand, lippety,
+lippety, when he saw the Whale and the Elephant talking together.
+Little Brother Rabbit crouched down and listened to what they were
+saying. This was what they were saying:--
+
+"You are the biggest thing on the land, Brother Elephant," said the
+Whale, "and I am the biggest thing in the sea; if we join together we
+can rule all the animals in the world, and have our way about
+everything."
+
+"Very good, very good," trumpeted the Elephant; "that suits me; we will
+do it."
+
+Little Brother Rabbit sniggered to himself. "They won't rule me," he
+said. He ran away and got a very long, very strong rope, and he got his
+big drum, and hid the drum a long way off in the bushes. Then he went
+along the beach till he came to the Whale.
+
+"Oh, please, dear, strong Mr Whale," he said, "will you have the great
+kindness to do me a favour? My cow is stuck in the mud, a quarter of a
+mile from here. And I can't pull her out. But you are so strong and so
+obliging, that I venture to trust you will help me out."
+
+The Whale was so pleased with the compliment that he said, "Yes," at
+once.
+
+"Then," said the Rabbit, "I will tie this end of my long rope to you,
+and I will run away and tie the other end round my cow, and when I am
+ready I will beat my big drum. When you hear that, pull very, very
+hard, for the cow is stuck very deep in the mud."
+
+"Huh!" grunted the Whale, "I'll pull her out, if she is stuck to the
+horns."
+
+Little Brother Rabbit tied the rope-end to the Whale, and ran off,
+lippety, lippety, till he came to the place where the Elephant was.
+
+"Oh, please, mighty and kindly Elephant," he said, making a very low
+bow, "will you do me a favour?"
+
+"What is it?" asked the Elephant.
+
+"My cow is stuck in the mud, about a quarter of a mile from here," said
+little Brother Rabbit, "and I cannot pull her out. Of course you could.
+If you will be so very obliging as to help me----"
+
+"Certainly," said the Elephant grandly, "certainly."
+
+"Then," said little Brother Rabbit, "I will tie one end of this long
+rope to your trunk, and the other to my cow, and as soon as I have tied
+her tightly I will beat my big drum. When you hear that, pull; pull as
+hard as you can, for my cow is very heavy."
+
+"Never fear," said the Elephant, "I could pull twenty cows."
+
+"I am sure you could," said the Rabbit, politely, "only be sure to begin
+gently, and pull harder and harder till you get her."
+
+Then he tied the end of the rope tightly round the Elephant's trunk,
+and ran away into the bushes. There he sat down and beat the big drum.
+
+The Whale began to pull, and the Elephant began to pull, and in a jiffy
+the rope tightened till it was stretched as hard as could be.
+
+"This is a remarkably heavy cow," said the Elephant; "but I'll fetch
+her!" And he braced his forefeet in the earth, and gave a tremendous
+pull.
+
+"Dear me!" said the Whale. "That cow must be stuck mighty tight"; and he
+drove his tail deep in the water, and gave a marvellous pull.
+
+He pulled harder; the Elephant pulled harder. Pretty soon the Whale
+found himself sliding toward the land. The reason was, of course, that
+the Elephant had something solid to brace against, and, beside, as fast
+as he pulled the rope in a little, he took a turn with it round his
+trunk!
+
+But when the Whale found himself sliding toward the land he was so
+provoked with the cow that he dived head first, down to the bottom of
+the sea. That was a pull! The Elephant was jerked off his feet, and came
+slipping and sliding to the beach, and into the surf. He was terribly
+angry. He braced himself with all his might, and pulled his best. At the
+jerk, up came the Whale out of the water.
+
+"Who is pulling me?" spouted the Whale.
+
+"Who is pulling me?" trumpeted the Elephant.
+
+And then each saw the rope in the other's hold.
+
+"I'll teach you to play cow!" roared the Elephant.
+
+"I'll show you how to fool me!" fumed the Whale. And they began to pull
+again. But this time the rope broke, the Whale turned a somersault, and
+the Elephant fell over backward.
+
+At that, they were both so ashamed that neither would speak to the
+other. So that broke up the bargain between them.
+
+And little Brother Rabbit sat in the bushes and laughed, and laughed,
+and laughed.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] Adapted from two tales included in the records of the American
+Folk-Lore Society.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE HALF-CHICK
+
+
+There was once upon a time a Spanish Hen, who hatched out some nice
+little chickens. She was much pleased with their looks as they came from
+the shell. One, two, three, came out plump and fluffy; but when the
+fourth shell broke, out came a little half-chick! It had only one leg
+and one wing and one eye! It was just half a chicken.
+
+The Hen-mother did not know what in the world to do with the queer
+little Half-Chick. She was afraid something would happen to it, and she
+tried hard to protect it and keep it from harm. But as soon as it could
+walk the little Half-Chick showed a most headstrong spirit, worse than
+any of its brothers. It would not mind, and it would go wherever it
+wanted to; it walked with a funny little hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, and
+got along pretty fast.
+
+One day the little Half-Chick said, "Mother, I am off to Madrid, to see
+the King! Good-bye."
+
+The poor Hen-mother did everything she could think of to keep him from
+doing so foolish a thing, but the little Half-Chick laughed at her
+naughtily. "I'm for seeing the King," he said; "this life is too quiet
+for me." And away he went, hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, over the fields.
+
+When he had gone some distance the little Half-Chick came to a little
+brook that was caught in the weeds and in much trouble.
+
+"Little Half-Chick," whispered the Water, "I am so choked with these
+weeds that I cannot move; I am almost lost, for want of room; please
+push the sticks and weeds away with your bill and help me."
+
+"The idea!" said the little Half-Chick. "I cannot be bothered with you;
+I am off to Madrid, to see the King!" And in spite of the brook's
+begging, he went away, hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick.
+
+A bit farther on, the Half-Chick came to a Fire, which was smothered in
+damp sticks and in great distress.
+
+"Oh, little Half-Chick," said the Fire, "you are just in time to save
+me. I am almost dead for want of air. Fan me a little with your wing, I
+beg."
+
+"The idea!" said the little Half-Chick. "I cannot be bothered with you;
+I am off to Madrid, to see the King!" And he went laughing off,
+hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick.
+
+When he had hoppity-kicked a good way, and was near Madrid, he came to a
+clump of bushes, where the Wind was caught fast. The Wind was
+whimpering, and begging to be set free.
+
+"Little Half-Chick," said the Wind, "you are just in time to help me; if
+you will brush aside these twigs and leaves, I can get my breath; help
+me, quickly!"
+
+"Ho! the idea!" said the little Half-Chick "I have no time to bother
+with you. I am going to Madrid, to see the King." And he went off,
+hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, leaving the Wind to smother.
+
+After a while he came to Madrid and to the palace of the King.
+Hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, the little Half-Chick skipped past the
+sentry at the gate, and hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, he crossed the
+court. But as he was passing the windows of the kitchen the Cook looked
+out and saw him.
+
+"The very thing for the King's dinner!" she said. "I was needing a
+chicken!" And she seized the little Half-Chick by his one wing and threw
+him into a kettle of water on the fire.
+
+The Water came over the little Half-Chick's feathers, over his head,
+into his eyes. It was terribly uncomfortable. The little Half-Chick
+cried out,--
+
+"Water, don't drown me! Stay down, don't come so high!"
+
+"But," the Water said, "Little Half-Chick, little Half-Chick, when I was
+in trouble you would not help me," and came higher than ever.
+
+Now the Water grew warm, hot, hotter, frightfully hot; the little
+Half-Chick cried out, "Do not burn so hot, Fire! You are burning me to
+death! Stop!"
+
+But the Fire said, "Little Half-Chick, little Half-Chick, when I was in
+trouble you would not help me," and burned hotter than ever.
+
+Just as the little Half-Chick thought he must suffocate, the Cook took
+the cover off, to look at the dinner. "Dear me," she said, "this chicken
+is no good; it is burned to a cinder." And she picked the little
+Half-Chick up by one leg and threw him out of the window.
+
+In the air he was caught by a breeze and taken up higher than the trees.
+Round and round he was twirled till he was so dizzy he thought he must
+perish. "Don't blow me so, Wind," he cried, "let me down!"
+
+"Little Half-Chick, little Half-Chick," said the Wind, "when I was in
+trouble you would not help me!" And the Wind blew him straight up to the
+top of the church steeple, and stuck him there, fast!
+
+There he stands to this day, with his one eye, his one wing, and his one
+leg. He cannot hoppity-kick any more, but he turns slowly round when the
+wind blows, and keeps his head toward it, to hear what it says.
+
+
+
+
+THE BLACKBERRY-BUSH[16]
+
+
+A little boy sat at his mother's knees, by the long western window,
+looking out into the garden. It was autumn, and the wind was sad; and
+the golden elm leaves lay scattered about among the grass, and on the
+gravel path. The mother was knitting a little stocking; her fingers
+moved the bright needles; but her eyes were fixed on the clear evening
+sky.
+
+As the darkness gathered, the wee boy laid his head on her lap and kept
+so still that, at last, she leaned forward to look into his dear round
+face. He was not asleep, but was watching very earnestly a
+blackberry-bush, that waved its one tall, dark-red spray in the wind
+outside the fence.
+
+"What are you thinking about, my darling?" she said, smoothing his soft,
+honey-coloured hair.
+
+"The blackberry-bush, mamma; what does it say? It keeps nodding, nodding
+to me behind the fence; what does it say, mamma?"
+
+"It says," she answered, "'I see a happy little boy in the warm,
+fire-lighted room. The wind blows cold, and here it is dark and lonely;
+but that little boy is warm and happy and safe at his mother's knees. I
+nod to him, and he looks at me. I wonder if he knows how happy he is!
+
+"'See, all my leaves are dark crimson. Every day they dry and wither
+more and more; by and by they will be so weak they can scarcely cling to
+my branches, and the north wind will tear them all away, and nobody will
+remember them any more. Then the snow will sink down and wrap me close.
+Then the snow will melt again and icy rain will clothe me, and the
+bitter wind will rattle my bare twigs up and down.
+
+"'I nod my head to all who pass, and dreary nights and dreary days go
+by; but in the happy house, so warm and bright, the little boy plays all
+day with books and toys. His mother and his father cherish him; he
+nestles on their knees in the red firelight at night, while they read to
+him lovely stories, or sing sweet old songs to him,--the happy little
+boy! And outside I peep over the snow and see a stream of ruddy light
+from a crack in the window-shutter, and I nod out here alone in the
+dark, thinking how beautiful it is.
+
+"'And here I wait patiently. I take the snow and the rain and the cold,
+and I am not sorry, but glad; for in my roots I feel warmth and life,
+and I know that a store of greenness and beauty is shut up safe in my
+small brown buds. Day and night go again and again; little by little the
+snow melts all away; the ground grows soft; the sky is blue; the little
+birds fly over, crying, "It is spring! it is spring!" Ah! then through
+all my twigs I feel the slow sap stirring.
+
+"'Warmer grow the sunbeams, and softer the air. The small blades of
+grass creep thick about my feet; the sweet rain helps to swell my
+shining buds. More and more I push forth my leaves, till out I burst in
+a gay green dress, and nod in joy and pride. The little boy comes
+running to look at me, and cries, "Oh, mamma! the little blackberry-bush
+is alive and beautiful and green. Oh, come and see!" And I hear; and I
+bow my head in the summer wind; and every day they watch me grow more
+beautiful, till at last I shake out blossoms, fair and fragrant.
+
+"'A few days more, and I drop the white petals down among the grass,
+and, lo! there are the green tiny berries! Carefully I hold them up to
+the sun; carefully I gather the dew in the summer nights; slowly they
+ripen; they grow larger and redder and darker, and at last they are
+black, shining, delicious. I hold them as high as I can for the little
+boy, who comes dancing out. He shouts with joy, and gathers them in his
+dear hand; and he runs to share them with his mother, saying, "Here is
+what the patient blackberry-bush bore for us: see how nice, mamma!"
+
+"'Ah! then indeed I am glad, and would say, if I could, "Yes, take them,
+dear little boy; I kept them for you, held them long up to the sun and
+rain to make them sweet and ripe for you"; and I nod and nod in full
+content, for my work is done. From the window he watches me and thinks,
+"There is the little blackberry-bush that was so kind to me. I see it
+and I love it. I know it is safe out there nodding all alone, and next
+summer it will hold ripe berries up for me to gather again."'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the wee boy smiled, and said he liked the little story. His mother
+took him up in her arms, and they went out to supper and left the
+blackberry-bush nodding up and down in the wind; and there it is
+nodding yet.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[16] From Celia Thaxter's _Stories and Poems for Children_.
+
+
+
+
+THE FAIRIES[17]
+
+
+     Up the airy mountain,
+       Down the rushy glen,
+     We daren't go a-hunting
+       For fear of little men.
+     Wee folk, good folk,
+       Trooping all together;
+     Green jacket, red cap,
+       And white owl's feather!
+
+     Down along the rocky shore
+       Some make their home--
+     They live on crispy pancakes
+       Of yellow tide-foam;
+     Some in the reeds
+       Of the black mountain-lake,
+     With frogs for their watch-dogs,
+       All night awake.
+
+     High on the hilltop
+       The old King sits;
+     He is now so old and gray,
+       He's nigh lost his wits.
+     With a bridge of white mist
+       Columbkill he crosses,
+     On his stately journeys
+       From Slieveleague to Rosses;
+     Or going up with music
+       On cold starry nights,
+     To sup with the Queen
+       Of the gay Northern Lights.
+
+     They stole little Bridget
+       For seven years long;
+     When she came down again
+       Her friends were all gone.
+     They took her lightly back,
+       Between the night and morrow;
+     They thought that she was fast asleep,
+       But she was dead with sorrow.
+     They have kept her ever since
+       Deep within the lake,
+     On a bed of flag-leaves,
+       Watching till she wake.
+
+     By the craggy hillside,
+       Through the mosses bare,
+     They have planted thorn-trees,
+       For pleasure here and there.
+     Is any man so daring
+       As dig them up in spite,
+     He shall find their sharpest thorns
+       In his bed at night.
+
+     Up the airy mountain,
+       Down the rushy glen,
+     We daren't go a-hunting
+       For fear of little men.
+     Wee folk, good folk,
+       Trooping all together;
+     Green jacket, red cap,
+       And white owl's feather!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] By William Allingham.
+
+
+
+THE ADVENTURES OF THE LITTLE FIELD MOUSE
+
+
+Once upon a time, there was a little brown Field Mouse; and one day he
+was out in the fields to see what he could find. He was running along in
+the grass, poking his nose into everything and looking with his two eyes
+all about, when he saw a smooth, shiny acorn, lying in the grass. It was
+such a fine shiny little acorn that he thought he would take it home
+with him; so he put out his paw to touch it, but the little acorn rolled
+away from him. He ran after it, but it kept rolling on, just ahead of
+him, till it came to a place where a big oak-tree had its roots spread
+all over the ground. Then it rolled under a big round root.
+
+Little Mr Field Mouse ran to the root and poked his nose under after the
+acorn, and there he saw a small round hole in the ground. He slipped
+through and saw some stairs going down into the earth. The acorn was
+rolling down, with a soft tapping sound, ahead of him, so down he went
+too. Down, down, down, rolled the acorn, and down, down, down, went the
+Field Mouse, until suddenly he saw a tiny door at the foot of the
+stairs.
+
+The shiny acorn rolled to the door and struck against it with a tap.
+Quickly the little door opened and the acorn rolled inside. The Field
+Mouse hurried as fast as he could down the last stairs, and pushed
+through just as the door was closing. It shut behind him, and he was in
+a little room. And there, before him, stood a queer little Red Man! He
+had a little red cap, and a little red jacket, and odd little red shoes
+with points at the toes.
+
+"You are my prisoner," he said to the Field Mouse.
+
+"What for?" said the Field Mouse.
+
+"Because you tried to steal my acorn," said the little Red Man.
+
+"It is my acorn," said the Field Mouse; "I found it."
+
+"No, it isn't," said the little Red Man, "I have it; you will never see
+it again."
+
+The little Field Mouse looked all about the room as fast as he could,
+but he could not see any acorn. Then he thought he would go back up the
+tiny stairs to his own home. But the little door was locked, and the
+little Red Man had the key. And he said to the poor mouse,--
+
+"You shall be my servant; you shall make my bed and sweep my room and
+cook my broth."
+
+So the little brown Mouse was the little Red Man's servant, and every
+day he made the little Red Man's bed and swept the little Red Man's room
+and cooked the little Red Man's broth. And every day the little Red Man
+went away through the tiny door, and did not come back till afternoon.
+But he always locked the door after him, and carried away the key.
+
+At last, one day he was in such a hurry that he turned the key before
+the door was quite latched, which, of course, didn't lock it at all. He
+went away without noticing,--he was in such a hurry.
+
+The little Field Mouse knew that his chance had come to run away home.
+But he didn't want to go without the pretty, shiny acorn. Where it was
+he didn't know, so he looked everywhere. He opened every little drawer
+and looked in, but it wasn't in any of the drawers; he peeped on every
+shelf, but it wasn't on a shelf; he hunted in every closet, but it
+wasn't in there. Finally, he climbed up on a chair and opened a wee, wee
+door in the chimney-piece,--and there it was!
+
+He took it quickly in his forepaws, and then he took it in his mouth,
+and then he ran away. He pushed open the little door; he climbed up, up,
+up the little stairs; he came out through the hole under the root; he
+ran and ran through the fields; and at last he came to his own house.
+
+When he was in his own house he set the shiny acorn on the table. I
+expect he set it down hard, for all at once, with a little snap, it
+opened!--exactly like a little box.
+
+And what do you think! There was a tiny necklace inside! It was a most
+beautiful tiny necklace, all made of jewels, and it was just big enough
+for a lady mouse. So the little Field Mouse gave the tiny necklace to
+his little Mouse-sister. She thought it was perfectly lovely. And when
+she wasn't wearing it she kept it in the shiny acorn box.
+
+And the little Red Man never knew what had become of it, because he
+didn't know where the little Field Mouse lived.
+
+
+
+
+ANOTHER LITTLE RED HEN[18]
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a little Red Hen, who lived on a farm all by
+herself. An old Fox, crafty and sly, had a den in the rocks, on a hill
+near her house. Many and many a night this old Fox used to lie awake
+and think to himself how good that little Red Hen would taste if he
+could once get her in his big kettle and boil her for dinner. But he
+couldn't catch the little Red Hen, because she was too wise for him.
+Every time she went out to market she locked the door of the house
+behind her, and as soon as she came in again she locked the door behind
+her and put the key in her apron pocket, where she kept her scissors and
+some sugar candy.
+
+At last the old Fox thought out a way to catch the little Red Hen. Early
+in the morning he said to his old mother, "Have the kettle boiling when
+I come home to-night, for I'll be bringing the little Red Hen for
+supper." Then he took a big bag and slung it over his shoulder, and
+walked till he came to the little Red Hen's house. The little Red Hen
+was just coming out of her door to pick up a few sticks for firewood. So
+the old Fox hid behind the wood-pile, and as soon as she bent down to
+get a stick, into the house he slipped, and scurried behind the door.
+
+In a minute the little Red Hen came quickly in, and shut the door and
+locked it. "I'm glad I'm safely in," she said. Just as she said it, she
+turned round, and there stood the ugly old Fox, with his big bag over
+his shoulder. Whiff! how scared the little Red Hen was! She dropped her
+apronful of sticks, and flew up to the big beam across the ceiling.
+There she perched, and she said to the old Fox, down below, "You may as
+well go home, for you can't get me."
+
+"Can't I, though!" said the Fox. And what do you think he did? He stood
+on the floor underneath the little Red Hen and twirled round in a circle
+after his own tail. And as he spun, and spun, and spun, faster, and
+faster, and faster, the poor little Red Hen got so dizzy watching him
+that she couldn't hold on to the perch. She dropped off, and the old Fox
+picked her up and put her in his bag, slung the bag over his shoulder,
+and started for home, where the kettle was boiling.
+
+He had a very long way to go, up hill, and the little Red Hen was still
+so dizzy that she didn't know where she was. But when the dizziness
+began to go off, she whisked her little scissors out of her apron
+pocket, and snip! she cut a little hole in the bag; then she poked her
+head out and saw where she was, and as soon as they came to a good spot
+she cut the hole bigger and jumped out herself. There was a great big
+stone lying there, and the little Red Hen picked it up and put it in the
+bag as quick as a wink. Then she ran as fast as she could till she came
+to her own little farmhouse, and she went in and locked the door with
+the big key.
+
+The old Fox went on carrying the stone and never knew the difference.
+My, but it bumped him well! He was pretty tired when he got home. But he
+was so pleased to think of the supper he was going to have that he did
+not mind that at all. As soon as his mother opened the door he said, "Is
+the kettle boiling?"
+
+"Yes," said his mother; "have you got the little Red Hen?"
+
+"I have," said the old Fox. "When I open the bag you hold the cover off
+the kettle and I'll shake the bag so that the Hen will fall in, and then
+you pop the cover on, before she can jump out."
+
+"All right," said his mean old mother; and she stood close by the
+boiling kettle, ready to put the cover on.
+
+The Fox lifted the big, heavy bag up till it was over the open kettle,
+and gave it a shake. Splash! thump! splash! In went the stone and out
+came the boiling water, all over the old Fox and the old Fox's mother!
+
+And they were scalded to death.
+
+But the little Red Hen lived happily ever after, in her own little
+farmhouse.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] Adapted from the verse version, by Horace E. Scudder, which follows
+this as an alternative.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE LITTLE RID HIN
+
+
+     There was once't upon a time
+       A little small Rid Hin,
+     Off in the good ould country
+       Where yees ha' nivir bin.
+
+     Nice and quiet shure she was,
+       And nivir did any harrum;
+     She lived alane all be herself,
+       And worked upon her farrum.
+
+     There lived out o'er the hill,
+       In a great din o' rocks,
+     A crafty, shly, and wicked
+       Ould folly iv a Fox.
+
+     This rashkill iv a Fox,
+       He tuk it in his head
+     He'd have the little Rid Hin:
+       So, whin he wint to bed,
+
+     He laid awake and thaught
+       What a foine thing 'twad be
+     To fetch her home and bile her up
+       For his ould marm and he.
+
+     And so he thaught and thaught,
+       Until he grew so thin
+     That there was nothin' left of him
+       But jist his bones and shkin.
+
+     But the small Rid Hin was wise,
+       She always locked her door,
+     And in her pocket pit the key,
+       To keep the Fox out shure.
+
+     But at last there came a schame
+       Intil his wicked head,
+     And he tuk a great big bag
+       And to his mither said,--
+
+     "Now have the pot all bilin'
+       Agin the time I come;
+     We'll ate the small Rid Hin to-night,
+       For shure I'll bring her home."
+
+     And so away he wint
+       Wid the bag upon his back,
+     An' up the hill and through the woods
+       Saftly he made his track.
+
+     An' thin he came alang,
+       Craping as shtill's a mouse,
+     To where the little small Rid Hin
+       Lived in her shnug ould house.
+
+     An' out she comes hersel',
+       Jist as he got in sight,
+     To pick up shticks to make her fire:
+       "Aha!" says Fox, "all right.
+
+     "Begorra, now, I'll have yees
+       Widout much throuble more";
+     An' in he shlips quite unbeknownst,
+       An' hides be'ind the door.
+
+     An' thin, a minute afther,
+       In comes the small Rid Hin,
+     An' shuts the door, and locks it, too,
+       An' thinks, "I'm safely in."
+
+     An' thin she tarns around
+       An' looks be'ind the door;
+     There shtands the Fox wid his big tail
+       Shpread out upon the floor.
+
+     Dear me! she was so schared
+       Wid such a wondrous sight,
+     She dropped her apronful of shticks,
+       An' flew up in a fright,
+
+     An' lighted on the bame
+       Across on top the room;
+     "Aha!" says she, "ye don't have me;
+       Ye may as well go home."
+
+     "Aha!" says Fox, "we'll see;
+       I'll bring yees down from that."
+     So out he marched upon the floor
+       Right under where she sat.
+
+     An' thin he whiruled around,
+       An' round an' round an' round,
+     Fashter an' fashter an' fashter,
+       Afther his tail on the ground.
+
+     Until the small Rid Hin
+       She got so dizzy, shure,
+     Wid lookin' at the Fox's tail,
+       She jist dropped on the floor.
+
+     An' Fox he whipped her up,
+       An' pit her in his bag,
+     An' off he started all alone,
+       Him and his little dag.
+
+     All day he tracked the wood
+       Up hill an' down again;
+     An' wid him, shmotherin' in the bag,
+       The little small Rid Hin.
+
+     Sorra a know she knowed
+       Awhere she was that day;
+     Says she, "I'm biled an' ate up, shure
+       An' what'll be to pay?"
+
+     Thin she betho't hersel',
+       An' tuk her schissors out,
+     An' shnipped a big hole in the bag,
+       So she could look about.
+
+     An' 'fore ould Fox could think
+       She lept right out--she did,
+     An' thin picked up a great big shtone,
+       An' popped it in instid.
+
+     An' thin she rins off home,
+       Her outside door she locks;
+     Thinks she, "You see you don't have me,
+       You crafty, shly ould Fox."
+
+     An' Fox he tugged away
+       Wid the great big hivy shtone,
+     Thimpin' his shoulders very bad
+       As he wint in alone.
+
+     An' whin he came in sight
+       O' his great din o' rocks,
+     Jist watchin' for him at the door
+       He shpied ould mither Fox.
+
+     "Have ye the pot a-bilin'?"
+       Says he to ould Fox thin;
+     "Shure an' it is, me child," says she;
+       "Have ye the small Rid Hin?"
+
+     "Yes, jist here in me bag,
+       As shure as I shtand here;
+     Open the lid till I pit her in:
+       Open it--nivir fear."
+
+     So the rashkill cut the shtring,
+       An' hild the big bag over;
+     "Now when I shake it in," says he,
+       "Do ye pit on the cover."
+
+     "Yis, that I will"; an' thin
+       The shtone wint in wid a dash,
+     An' the pot o' bilin' wather
+       Came over them ker-splash.
+
+     An' schalted 'em both to death,
+       So they couldn't brathe no more;
+     An' the little small Rid Hin lived safe,
+       Jist where she lived before.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF EPAMINONDAS AND HIS AUNTIE[19]
+
+
+Epaminondas used to go to see his Auntie 'most every day, and she nearly
+always gave him something to take home to his Mammy.
+
+One day she gave him a big piece of cake; nice, yellow, rich gold-cake.
+
+Epaminondas took it in his fist and held it all crunched up tight, like
+this, and came along home. By the time he got home there wasn't anything
+left but a fistful of crumbs. His Mammy said,--
+
+"What you got there, Epaminondas?"
+
+"Cake, Mammy," said Epaminondas.
+
+"Cake!" said his Mammy. "Epaminondas, you ain't got the sense you was
+born with! That's no way to carry cake. The way to carry cake is to wrap
+it all up nice in some leaves and put it in your hat, and put your hat
+on your head, and come along home. You hear me, Epaminondas?"
+
+"Yes, Mammy," said Epaminondas.
+
+Next day Epaminondas went to see his Auntie, and she gave him a pound of
+butter for his Mammy; fine, fresh, sweet butter.
+
+Epaminondas wrapped it up in leaves and put it in his hat, and put his
+hat on his head, and came along home. It was a very hot day. Pretty soon
+the butter began to melt. It melted, and melted, and as it melted it ran
+down Epaminondas' forehead; then it ran over his face, and in his ears,
+and down his neck. When he got home, all the butter Epaminondas had was
+_on him_. His Mammy looked at him, and then she said,--
+
+"Law's sake! Epaminondas, what you got in your hat?"
+
+"Butter, Mammy," said Epaminondas; "Auntie gave it to me."
+
+"Butter!" said his Mammy. "Epaminondas, you ain't got the sense you was
+born with! Don't you know that's no way to carry butter? The way to
+carry butter is to wrap it up in some leaves and take it down to the
+brook, and cool it in the water, and cool it in the water, and cool it
+in the water, and then take it on your hands, careful, and bring it
+along home."
+
+"Yes, Mammy," said Epaminondas.
+
+By and by, another day, Epaminondas went to see his Auntie again, and;
+this time she gave him a little new puppy-dog to take home.
+
+Epaminondas put it in some leaves and took it down to the brook; and
+there he cooled it in the water, and cooled it in the water, and cooled
+it in the water; then he took it in his hands and came along home. When
+he got home, the puppy-dog was dead. His Mammy looked at it, and she
+said,--
+
+"Law's sake! Epaminondas, what you got there?"
+
+"A puppy-dog, Mammy," said Epaminondas.
+
+"A _puppy-dog_!" said his Mammy. "My gracious sakes alive, Epaminondas,
+you ain't got the sense you was born with! That ain't the way to carry a
+puppy-dog! The way to carry a puppy-dog is to take a long piece of
+string and tie one end of it round the puppy-dog's neck and put the
+puppy-dog on the ground, and take hold of the other end of the string
+and come along home, like this."
+
+"All right, Mammy," said Epaminondas.
+
+Next day Epaminondas went to see his Auntie again, and when he came to
+go home she gave him a loaf of bread to carry to his Mammy; a brown,
+fresh, crusty loaf of bread.
+
+So Epaminondas tied a string around the end of the loaf and took hold of
+the end of the string and came along home, like this. (Imitate dragging
+something along the ground.) When he got home his Mammy looked at the
+thing on the end of the string, and she said,--
+
+"My laws a-massy! Epaminondas, what you got on the end of that string?"
+
+"Bread, Mammy," said Epaminondas; "Auntie gave it to me."
+
+"Bread!!!" said his Mammy. "O Epaminondas, Epaminondas, you ain't got
+the sense you was born with; you never did have the sense you was born
+with; you never will have the sense you was born with! Now I ain't gwine
+tell you any more ways to bring truck home. And don't you go see your
+Auntie, neither. I'll go see her my own self. But I'll just tell you one
+thing, Epaminondas! You see these here six mince pies I done make? You
+see how I done set 'em on the doorstep to cool? Well, now, you hear me,
+Epaminondas, _you be careful how you step on those pies_!"
+
+"Yes, Mammy," said Epaminondas.
+
+Then Epaminondas' Mammy put on her bonnet and her shawl and took a
+basket in her hand and went away to see Auntie. The six mince pies sat
+cooling in a row on the doorstep.
+
+And then,--and then,--Epaminondas _was_ careful how he stepped on those
+pies!
+
+He stepped (imitate)--right--in--the--middle--of--every--one.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And, do you know, children, nobody knows what happened next! The person
+who told me the story didn't know; nobody knows. But you can guess.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] A Negro nonsense tale from the Southern States of America.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY WHO CRIED "WOLF!"
+
+
+There was once a shepherd-boy who kept his flock at a little distance
+from the village. Once he thought he would play a trick on the villagers
+and have some fun at their expense. So he ran toward the village crying
+out, with all his might,--
+
+"Wolf! Wolf! Come and help! The wolves are at my lambs!"
+
+The kind villagers left their work and ran to the field to help him. But
+when they got there the boy laughed at them for their pains; there was
+no wolf there.
+
+Still another day the boy tried the same trick, and the villagers came
+running to help and got laughed at again.
+
+Then one day a wolf did break into the fold and began killing the lambs.
+In great fright, the boy ran for help. "Wolf! Wolf!" he screamed. "There
+is a wolf in the flock! Help!"
+
+The villagers heard him, but they thought it was another mean trick; no
+one paid the least attention, or went near him. And the shepherd-boy
+lost all his sheep.
+
+That is the kind of thing that happens to people who lie: even when they
+tell the truth no one believes them.
+
+
+
+
+THE FROG KING
+
+
+Did you ever hear the old story about the foolish Frogs? The Frogs in a
+certain swamp decided that they needed a king; they had always got along
+perfectly well without one, but they suddenly made up their minds that a
+king they must have. They sent a messenger to Jove and begged him to
+send a king to rule over them.
+
+Jove saw how stupid they were, and sent a king who could not harm them:
+he tossed a big log into the middle of the pond.
+
+At the splash the Frogs were terribly frightened, and dived into their
+holes to hide from King Log. But after a while, when they saw that the
+king never moved, they got over their fright and went and sat on him.
+And as soon as they found he really could not hurt them they began to
+despise him; and finally they sent another messenger to Jove to ask for
+a new king.
+
+Jove sent an eel.
+
+The Frogs were much pleased and a good deal frightened when King Eel
+came wriggling and swimming among them. But as the days went on, and the
+eel was perfectly harmless, they stopped being afraid; and as soon as
+they stopped fearing King Eel they stopped respecting him.
+
+Soon they sent a third messenger to Jove, and begged that they might
+have a better king,--a king who was worth while.
+
+It was too much; Jove was angry at their stupidity at last. "I will give
+you a king such as you deserve!" he said; and he sent them a Stork.
+
+As soon as the Frogs came to the surface to greet the new king, King
+Stork caught them in his long bill and gobbled them up. One after
+another they came bobbing up, and one after another the stork ate them.
+He was indeed a king worthy of them!
+
+
+
+
+THE SUN AND THE WIND
+
+
+The Sun and the Wind once had a quarrel as to which was the stronger.
+Each believed himself to be the more powerful. While they were arguing
+they saw a traveller walking along the country highway, wearing a great
+cloak.
+
+"Here is a chance to test our strength," said the Wind; "let us see
+which of us is strong enough to make that traveller take off his cloak;
+the one who can do that shall be acknowledged the more powerful."
+
+"Agreed," said the Sun.
+
+Instantly the Wind began to blow; he puffed and tugged at the man's
+cloak, and raised a storm of hail and rain, to beat at it. But the
+colder it grew and the more it stormed, the tighter the traveller held
+his cloak around him. The Wind could not get it off.
+
+Now it was the Sun's turn. He shone with all his beams on the man's
+shoulders. As it grew hotter and hotter, the man unfastened his cloak;
+then he threw it back; at last he took it off! The Sun had won.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE JACKAL AND THE ALLIGATOR
+
+
+The little Jackal was very fond of shell-fish. He used to go down by the
+river and hunt along the edges for crabs and such things. And once, when
+he was hunting for crabs, he was so hungry that he put his paw into the
+water after a crab without looking first,--which you never should do!
+The minute he put in his paw, _snap_!--the big Alligator who lives in
+the mud down there had it in his jaws.
+
+"Oh, dear!" thought the little Jackal; "the big Alligator has my paw in
+his mouth! In another minute he will pull me down and gobble me up! What
+shall I do? what shall I do?" Then he thought, suddenly, "I'll deceive
+him!"
+
+So he put on a very cheerful voice, as if nothing at all were the
+matter, and he said,--
+
+"Ho! ho! Clever Mr Alligator! Smart Mr Alligator, to take that old
+bulrush root for my paw! I hope you'll find it very tender!"
+
+The old Alligator was hidden away beneath the mud and bulrush leaves,
+and he couldn't see anything. He thought, "Pshaw! I've made a mistake."
+So he opened his mouth and let the little Jackal go.
+
+The little Jackal ran away as fast as he could, and as he ran he called
+out,--
+
+"Thank you, Mr Alligator! Kind Mr Alligator! _So_ kind of you to let me
+go!"
+
+The old Alligator lashed with his tail and snapped with his jaws, but it
+was too late; the little Jackal was out of reach.
+
+After this the little Jackal kept away from the river, out of danger.
+But after about a week he got such an appetite for crabs that nothing
+else would do at all; he felt that he must have a crab. So he went down
+by the river and looked all around, very carefully. He didn't see the
+old Alligator, but he thought to himself, "I think I'll not take any
+chances." So he stood still and began to talk out loud to himself. He
+said,--
+
+"When I don't see any little crabs on the land I generally see them
+sticking out of the water, and then I put my paw in and catch them. I
+wonder if there are any fat little crabs in the water to-day?"
+
+The old Alligator was hidden down in the mud at the bottom of the river,
+and when he heard what the little Jackal said, he thought, "Aha! I'll
+pretend to be a little crab, and when he puts his paw in, I'll make my
+dinner of him." So he stuck the black end of his snout above the water
+and waited.
+
+The little Jackal took one look, and then he said,--
+
+"Thank you, Mr Alligator! Kind Mr Alligator! You are _exceedingly_ kind
+to show me where you are! I will have dinner elsewhere." And he ran away
+like the wind.
+
+The old Alligator foamed at the mouth, he was so angry, but the little
+Jackal was gone.
+
+For two whole weeks the little Jackal kept away from the river. Then,
+one day he got a feeling inside him that nothing but crabs could
+satisfy: he felt that he must have at least one crab. Very cautiously,
+he went down to the river and looked all around. He saw no sign of the
+old Alligator. Still, he did not mean to take any chances. So he stood
+quite still and began to talk to himself,--it was a little way he had.
+He said,--
+
+"When I don't see any little crabs on the shore, or sticking up out of
+the water, I usually see them blowing bubbles from under the water; the
+little bubbles go _puff, puff, puff_, and then they go _pop, pop, pop_,
+and they show me where the little juicy crabs are, so I can put my paw
+in and catch them. I wonder if I shall see any little bubbles to-day?"
+
+The old Alligator, lying low in the mud and weeds, heard this, and he
+thought, "Pooh! _That's_ easy enough; I'll just blow some little
+crab-bubbles, and then he will put his paw in where I can get it."
+
+So he blew, and he blew, a mighty blast, and the bubbles rose in a
+perfect whirlpool, fizzing and swirling.
+
+The little Jackal didn't have to be told who was underneath those
+bubbles: he took one quick look, and off he ran. But as he went, he
+sang,--
+
+"Thank you, Mr Alligator! Kind Mr Alligator! You are the kindest
+Alligator in the world, to show me where you are, so nicely! I'll
+breakfast at another part of the river."
+
+The old Alligator was so furious that he crawled up on the bank and went
+after the little Jackal; but, dear, dear, he couldn't catch the little
+Jackal; he ran far too fast.
+
+After this, the little Jackal did not like to risk going near the water,
+so he ate no more crabs. But he found a garden of wild figs, which were
+so good that he went there every day, and ate them instead of
+shell-fish.
+
+Now the old Alligator found this out, and he made up his mind to have
+the little Jackal for supper, or to die trying. So he crept, and
+crawled, and dragged himself over the ground to the garden of wild figs.
+There he made a huge pile of figs under the biggest of the wild fig
+trees, and hid himself in the pile.
+
+After a while the little Jackal came dancing into the garden, very happy
+and free from care,--_but_ looking all around. He saw the huge pile of
+figs under the big fig tree.
+
+"H-m," he thought, "that looks singularly like my friend, the Alligator.
+I'll investigate a bit."
+
+He stood quite still and began to talk to himself,--it was a little way
+he had. He said,--
+
+"The little figs I like best are the fat, ripe, juicy ones that drop off
+when the breeze blows; and then the wind blows them about on the ground,
+this way and that; the great heap of figs over there is so still that I
+think they must be all bad figs."
+
+The old Alligator, underneath his fig pile, thought,--
+
+"Bother the suspicious little Jackal! I shall have to make these figs
+roll about, so that he will think the wind moves them." And straight-way
+he humped himself up and moved, and sent the little figs flying,--and
+his back showed through.
+
+The little Jackal did not wait for a second look. He ran out of the
+garden like the wind. But as he ran he called back,--
+
+"Thank you, again, Mr Alligator; very sweet of you to show me where you
+are; I can't stay to thank you as I should like: good-bye!"
+
+At this the old Alligator was beside himself with rage. He vowed that he
+would have the little Jackal for supper this time, come what might. So
+he crept and crawled over the ground till he came to the little Jackal's
+house. Then he crept and crawled inside, and hid himself there in the
+house, to wait till the little Jackal should come home.
+
+By and by the little Jackal came dancing home, happy and free from
+care,--_but_ looking all around. Presently, as he came along, he saw
+that the ground was all raked up as if something very heavy had been
+dragged over it. The little Jackal stopped and looked.
+
+"What's this? what's this?" he said.
+
+Then he saw that the door of his house was crushed at the sides and
+broken, as if something very big had gone through it.
+
+"What's this? What's this?" the little Jackal said. "I think I'll
+investigate a little!"
+
+So he stood quite still and began to talk to himself (you remember, it
+was a little way he had), but loudly. He said,--
+
+"How strange that my little House doesn't speak to me! Why don't you
+speak to me, little House? You always speak to me, if everything is all
+right, when I come home. I wonder if anything is wrong with my little
+House?"
+
+The old Alligator thought to himself that he must certainly pretend to
+be the little House, or the little Jackal would never come in. So he put
+on as pleasant a voice as he could (which is not saying much) and
+said,--
+
+"Hullo, little Jackal!"
+
+Oh! When the little Jackal heard that, he was frightened enough, for
+once.
+
+"It's the old Alligator," he said, "and if I don't make an end of him
+this time he will certainly make an end of me. What shall I do?"
+
+He thought very fast. Then he spoke out pleasantly.
+
+"Thank you, little House," he said, "it's good to hear your pretty
+voice, dear little House, and I will be in with you in a minute; only
+first I must gather some firewood for dinner."
+
+Then he went and gathered firewood, and more firewood, and more
+firewood; and he piled it all up solid against the door and round the
+house; and then he set fire to it!
+
+And it smoked and burned till it smoked that old Alligator to smoked
+herring!
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LARKS IN THE CORNFIELD
+
+
+There was once a family of little Larks who lived with their mother in a
+nest in a cornfield. When the corn was ripe the mother Lark watched very
+carefully to see if there were any sign of the reapers' coming, for she
+knew that when they came their sharp knives would cut down the nest and
+hurt the baby Larks. So every day, when she went out for food, she told
+the little Larks to look and listen very closely to everything that
+went on, and to tell her all they saw and heard when she came home.
+
+One day when she came home the little Larks were much frightened.
+
+"Oh, Mother, dear Mother," they said, "you must move us away to-night!
+The farmer was in the field to-day, and he said, 'The corn is ready to
+cut; we must call in the neighbours to help.' And then he told his son
+to go out to-night and ask all the neighbours to come and reap the corn
+to-morrow."
+
+The mother Lark laughed. "Don't be frightened," she said; "if he waits
+for his neighbours to reap the corn we shall have plenty of time to
+move; tell me what he says to-morrow."
+
+The next night the little Larks were quite trembling with fear; the
+moment their mother got home they cried out, "Mother, you must surely
+move us to-night! The farmer came to-day and said, 'The corn is getting
+too ripe; we cannot wait for our neighbours; we must ask our relatives
+to help us.' And then he called his son and told him to ask all the
+uncles and cousins to come to-morrow and cut the corn. Shall we not move
+to-night?"
+
+"Don't worry," said the mother Lark; "the uncles and cousins have plenty
+of reaping to do for themselves; we'll not move yet."
+
+The third night, when the mother Lark came home, the baby Larks said,
+"Mother, dear, the farmer came to the field to-day, and when he looked
+at the corn he was quite angry; he said, 'This will never do! The corn
+is getting too ripe; it's no use to wait for our relatives, we shall
+have to cut this corn ourselves.' And then he called his son and said,
+'Go out to-night and hire reapers, and to-morrow we will begin to cut.'"
+
+"Well," said the mother, "that is another story; when a man begins to do
+his own business, instead of asking somebody else to do it, things get
+done. I will move you out to-night."
+
+
+
+
+A TRUE STORY ABOUT A GIRL
+
+
+Once there were four little girls who lived in a big, bare house, in the
+country. They were very poor, but they had the happiest times you ever
+heard of, because they were very rich in everything except money. They
+had a wonderful, wise father, who knew stories to tell, and who taught
+them their lessons in such a beautiful way that it was better than play;
+they had a lovely, merry, kind mother, who was never too tired to help
+them work or watch them play; and they had all the great green country
+to play in. There were dark, shadowy woods, and fields of flowers, and a
+river. And there was a big barn.
+
+One of the little girls was named Louisa. She was very pretty, and ever
+so strong; she could run for miles through the woods and not get tired.
+She had a splendid brain in her little head; it liked study, and it
+thought interesting thoughts all day long.
+
+Louisa liked to sit in a corner by herself, sometimes, and write
+thoughts in her diary; all the little girls kept diaries. She liked to
+make up stories out of her own head, and sometimes she made verses.
+
+When the four little sisters had finished their lessons, and had helped
+their mother wash up and sew, they used to go to the big barn to play;
+and the best play of all was theatricals. Louisa liked theatricals
+better than anything.
+
+They made the barn into a theatre, and the grown-up people came to see
+the plays they acted. They used to climb up on the hay-loft for a stage,
+and the grown people sat in chairs on the floor. It was great fun. One
+of the plays they acted was _Jack and the Beanstalk_. They had a ladder
+from the floor to the loft, and on the ladder they tied a vine all the
+way up to the loft, to look like the wonderful beanstalk. One of the
+little girls was dressed up to look like Jack, and she acted that part.
+When it came to the place in the story where the giant tried to follow
+Jack, the little girl cut down the beanstalk, and down came the giant
+tumbling from the loft. The giant was made out of pillows, with a great,
+fierce head of paper, and funny clothes.
+
+Another story that they acted was _Cinderella_. They made a wonderful
+big pumpkin out of the wheelbarrow, trimmed with yellow paper, and
+Cinderella rolled away in it, when the fairy godmother waved her wand.
+
+One other beautiful story they used to play. It was the story of
+_Pilgrim's Progress_; if you have never heard it, you must be sure to
+read it as soon as you can read well enough to understand the
+old-fashioned words. The little girls used to put shells in their hats
+for a sign they were on a pilgrimage, as the old pilgrims used to do;
+then they made journeys over the hill behind the house, and through the
+woods, and down the lanes; and when the pilgrimage was over they had
+apples and nuts to eat, in the happy land of home.
+
+Louisa loved all these plays, and she made some of her own and wrote
+them down so that the children could act them.
+
+But better than fun or writing Louisa loved her mother, and by and by,
+as the little girl began to grow into a big girl, she felt very sad to
+see her dear mother work so hard. She helped all she could with the
+housework, but nothing could really help the tired mother except money;
+she needed money for food and clothes, and someone grown up, to help in
+the house. But there never was enough money for these things, and
+Louisa's mother grew more and more weary, and sometimes ill. I cannot
+tell you how much Louisa suffered over this.
+
+At last, as Louisa thought about it, she came to care more about helping
+her mother and her father and her sisters than about anything else in
+all the world. And she began to work very hard to earn money. She sewed
+for people, and when she was a little older she taught some little girls
+their lessons, and then she wrote stories for the papers. Every bit of
+money she earned, except what she had to use, she gave to her dear
+family. It helped very much, but it was so little that Louisa never felt
+as if she were doing anything.
+
+Every year she grew more unselfish, and every year she worked harder.
+She liked writing stories best of all her work, but she did not get much
+money for them, and some people told her she was wasting her time.
+
+At last, one day, a publisher asked Louisa, who was now a woman, to
+write a book for girls. Louisa was not very well, and she was very
+tired, but she always said, "I'll try," when she had a chance to work;
+so she said, "I'll try," to the publisher. When she thought about the
+book she remembered the good times she used to have with her sisters in
+the big, bare house in the country. And so she wrote a story and put all
+that in it; she put her dear mother and her wise father in it, and all
+the little sisters, and besides the jolly times and the plays, she put
+the sad, hard times in,--the work and worry and going without things.
+
+When the book was written, she called it _Little Women_, and sent it to
+the publisher.
+
+And, children, the little book made Louisa famous. It was so sweet and
+funny and sad and real,--like our own lives,--that everybody wanted to
+read it. Everybody bought it, and much money came from it. After so many
+years, little Louisa's wish came true: she bought a nice house for her
+family; she sent one of her sisters to Europe, to study; she gave her
+father books; but best of all, she was able to see to it that the
+beloved mother, so tired and so ill, could have rest and happiness.
+Never again did the dear mother have to do any hard work, and she had
+pretty things about her all the rest of her life.
+
+Louisa Alcott, for that was Louisa's name, wrote many beautiful books
+after this, and she became one of the most famous women of America. But
+I think the most beautiful thing about her is what I have been telling
+you: that she loved her mother so well that she gave her whole life to
+make her happy.
+
+
+
+
+MY KINGDOM
+
+
+The little Louisa I told you about, who wrote verses and stories in her
+diary, used to like to play that she was a princess, and that her
+kingdom was her own mind. When she had unkind or dissatisfied thoughts,
+she tried to get rid of them by playing they were enemies of the
+kingdom; and she drove them out with soldiers; the soldiers were
+patience, duty, and love. It used to help Louisa to be good to play
+this, and I think it may have helped make her the splendid woman she was
+afterward. Maybe you would like to hear a poem she wrote about it, when
+she was only fourteen years old.[20] It will help you, too, to think the
+same thoughts.
+
+     A little kingdom I possess,
+       Where thoughts and feelings dwell,
+     And very hard I find the task
+       Of governing it well;
+     For passion tempts and troubles me,
+       A wayward will misleads,
+     And selfishness its shadow casts
+       On all my words and deeds.
+
+     How can I learn to rule myself,
+       To be the child I should,
+     Honest and brave, nor ever tire
+       Of trying to be good?
+     How can I keep a sunny soul
+       To shine along life's way?
+     How can I tune my little heart
+       To sweetly sing all day?
+
+     Dear Father, help me with the love
+       That casteth out my fear,
+     Teach me to lean on Thee, and feel
+       That Thou art very near,
+     That no temptation is unseen,
+       No childish grief too small,
+     Since Thou, with patience infinite,
+       Doth soothe and comfort all.
+
+     I do not ask for any crown
+       But that which all may win,
+     Nor seek to conquer any world,
+       Except the one within.
+     Be Thou my Guide until I find,
+       Led by a tender hand,
+     Thy happy kingdom in _myself_,
+       And dare to take command.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] From Louisa M. Alcott's _Life, Letters and Journals_.
+
+
+
+
+PICCOLA[21]
+
+
+     Poor, sweet Piccola! Did you hear
+     What happened to Piccola, children dear?
+     'Tis seldom Fortune such favour grants
+     As fell to this little maid of France.
+
+     'Twas Christmas-time, and her parents poor
+     Could hardly drive the wolf from the door,
+     Striving with poverty's patient pain
+     Only to live till summer again.
+
+     No gifts for Piccola! Sad were they
+     When dawned the morning of Christmas-day;
+     Their little darling no joy might stir,
+     St Nicholas nothing would bring to her!
+
+     But Piccola never doubted at all
+     That something beautiful must befall
+     Every child upon Christmas-day,
+     And so she slept till the dawn was gray.
+
+     And full of faith, when at last she woke,
+     She stole to her shoe as the morning broke;
+     Such sounds of gladness filled all the air,
+     Twas plain St Nicholas had been there!
+
+     In rushed Piccola sweet, half wild:
+     Never was seen such a joyful child.
+     "See what the good saint brought!" she cried,
+     And mother and father must peep inside.
+
+     Now such a story who ever heard?
+     There was a little shivering bird!
+     A sparrow, that in at the window flew,
+     Had crept into Piccola's tiny shoe!
+
+     "How good poor Piccola must have been!"
+     She cried, as happy as any queen,
+     While the starving sparrow she fed and warmed,
+     And danced with rapture, she was so charmed.
+
+     Children, this story I tell to you,
+     Of Piccola sweet and her bird, is true.
+     In the far-off land of France, they say,
+     Still do they live to this very day.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] From Celia Thaxter's _Stories and Poems for Children_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE FIR TREE
+
+
+When I was a very little girl some one, probably my mother, read to me
+Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Little Fir Tree. It happened that
+I did not read it for myself or hear it again during my childhood. One
+Christmas Day, when I was grown up, I found myself at a loss for the
+"one more" story called for by some little children with whom I was
+spending the holiday. In the mental search for buried treasure which
+ensued, I came upon one or two word-impressions of the experiences of
+the Little Fir Tree, and forthwith wove them into what I supposed to be
+something of a reproduction of the original. The latter part of the
+story had wholly faded from my memory, so that I "made up" to suit the
+tastes of my audience. Afterward I told the story to a good many
+children, at one time or another, and it gradually took the shape it has
+here. It was not until several years later that, in rereading Andersen
+for other purposes, I came upon the real story of the Little Fir Tree,
+and read it for myself. Then indeed I was amused, and somewhat
+distressed, to find how far I had wandered from the text.
+
+I give this explanation that the reader may know I do not presume to
+offer the little tale which follows as an "adaptation" of Andersen's
+famous story. I offer it plainly as a story which children have liked,
+and which grew out of my early memories of Andersen's _The Little Fir
+Tree_.
+
+Once there was a Little Fir Tree, slim and pointed, and shiny, which
+stood in the great forest in the midst of some big fir trees, broad, and
+tall, and shadowy green. The Little Fir Tree was very unhappy because he
+was not big like the others. When the birds came flying into the woods
+and lit on the branches of the big trees and built their nests there, he
+used to call up to them,--
+
+"Come down, come down, rest in my branches!" But they always said,--
+
+"Oh, no, no; you are too little!"
+
+When the splendid wind came blowing and singing through the forest, it
+bent and rocked and swung the tops of the big trees, and murmured to
+them. Then the Little Fir Tree looked up, and called,--
+
+"Oh, please, dear wind, come down and play with me!" But he always
+said,--
+
+"Oh, no; you are too little, you are too little!"
+
+In the winter the white snow fell softly, softly, and covered the great
+trees all over with wonderful caps and coats of white. The Little Fir
+Tree, close down in the cover of the others, would call up,--
+
+"Oh, please, dear snow, give me a cap, too! I want to play, too!" But
+the snow always said,--
+
+"Oh no, no, no; you are too little, you are too little!"
+
+The worst of all was when men came into the wood, with sledges and teams
+of horses. They came to cut the big trees down and carry them away.
+Whenever one had been cut down and carried away the others talked about
+it, and nodded their heads, and the Little Fir Tree listened, and heard
+them say that when you were carried away so, you might become the mast
+of a mighty ship, and go far away over the ocean, and see many wonderful
+things; or you might be part of a fine house in a great city, and see
+much of life. The Little Fir Tree wanted greatly to see life, but he
+was always too little; the men passed him by.
+
+But by and by, one cold winter's morning, men came with a sledge and
+horses, and after they had cut here and there they came to the circle of
+trees round the Little Fir Tree, and looked all about.
+
+"There are none little enough," they said.
+
+Oh! how the Little Fir Tree pricked up his needles!
+
+"Here is one," said one of the men, "it is just little enough." And he
+touched the Little Fir Tree.
+
+The Little Fir Tree was happy as a bird, because he knew they were about
+to cut him down. And when he was being carried away on the sledge he lay
+wondering, _so_ contentedly, whether he should be the mast of a ship or
+part of a fine city house. But when they came to the town he was taken
+out and set upright in a tub and placed on the edge of a path in a row
+of other fir trees, all small, but none so little as he. And then the
+Little Fir Tree began to see life.
+
+People kept coming to look at the trees and to take them away. But
+always when they saw the Little Fir Tree they shook their heads and
+said,--
+
+"It is too little, too little."
+
+Until, finally, two children came along, hand in hand, looking
+carefully at all the small trees. When they saw the Little Fir Tree they
+cried out,--
+
+"We'll take this one; it is just little enough!"
+
+They took him out of his tub and carried him away, between them. And the
+happy Little Fir Tree spent all his time wondering what it could be that
+he was just little enough for; he knew it could hardly be a mast or a
+house, since he was going away with children.
+
+He kept wondering, while they took him in through some big doors, and
+set him up in another tub, on the table, in a bare little room. Very
+soon they went away, and came back again with a big basket, which they
+carried between them. Then some pretty ladies, with white caps on their
+heads and white aprons over their blue dresses, came bringing little
+parcels. The children took things out of the basket and began to play
+with the Little Fir Tree, just as he had often begged the wind and the
+snow and the birds to do. He felt their soft little touches on his head
+and his twigs and his branches. When he looked down at himself, as far
+as he could look, he saw that he was all hung with gold and silver
+chains! There were strings of white fluffy stuff drooping around him;
+his twigs held little gold nuts and pink, rosy balls and silver stars;
+he had pretty little pink and white candles in his arms; but last, and
+most wonderful of all, the children hung a beautiful white, floating
+doll-angel over his head! The Little Fir Tree could not breathe, for joy
+and wonder. What was it that he was, now? Why was this glory for him?
+
+After a time every one went away and left him. It grew dusk, and the
+Little Fir Tree began to hear strange sounds through the closed doors.
+Sometimes he heard a child crying. He was beginning to be lonely. It
+grew more and more shadowy.
+
+All at once, the doors opened and the two children came in. Two of the
+pretty ladies were with them. They came up to the Little Fir Tree and
+quickly lighted all the little pink and white candles. Then the two
+pretty ladies took hold of the table with the Little Fir Tree on it and
+pushed it, very smoothly and quickly, out of the doors, across a hall,
+and in at another door.
+
+The Little Fir Tree had a sudden sight of a long room with many little
+white beds in it, of children propped up on pillows in the beds, and of
+other children in great wheeled chairs, and others hobbling about or
+sitting in little chairs. He wondered why all the little children looked
+so white and tired; he did not know that he was in a hospital. But
+before he could wonder any more his breath was quite taken away by the
+shout those little white children gave.
+
+"Oh! oh! m-m! m-m!" they cried.
+
+"How pretty! How beautiful! Oh, isn't it lovely!"
+
+He knew they must mean him, for all their shining eyes were looking
+straight at him. He stood as straight as a mast, and quivered in every
+needle, for joy. Presently one little weak child-voice called out,--
+
+"It's the nicest Christmas tree I ever saw!"
+
+And then, at last, the Little Fir Tree knew what he was; he was a
+Christmas tree! And from his shiny head to his feet he was glad, through
+and through, because he was just little enough to be the nicest kind of
+tree in the world!
+
+
+
+
+HOW MOSES WAS SAVED
+
+
+Thousands of years ago, many years before David lived, there was a very
+wise and good man of his people who was a friend and adviser of the king
+of Egypt. And for love of this friend, the king of Egypt had let numbers
+of the Israelites settle in his land. But after the king and his
+Israelitish friend were dead, there was a new king, who hated the
+Israelites. When he saw how strong they were, and how many there were of
+them, he began to be afraid that some day they might number more than
+the Egyptians, and might take his land from him.
+
+Then he and his rulers did a wicked thing. They made the Israelites
+slaves. And they gave them terrible tasks to do, without proper rest, or
+food, or clothes. For they hoped that the hardship would kill off the
+Israelites. They thought the old men would die and the young men be so
+ill and weary that they could not bring up families, and so the race
+would dwindle away.
+
+But in spite of the work and suffering, the Israelites remained strong,
+and more and more boys grew up, to make the king afraid.
+
+Then he did the most wicked thing of all. He ordered his soldiers to
+kill every boy baby that should be born in an Israelitish family; he did
+not care about the girls, because they could not grow up to fight.
+
+Very soon after this wicked order, a boy baby was born in a certain
+Israelitish family. When his mother first looked at him her heart was
+nearly broken, for he was even more beautiful than most babies are,--so
+strong and fair and sweet. But he was a boy! How could she save him from
+death?
+
+Somehow, she contrived to keep him hidden for three whole months. But at
+the end of that time, she saw that it would not be possible to keep him
+safe any longer. She had been thinking all this time about what she
+should do, and now she carried out her plan.
+
+First, she took a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it all over with
+pitch, so that it was water-tight, and then she laid the baby in it;
+then she carried it to the edge of the river and laid it in the flags by
+the river's brink. It did not show at all, unless one were quite near
+it. Then she kissed her little son and left him there. But his sister
+stood far off, not seeming to watch, but really watching carefully to
+see what would happen to the baby.
+
+Soon there was the sound of talk and laughter, and a train of beautiful
+women came down to the water's edge. It was the king's daughter, come
+down to bathe in the river, with her maidens. The maidens walked along
+by the river side.
+
+As the king's daughter came near to the water, she saw the strange
+little basket lying in the flags, and she sent her maid to bring it to
+her. And when she had opened it, she saw the child; the poor baby was
+crying. When she saw him, so helpless and so beautiful, crying for his
+mother, the king's daughter pitied him and loved him. She knew the cruel
+order of her father, and she said at once, "This is one of the Hebrews'
+children."
+
+At that moment the baby's sister came to the princess and said, "Shall I
+go and find thee a nurse from the Hebrew women, so that she may nurse
+the child for thee?" Not a word did she say about whose child it was,
+but perhaps the princess guessed; I don't know. At all events, she told
+the little girl to go.
+
+So the maiden went, and brought her mother!
+
+Then the king's daughter said to the baby's mother, "Take this child
+away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee wages."
+
+Was not that a strange thing? And can you think how happy the baby's
+mother was? For now the baby would be known only as the princess's
+adopted child, and would be safe.
+
+And it was so. The mother kept him until he was old enough to be taken
+to the princess's palace. Then he was brought and given to the king's
+daughter, and he became her son. And she named him Moses.
+
+But the strangest part of the whole story is, that when Moses grew to be
+a man he became so strong and wise that it was he who at last saved his
+people from the king and rescued them from the Egyptians. The one child
+saved by the king's own daughter was the very one the king would most
+have wanted to kill, if he had known.
+
+
+
+
+THE TEN FAIRIES[22]
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a dear little girl, whose name was Elsa.
+Elsa's father and mother worked very hard and became rich. But they
+loved Elsa so much that they did not like her to do any work; very
+foolishly, they let her play all the time. So when Elsa grew up, she did
+not know how to do anything; she could not make bread, she could not
+sweep a room, she could not sew a seam; she could only laugh and sing.
+But she was so sweet and merry that everybody loved her. And by and by,
+she married one of the people who loved her, and had a house of her own
+to take care of.
+
+Then, then, my dears, came hard times for Elsa! There were so many
+things to be done in the house, and she did not know how to do any of
+them! And because she had never worked at all it made her very tired
+even to try; she was tired before the morning was over, every day. The
+maid would come and say, "How shall I do this?" or "How shall I do
+that?" and Elsa would have to say, "I don't know." Then the maid would
+pretend that she did not know, either; and when she saw her mistress
+sitting about doing nothing, she, too, sat about, idle.
+
+Elsa's husband had a hard time of it; he had only poor food to eat, and
+it was not ready at the right time, and the house looked all in a
+muddle. It made him sad, and that made Elsa sad, for she wanted to do
+everything just right.
+
+At last, one day, Elsa's husband went away quite cross; he said to her,
+as he went out of the door, "It is no wonder that the house looks so,
+when you sit all day with your hands in your lap!"
+
+Little Elsa cried bitterly when he was gone, for she did not want to
+make her husband unhappy and cross, and she wanted the house to look
+nice. "Oh, dear," she sobbed, "I wish I could do things right! I wish I
+could work! I wish--I wish I had ten good fairies to work for me! Then I
+could keep the house!"
+
+As she said the words, a great grey man stood before her; he was wrapped
+in a strange grey cloak that covered him from head to foot; and he
+smiled at Elsa. "What is the matter, dear?" he said. "Why do you cry?"
+
+"Oh, I am crying because I do not know how to keep the house," said
+Elsa. "I cannot make bread, I cannot sweep, I cannot sew a seam; when I
+was a little girl I never learned to work, and now I cannot do anything
+right. I wish I had ten good fairies to help me!"
+
+"You shall have them, dear," said the grey man, and he shook his strange
+grey cloak. Pouf! Out hopped ten tiny fairies, no bigger than that!
+
+"These shall be your servants, Elsa," said the grey man; "they are
+faithful and clever, and they will do everything you want them to, just
+right. But the neighbours might stare and ask questions if they saw
+these little chaps running about your house, so I will hide them away
+for you. Give me your little useless hands."
+
+Wondering, Elsa stretched out her pretty, little, white hands.
+
+"Now stretch out your little useless fingers, dear!"
+
+Elsa stretched out her pretty pink fingers.
+
+The grey man touched each one of the ten little fingers, and as he
+touched them he said their names: "Little Thumb; Forefinger;
+Thimble-finger; Ring-finger; Little Finger; Little Thumb; Forefinger;
+Thimble-finger; Ring-finger; Little Finger!" And as he named the
+fingers, one after another, the tiny fairies bowed their tiny heads;
+there was a fairy for every name.
+
+"Hop! hide yourselves away!" said the grey man.
+
+Hop, hop! The fairies sprang to Elsa's knee, then to the palms of her
+hands, and then--whisk! they were all hidden away in her little pink
+fingers, a fairy in every finger! And the grey man was gone.
+
+Elsa sat and looked with wonder at her little white hands and the ten
+useless fingers. But suddenly the little fingers began to stir. The tiny
+fairies who were hidden away there were not used to remaining still, and
+they were getting restless. They stirred so that Elsa jumped up and ran
+to the cooking table, and took hold of the bread board. No sooner had
+she touched the bread board than the little fairies began to work: they
+measured the flour, mixed the bread, kneaded the loaves, and set them to
+rise, quicker than you could wink; and when the bread was done, it was
+as nice as you could wish. Then the little fairy-fingers seized the
+broom, and in a twinkling they were making the house clean. And so it
+went, all day. Elsa flew about from one thing to another, and the ten
+fairies did the work, just right.
+
+When the maid saw her mistress working, she began to work, too; and when
+she saw how beautifully everything was done, she was ashamed to do
+anything badly herself. In a little while the housework was going
+smoothly, and Elsa could laugh and sing again.
+
+There was no more crossness in that house. Elsa's husband grew so proud
+of her that he went about saying to everybody, "My grandmother was a
+fine housekeeper, and my mother was a fine housekeeper, but neither of
+them could hold a candle to my wife. She has only one maid, but, to see
+the work done, you would think she had as many servants as she has
+fingers on her hands!"
+
+When Elsa heard that, she used to laugh, but she never, never told.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[22] Adapted from the facts given in the German of _Die Zehn Feen_ in
+_Märchen und Erzählungen_, Zweiter Teil, by H.A. Guerber.
+
+
+
+
+THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER
+
+
+Once upon a time there was an honest shoemaker, who was very poor. He
+worked as hard as he could, and still he could not earn enough to keep
+himself and his wife. At last there came a day when he had nothing left
+but one piece of leather, big enough to make one pair of shoes. He cut
+out the shoes, ready to stitch, and left them on the bench; then he said
+his prayers and went to bed, trusting that he could finish the shoes on
+the next day and sell them.
+
+Bright and early the next morning, he rose and went to his work bench.
+There lay a pair of shoes, beautifully made, and the leather was gone!
+There was no sign of anyone having been there. The shoemaker and his
+wife did not know what to make of it. But the first customer who came
+was so pleased with the beautiful shoes that he bought them, and paid so
+much that the shoemaker was able to buy leather enough for two pairs.
+
+Happily, he cut them out, and then, as it was late, he left the pieces
+on the bench, ready to sew in the morning. But when morning came, two
+pairs of shoes lay on the bench, most beautifully made, and no sign of
+anyone who had been there. The shoemaker and his wife were quite at a
+loss.
+
+That day a customer came and bought both pairs, and paid so much for
+them that the shoemaker bought leather for four pairs, with the money.
+
+Once more he cut out the shoes and left them on the bench. And in the
+morning all four pairs were made.
+
+It went on like this until the shoemaker and his wife were prosperous
+people. But they could not be satisfied to have so much done for them
+and not know to whom they should be grateful. So one night, after the
+shoemaker had left the pieces of leather on the bench, he and his wife
+hid themselves behind a curtain, and left a light in the room.
+
+Just as the clock struck twelve the door opened softly, and two tiny
+elves came dancing into the room, hopped on to the bench, and began to
+put the pieces together. They were quite naked, but they had wee little
+scissors and hammers and thread. Tap! tap! went the little hammers;
+stitch, stitch, went the thread, and the little elves were hard at work.
+No one ever worked so fast as they. In almost no time all the shoes were
+stitched and finished. Then the tiny elves took hold of each other's
+hands and danced round the shoes on the bench, till the shoemaker and
+his wife had hard work not to laugh aloud. But as the clock struck two,
+the little creatures whisked away out of the window, and left the room
+all as it was before.
+
+The shoemaker and his wife looked at each other, and said, "How can we
+thank the little elves who have made us happy and prosperous?"
+
+"I should like to make them some pretty clothes," said the wife, "they
+are quite naked."
+
+"I will make the shoes if you will make the coats," said her husband.
+
+That very day they commenced their task. The wife cut out two tiny, tiny
+coats of green, two weeny, weeny waistcoats of yellow, two little pairs
+of trousers, of white, two bits of caps, bright red (for every one knows
+the elves love bright colours), and her husband made two little pairs of
+shoes with long, pointed toes. They made the wee clothes as dainty as
+could be, with nice little stitches and pretty buttons; and by Christmas
+time, they were finished.
+
+On Christmas eve, the shoemaker cleaned his bench, and on it, instead of
+leather, he laid the two sets of gay little fairy-clothes. Then he and
+his wife hid away as before, to watch.
+
+Promptly at midnight, the little naked elves came in. They hopped upon
+the bench; but when they saw the little clothes there, they laughed and
+danced for joy. Each one caught up his little coat and things and began
+to put them on. Then they looked at each other and made all kinds of
+funny motions in their delight. At last they began to dance, and when
+the clock struck two, they danced quite away, out of the window.
+
+They never came back any more, but from that day they gave the shoemaker
+and his wife good luck, so that they never needed any more help.
+
+
+
+
+WHO KILLED THE OTTER'S BABIES?[23]
+
+
+Once the Otter came to the Mouse-deer and said, "Friend Mouse-deer, will
+you please take care of my babies while I go to the river, to catch
+fish?"
+
+"Certainly," said the Mouse-deer, "go along."
+
+But when the Otter came back from the river, with a string of fish, he
+found his babies crushed flat.
+
+"What does this mean, Friend Mouse-deer?" he said. "Who killed my
+children while you were taking care of them?"
+
+"I am very sorry," said the Mouse-deer, "but you know I am Chief Dancer
+of the War-dance, and the Woodpecker came and sounded the war-gong, so I
+danced. I forgot your children, and trod on them."
+
+"I shall go to King Solomon," said the Otter, "and you shall be
+punished."
+
+Soon the Mouse-deer was called before King Solomon.
+
+"Did you kill the Otter's babies?" said the king.
+
+"Yes, your Majesty," said the Mouse-deer, "but I did not mean to."
+
+"How did it happen?" said the king.
+
+"Your Majesty knows," said the Mouse-deer, "that I am Chief Dancer of
+the War-dance. The Woodpecker came and sounded the war-gong, and I had
+to dance; and as I danced I trod on the Otter's children."
+
+"Send for the Woodpecker," said King Solomon. When the Woodpecker came,
+he said to him, "Was it you who sounded the war-gong?"
+
+"Yes, your Majesty," said the Woodpecker, "but I had to."
+
+"Why?" said the king.
+
+"Your Majesty knows," said the Woodpecker, "that I am Chief Beater of
+the War-gong, and I sounded the gong because I saw the Great Lizard
+wearing his sword."
+
+"Send for the Great Lizard," said King Solomon. When the Great Lizard
+came, he asked him, "Was it you who were wearing your sword?"
+
+"Yes, your Majesty," said the Great Lizard; "but I had to."
+
+"Why?" said the king.
+
+"Your Majesty knows," said the Great Lizard, "that I am Chief Protector
+of the Sword. I wore my sword because the Tortoise came wearing his coat
+of mail."
+
+So the Tortoise was sent for.
+
+"Why did you wear your coat of mail?" said the king.
+
+"I put it on, your Majesty," said the Tortoise, "because I saw the
+King-crab trailing his three-edged pike."
+
+Then the King-crab was sent for.
+
+"Why were you trailing your three-edged pike?" said King Solomon.
+
+"Because, your Majesty," said the King-crab, "I saw that the Crayfish
+had shouldered his lance."
+
+Immediately the Crayfish was sent for.
+
+"Why did you shoulder your lance?" said the king.
+
+"Because, your Majesty," said the Crayfish, "I saw the Otter coming down
+to the river to kill my children."
+
+"Oh," said King Solomon, "if that is the case, the Otter killed the
+Otter's children. And the Mouse-deer cannot be blamed, by the law of the
+land!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[23] Adapted from the story as told in _Fables and Folk Tales from an
+Eastern Forest_, by Walter Skeat.
+
+
+
+
+EARLY[24]
+
+
+     I like to lie and wait to see
+       My mother braid her hair.
+     It is as long as it can be,
+       And yet she doesn't care.
+     I love my mother's hair.
+
+     And then the way her fingers go;
+       They look so quick and white,--
+     In and out, and to and fro,
+       And braiding in the light,
+     And it is always right.
+
+     So then she winds it, shiny brown,
+     Around her head into a crown,
+       Just like the day before.
+     And then she looks and pats it down,
+       And looks a minute more;
+     While I stay here all still and cool.
+     Oh, isn't morning beautiful?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[24] From _The Singing Leaves_, by Josephine Preston Peabody.
+
+
+
+
+THE BRAHMIN, THE TIGER, AND THE JACKAL
+
+
+Do you know what a Brahmin is? A Brahmin is a very good and gentle kind
+of man who lives in India, and who treats all the beasts as if they were
+his brothers. There is a great deal more to know about Brahmins, but
+that is enough for the story.
+
+One day a Brahmin was walking along a country road when he came upon a
+Tiger, shut up in a strong iron cage. The villagers had caught him and
+shut him up there for his wickedness.
+
+"Oh, Brother Brahmin, Brother Brahmin," said the Tiger, "please let me
+out, to get a little drink! I am so thirsty, and there is no water
+here."
+
+"But Brother Tiger," said the Brahmin, "you know if I should let you
+out, you would spring on me and eat me up."
+
+"Never, Brother Brahmin!" said the Tiger. "Never in the world would I do
+such an ungrateful thing! Just let me out a little minute, to get a
+little, little drink of water, Brother Brahmin!"
+
+So the Brahmin unlocked the door and let the Tiger out. The moment he
+was out he sprang on the Brahmin, and was about to eat him up.
+
+"But, Brother Tiger," said the Brahmin, "you promised you would not. It
+is not fair or just that you should eat me, when I set you free."
+
+"It is perfectly right and just," said the Tiger, "and I shall eat you
+up."
+
+However, the Brahmin argued so hard that at last the Tiger agreed to
+wait and ask the first five whom they should meet, whether it was fair
+for him to eat the Brahmin, and to abide by their decision.
+
+The first thing they came to, to ask, was an old Banyan Tree, by the
+wayside. (A banyan tree is a kind of fruit tree.)
+
+"Brother Banyan," said the Brahmin, eagerly, "does it seem to you right
+or just that this Tiger should eat me, when I set him free from his
+cage?"
+
+The Banyan Tree looked down at them and spoke in a tired voice.
+
+"In the summer," he said, "when the sun is hot, men come and sit in the
+cool of my shade and refresh themselves with the fruit of my branches.
+But when evening falls, and they are rested, they break my twigs and
+scatter my leaves, and stone my boughs for more fruit. Men are an
+ungrateful race. Let the Tiger eat the Brahmin."
+
+The Tiger sprang to eat the Brahmin, but the Brahmin said,--
+
+"Wait, wait; we have asked only one. We have still four to ask."
+
+Presently they came to a place where an old Bullock was lying by the
+road. The Brahmin went up to him and said,--
+
+"Brother Bullock, oh, Brother Bullock, does it seem to you a fair thing
+that this Tiger should eat me up, after I have just freed him from a
+cage?"
+
+The Bullock looked up, and answered in a deep, grumbling voice,--
+
+"When I was young and strong my master used me hard, and I served him
+well. I carried heavy loads and carried them far. Now that I am old and
+weak and cannot work, he leaves me without food or water, to die by the
+wayside. Men are a thankless lot. Let the Tiger eat the Brahmin."
+
+The Tiger sprang, but the Brahmin spoke very quickly,--
+
+"Oh, but this is only the second, Brother Tiger; you promised to ask
+five."
+
+The Tiger grumbled a good deal, but at last he went on again with the
+Brahmin. And after a time they saw an Eagle, high overhead. The Brahmin
+called up to him imploringly,--
+
+"Oh, Brother Eagle, Brother Eagle! Tell us if it seems to you fair that
+this Tiger should eat me up, when I have just saved him from a frightful
+cage?"
+
+The Eagle soared slowly overhead a moment, then he came lower, and spoke
+in a thin, clear voice.
+
+"I live high in the air," he said, "and I do no man any harm. Yet as
+often as they find my eyrie, men stone my young and rob my nest and
+shoot at me with arrows. Men are a cruel breed. Let the Tiger eat the
+Brahmin!"
+
+The Tiger sprang upon the Brahmin, to eat him up; and this time the
+Brahmin had very hard work to persuade him to wait. At last he did
+persuade him, however, and they walked on together. And in a little
+while they saw an old Alligator, lying half buried in mud and slime, at
+the river's edge.
+
+"Brother Alligator, oh, Brother Alligator!" said the Brahmin, "does it
+seem at all right or fair to you that this Tiger should eat me up, when
+I have just now let him out of a cage?"
+
+The old Alligator turned in the mud, and grunted, and snorted; then he
+said,--
+
+"I lie here in the mud all day, as harmless as a pigeon; I hunt no man,
+yet every time a man sees me, he throws stones at me, and pokes me with
+sharp sticks, and jeers at me. Men are a worthless lot. Let the Tiger
+eat the Brahmin!"
+
+At this the Tiger was going to eat the Brahmin at once. The poor Brahmin
+had to remind him, again and again, that they had asked only four.
+
+"Wait till we've asked one more! Wait until we see a fifth!" he begged.
+
+Finally, the Tiger walked on with him.
+
+After a time, they met the little Jackal, coming gaily down the road
+toward them.
+
+"Oh, Brother Jackal, dear Brother Jackal," said the Brahmin, "give us
+your opinion! Do you think it right or fair that this Tiger should eat
+me, when I set him free from a terrible cage?"
+
+"Beg pardon?" said the little Jackal.
+
+"I said," said the Brahmin, raising his voice, "do you think it is fair
+that the Tiger should eat me, when I set him free from his cage?"
+
+"Cage?" said the little Jackal, vacantly.
+
+"Yes, yes, his cage," said the Brahmin. "We want your opinion. Do you
+think----"
+
+"Oh," said the little Jackal, "you want my opinion? Then may I beg you
+to speak a little more loudly, and make the matter quite clear? I am a
+little slow of understanding. Now what was it?"
+
+"Do you think," said the Brahmin, "it is right for this Tiger to eat me,
+when I set him free from his cage?"
+
+"What cage?" said the little Jackal.
+
+"Why, the cage he was in," said the Brahmin. "You see----"
+
+"But I don't altogether understand," said the little Jackal. "You 'set
+him free,' you say?"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes!" said the Brahmin. "It was this way: I was walking
+along, and I saw the Tiger----"
+
+"Oh, dear, dear!" interrupted the little Jackal; "I never can see
+through it, if you go on like that, with a long story. If you really
+want my opinion you must make the matter clear. What sort of cage was
+it?"
+
+"Why, a big, ordinary cage, an iron cage," said the Brahmin.
+
+"That gives me no idea at all," said the little Jackal. "See here, my
+friends, if we are to get on with this matter you'd best show me the
+spot. Then I can understand in a jiffy. Show me the cage."
+
+So the Brahmin, the Tiger, and the little Jackal walked back together to
+the spot where the cage was.
+
+"Now, let us understand the situation," said the little Jackal. "Friend
+Brahmin, where were you?"
+
+"I stood just here by the roadside," said the Brahmin.
+
+"Tiger, and where were you?" said the little Jackal.
+
+"Why, in the cage, of course," roared the Tiger.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon, Father Tiger," said the little Jackal, "I
+really am _so_ stupid; I cannot _quite_ understand what happened. If you
+will have a little patience,--_how_ were you in the cage? What position
+were you in?"
+
+"I stood here," said the Tiger, leaping into the cage, "with my head
+over my shoulder, so."
+
+"Oh, thank you, thank you," said the little Jackal, "that makes it
+_much_ clearer; but I still don't _quite_ understand--forgive my slow
+mind--why did you not come out, by yourself?"
+
+"Can't you see that the door shut me in?" said the Tiger.
+
+"Oh, I do beg your pardon," said the little Jackal. "I know I am very
+slow; I can never understand things well unless I see just how they
+were; if you could show me now exactly how that door works I am sure I
+could understand. How does it shut?"
+
+"It shuts like this," said the Brahmin, pushing it to.
+
+"Yes; but I don't see any lock," said the little Jackal, "does it lock
+on the outside?"
+
+"It locks like this," said the Brahmin. And he shut and bolted the door!
+
+"Oh, does it, indeed?" said the little Jackal. "Does it, _indeed_! Well,
+Brother Brahmin, now that it is locked, I should advise you to let it
+stay locked! As for you, my friend," he said to the Tiger, "I think you
+will wait a good while before you'll find anyone to let you out again!"
+Then he made a very low bow to the Brahmin.
+
+"Good-bye, Brother," he said. "Your way lies that way, and mine lies
+this; good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE JACKAL AND THE CAMEL
+
+
+All these stories about the little Jackal that I have told you, show how
+clever the little Jackal was. But you know--if you don't, you will when
+you are grown up--that no matter how clever you are, sooner or later you
+surely meet some one who is more clever. It is always so in life. And it
+was so with the little Jackal. This is what happened.
+
+The little Jackal was, as you know, exceedingly fond of shell-fish,
+especially of river crabs. Now there came a time when he had eaten all
+the crabs to be found on his own side of the river. He knew there must
+be plenty on the other side, if he could only get to them, but he could
+not swim.
+
+One day he thought of a plan. He went to his friend the Camel, and
+said,--
+
+"Friend Camel, I know a spot where the sugar-cane grows thick; I'll show
+you the way, if you will take me there."
+
+"Indeed I will," said the Camel, who was very fond of sugar-cane. "Where
+is it?"
+
+"It is on the other side of the river," said the little Jackal; "but we
+can manage it nicely, if you will take me on your back and swim over."
+
+The Camel was perfectly willing, so the little Jackal jumped on his
+back, and the Camel swam across the river, carrying him. When they were
+safely over, the little Jackal jumped down and showed the Camel the
+sugar-cane field; then he ran swiftly along the river bank, to hunt for
+crabs; the Camel began to eat sugar-cane. He ate happily, and noticed
+nothing around him.
+
+Now, you know, a Camel is very big, and a Jackal is very little.
+Consequently, the little Jackal had eaten his fill by the time the Camel
+had barely taken a mouthful. The little Jackal had no mind to wait for
+his slow friend; he wanted to be off home again, about his business. So
+he ran round and round the sugar-cane field, and as he ran he sang and
+shouted, and made a great hullabaloo.
+
+Of course, the villagers heard him at once.
+
+"There is a Jackal in the sugar-cane," they said; "he will dig holes and
+destroy the roots; we must go down and drive him out." So they came
+down, with sticks and stones. When they got there, there was no Jackal
+to be seen; but they saw the great Camel, eating away at the juicy
+sugar-cane. They ran at him and beat him, and stoned him, and drove him
+away half dead.
+
+When they had gone, leaving the poor Camel half killed, the little
+Jackal came dancing back from somewhere or other.
+
+"I think it's time to go home, now," he said; "don't you?"
+
+"Well, you _are_ a pretty friend!" said the Camel. "The idea of your
+making such a noise, with your shouting and singing! You brought this
+upon me. What in the world made you do it? Why did you shout and sing?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know _why_" said the little Jackal,--"I always sing after
+dinner!"
+
+"So?" said the Camel. "Ah, very well, let us go home now."
+
+He took the little Jackal kindly on his back and started into the water.
+When he began to swim he swam out to where the river was the very
+deepest. There he stopped, and said,--
+
+"Oh, Jackal!"
+
+"Yes," said the little Jackal.
+
+"I have the strangest feeling," said the Camel,--"I feel as if I must
+roll over."
+
+"'Roll over'!" cried the Jackal. "My goodness, don't do that! If you do
+that, you'll drown me! What in the world makes you want to do such a
+crazy thing? Why should you want to roll over?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know _why_," said the Camel slowly, "but I always roll over
+after dinner!"
+
+So he rolled over.
+
+And the little Jackal was drowned, for his sins, but the Camel came
+safely home.
+
+
+
+
+THE GULLS OF SALT LAKE
+
+
+The story I am going to tell you is about something that really
+happened, many years ago.
+
+A brave little company of pioneers from the Atlantic coast crossed the
+Mississippi River and journeyed across the plains of Central North
+America in big covered wagons with many horses, and finally succeeded in
+climbing to the top of the great Rockies and down again into a valley in
+the very midst of the mountains. It was a valley of brown, bare, desert
+soil, in a climate where almost no rain falls; but the snow on the
+mountain-tops sent down little streams of pure water, the winds were
+gentle, and lying like a blue jewel at the foot of the western hills was
+a marvellous lake of salt water,--an inland sea. So the pioneers settled
+there and built themselves huts and cabins for the first winter.
+
+It had taken them many months to make the terrible journey; many had
+died of weariness and illness on the way; many died of hardship during
+the winter; and the provisions they had brought in their wagons were so
+nearly gone that, by spring, they were living partly on roots, dug from
+the ground. All their lives now depended on the crops of grain and
+vegetables which they could raise in the valley. They made the barren
+land fertile by spreading water from the little streams over it,--what
+we call "irrigating"; and they planted enough corn and grain and
+vegetables for all the people. Every one helped, and every one watched
+for the sprouting, with hopes, and prayers, and careful eyes.
+
+In good time the seeds sprouted, and the dry, brown earth was covered
+with a carpet of tender, green, growing things. No farmer's garden could
+have looked better than the great garden of the desert valley. And from
+day to day the little shoots grew and flourished till they were all well
+above the ground.
+
+Then a terrible thing happened. One day, the men who were watering the
+crops saw a great number of crickets swarming over the ground at the
+edge of the gardens nearest the mountains. They were hopping from the
+barren places into the young, green crops, and as they settled down they
+ate the tiny shoots and leaves to the ground. More came, and more, and
+ever more, and as they came they spread out till they covered a big
+corner of the grain field. And still more and more, till it was like an
+army of black, hopping, crawling crickets, streaming down the side of
+the mountain to kill the crops.
+
+The men tried to kill the crickets by beating them down, but the
+numbers were so great that it was like beating at the sea. Then they ran
+and told the terrible news, and all the village came to help. They
+started fires; they dug trenches and filled them with water; they ran
+wildly about in the fields, killing what they could. But while they
+fought in one place new armies of crickets marched down the
+mountain-sides and attacked the fields in other places. And at last the
+people fell on their knees and wept and cried in despair, for they saw
+starvation and death in the fields.
+
+A few knelt to pray. Others gathered round and joined them, weeping.
+More left their useless struggles and knelt beside their neighbours. At
+last nearly all the people were kneeling on the desolate fields praying
+for deliverance from the plague of crickets.
+
+Suddenly, from far off in the air toward the great salt lake, there was
+the sound of flapping wings. It grew louder. Some of the people looked
+up, startled. They saw, like a white cloud rising from the lake, a flock
+of sea gulls flying toward them. Snow-white in the sun, with great wings
+beating and soaring, in hundreds and hundreds, they rose and circled and
+came on.
+
+"The gulls! the gulls!" was the cry. "What does it mean?"
+
+The gulls flew overhead, with a shrill chorus of whimpering cries, and
+then, in a marvellous white cloud of outspread wings and hovering
+breasts, they settled down over the cultivated ground.
+
+"Oh! woe! woe!" cried the people. "The gulls are eating what the
+crickets have left! they will strip root and branch!"
+
+But all at once, someone called out,--
+
+"No, no! See! they are eating the crickets! They are eating only the
+crickets!"
+
+It was true. The gulls devoured the crickets in dozens, in hundreds, in
+swarms. They ate until they were gorged, and then they flew heavily back
+to the lake, only to come again with new appetite. And when at last they
+finished, they had stripped the fields of the army of crickets; and the
+people were saved.
+
+To this day, in the beautiful city of Salt Lake, which grew out of that
+pioneer village, the little children are taught to love the sea gulls.
+And when they learn drawing and weaving in the schools, their first
+design is often a picture of a cricket and a gull.
+
+
+
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE[25]
+
+
+A long, long time ago, as long ago as when there were fairies, there
+lived an emperor in China, who had a most beautiful palace, all made of
+crystal. Outside the palace was the loveliest garden in the whole world,
+and farther away was a forest where the trees were taller than any other
+trees in the world, and farther away, still, was a deep wood. And in
+this wood lived a little Nightingale. The Nightingale sang so
+beautifully that everybody who heard her remembered her song better than
+anything else that he heard or saw. People came from all over the world
+to see the crystal palace and the wonderful garden and the great forest;
+but when they went home and wrote books about these things they always
+wrote, "But the Nightingale is the best of all."
+
+At last it happened that the Emperor came upon a book which said this,
+and he at once sent for his Chamberlain.
+
+"Who is this Nightingale?" said the Emperor. "Why have I never heard him
+sing?"
+
+The Chamberlain, who was a very important person, said, "There cannot be
+any such person; I have never heard his name."
+
+"The book says there is a Nightingale," said the Emperor. "I command
+that the Nightingale be brought here to sing for me this evening."
+
+The Chamberlain went out and asked all the great lords and ladies and
+pages where the Nightingale could be found, but not one of them had ever
+heard of him. So the Chamberlain went back to the Emperor and said,
+"There is no such person."
+
+"The book says there is a Nightingale," said the Emperor; "if the
+Nightingale is not here to sing for me this evening I will have the
+court trampled upon, immediately after supper."
+
+The Chamberlain did not want to be trampled upon, so he ran out and
+asked everybody in the palace about the Nightingale. At last, a little
+girl who worked in the kitchen to help the cook, said, "Oh, yes, I know
+the Nightingale very well. Every night, when I go to carry scraps from
+the kitchen to my mother, who lives in the wood beyond the forest, I
+hear the Nightingale sing."
+
+The Chamberlain asked the maid to take him to the Nightingale's home,
+and many of the lords and ladies followed after. When they had gone a
+little way, they heard a cow moo.
+
+"Ah!" said the lords and ladies, "that must be the Nightingale; what a
+large voice for so small a creature!"
+
+"Oh, no," said the little girl, "that is just a cow, mooing."
+
+A little farther on they heard some bullfrogs, in a swamp. "Surely that
+is the Nightingale," said the courtiers; "it really sounds like
+church-bells!"
+
+"Oh, no," said the little girl, "those are bullfrogs, croaking."
+
+At last they came to the wood where the Nightingale was. "Hush!" said
+the little girl, "she is going to sing." And, sure enough, the little
+Nightingale began to sing. She sang so beautifully that you have never
+in all your life heard anything like it.
+
+"Dear, dear," said the courtiers, "that is very pleasant; does that
+little grey bird really make all that noise? She is so pale that I think
+she has lost her colour for fear of us."
+
+The Chamberlain asked the little Nightingale to come and sing for the
+Emperor. The little Nightingale said she could sing better in her own
+greenwood, but she was so sweet and kind that she came with them.
+
+That evening the palace was all trimmed with the most beautiful flowers
+you can imagine, and rows and rows of little silver bells, that tinkled
+when the wind blew in, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of wax
+candles, that shone like tiny stars. In the great hall there was a gold
+perch for the Nightingale, beside the Emperor's throne.
+
+When all the people were there, the Emperor asked the Nightingale to
+sing. Then the little grey Nightingale filled her throat full, and sang.
+And, my dears, she sang so beautifully that the Emperor's eyes filled up
+with tears! And, you know, emperors do not cry at all easily. So he
+asked her to sing again, and this time she sang so marvellously that
+the tears came out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. That was a great
+success. They asked the little Nightingale to sing, over and over again,
+and when they had listened enough the Emperor said that she should be
+made "Singer in Chief to the Court." She was to have a golden perch near
+the Emperor's bed, and a little golden cage, and was to be allowed to go
+out twice every day. But there were twelve servants appointed to wait on
+her, and those twelve servants went with her every time she went out,
+and each of the twelve had hold of the end of a silken string which was
+tied to the little Nightingale's leg! It was not so very much fun to go
+out that way!
+
+For a long, long time the Nightingale sang every evening to the Emperor
+and his court, and they liked her so much that the ladies all tried to
+sing like her; they used to put water in their mouths and then make
+little sounds like this: _glu-glu-glug_. And when the courtiers met each
+other in the halls, one would say "Night," and the other would say
+"ingale," and that was supposed to be conversation.
+
+At last, one day, there came a little package to the Emperor, on the
+outside of which was written, "The Nightingale." Inside was an
+artificial bird, something like a Nightingale, only it was made of gold,
+and silver, and rubies, and emeralds, and diamonds. When it was wound
+up it played a waltz tune, and as it played it moved its little tail up
+and down. Everybody in the court was filled with delight at the music of
+the new nightingale. They made it sing that same tune thirty-three
+times, and still they had not had enough. They would have made it sing
+the tune thirty-four times, but the Emperor said, "I should like to hear
+the real Nightingale sing, now."
+
+But when they looked about for the real little Nightingale, they could
+not find her anywhere! She had taken the chance, while everybody was
+listening to the waltz tunes, to fly away through the window to her own
+greenwood.
+
+"What a very ungrateful bird!" said the lords and ladies. "But it does
+not matter; the new nightingale is just as good."
+
+So the artificial nightingale was given the real Nightingale's little
+gold perch, and every night the Emperor wound her up, and she sang waltz
+tunes to him. The people in the court liked her even better than the old
+Nightingale, because they could all whistle her tunes,--which you can't
+do with real nightingales.
+
+About a year after the artificial nightingale came, the Emperor was
+listening to her waltz tune, when there was a _snap_ and _whir-r-r_
+inside the bird, and the music stopped. The Emperor ran to his doctor,
+but he could not do anything. Then he ran to his clock-maker, but he
+could not do much. Nobody could do much. The best they could do was to
+patch the gold nightingale up so that it could sing once a year; even
+that was almost too much, and the tune was very shaky. Still, the
+Emperor kept the gold nightingale on the perch in his own room.
+
+A long time went by, and then, at last, the Emperor grew very ill, and
+was about to die. When it was sure that he could not live much longer,
+the people chose a new emperor and waited for the old one to die. The
+poor Emperor lay, quite cold and pale, in his great big bed, with velvet
+curtains and tall candlesticks all about. He was quite alone, for all
+the courtiers had gone to congratulate the new emperor, and all the
+servants had gone to talk it over.
+
+When the Emperor woke up, he felt a terrible weight on his chest. He
+opened his eyes, and there was Death, sitting on his heart. Death had
+put on the Emperor's gold crown, and he had the gold sceptre in one
+hand, and the silken banner in the other; and he looked at the Emperor
+with his great hollow eyes. The room was full of shadows, and the
+shadows were full of faces. Everywhere the Emperor looked, there were
+faces. Some were very, very ugly, and some were sweet and lovely; they
+were all the things the Emperor had done in his life, good and bad. And
+as he looked at them they began to whisper. They whispered, "_Do you
+remember this?_" "_Do you remember that?_" The Emperor remembered so
+much that he cried out loud, "Oh, bring the great drum! Make music, so
+that I may not hear these dreadful whispers!" But there was nobody there
+to bring the drum.
+
+Then the Emperor cried, "You little gold nightingale, can you not sing
+something for me? I have given you gifts of gold and jewels, and kept
+you always by my side; will you not help me now?" But there was nobody
+to wind the little gold nightingale up, and of course it could not sing.
+
+The Emperor's heart grew colder and colder where Death crouched upon it,
+and the dreadful whispers grew louder and louder, and the Emperor's life
+was almost gone. Suddenly, through the open window, there came a most
+lovely song. It was so sweet and so loud that the whispers died quite
+away. Presently the Emperor felt his heart grow warm, then he felt the
+blood flow through his limbs again; he listened to the song until the
+tears ran down his cheeks; he knew that it was the little real
+Nightingale who had flown away from him when the gold nightingale came.
+
+Death was listening to the song, too; and when it was done and the
+Emperor begged for more, Death, too, said, "Please sing again, little
+Nightingale!"
+
+"Will you give me the Emperor's gold crown for a song?" said the little
+Nightingale.
+
+"Yes," said Death; and the little Nightingale bought the Emperor's crown
+for a song.
+
+"Oh, sing again, little Nightingale," begged Death.
+
+"Will you give me the Emperor's sceptre for another song?" said the
+little grey Nightingale.
+
+"Yes," said Death; and the little Nightingale bought the Emperor's
+sceptre for another song.
+
+Once more Death begged for a song, and this time the little Nightingale
+obtained the banner for her singing. Then she sang one more song, so
+sweet and so sad that it made Death think of his garden in the
+churchyard, where he always liked best to be. And he rose from the
+Emperor's heart and floated away through the window.
+
+When Death was gone, the Emperor said to the little Nightingale, "Oh,
+dear little Nightingale, you have saved me from Death! Do not leave me
+again. Stay with me on this little gold perch, and sing to me always!"
+
+"No, dear Emperor," said the little Nightingale, "I sing best when I am
+free; I cannot live in a palace. But every night when you are quite
+alone, I will come and sit in the window and sing to you, and tell you
+everything that goes on in your kingdom: I will tell you where the poor
+people are who ought to be helped, and where the wicked people are who
+ought to be punished. Only, dear Emperor, be sure that you never let
+anybody know that you have a little bird who tells you everything."
+
+After the little Nightingale had flown away, the Emperor felt so well
+and strong that he dressed himself in his royal robes and took his gold
+sceptre in his hand. And when the courtiers came in to see if he were
+dead, there stood the Emperor with his sword in one hand and his sceptre
+in the other, and said, "Good-morning!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] Adapted from Hans Christian Andersen.
+
+
+
+
+MARGERY'S GARDEN[26]
+
+
+There was once a little girl named Margery, who had always lived in the
+city. The flat where her mother and father lived was at the top of a big
+building, and you couldn't see a great deal from the windows, except
+chimney-pots on other people's roofs. Margery did not know much about
+trees and flowers, but she loved them dearly; whenever it was a fine
+Sunday she used to go with her mother and father to the park and look at
+the lovely flower-beds. They seemed always to be finished, though, and
+Margery was always wishing she could see them grow.
+
+One spring, when Margery was nine, her father obtained a new situation
+and they removed to a little house with a nice big piece of ground a
+short distance outside the town where his new position was. Margery was
+delighted. And the very first thing she said, when her father told her
+about it, was, "Oh, may I have a garden? _May_ I have a garden?"
+
+Margery's mother was almost as eager for a garden as she was, and
+Margery's father said he expected to live on their vegetables all the
+rest of his life! So it was soon agreed that the garden should be the
+first thing attended to.
+
+Behind the cottage were apple trees, a plum tree, and two or three pear
+trees; then came a stretch of rough grass, and then a stone wall, with a
+gate leading into the fields. It was on the grass plot that the garden
+was to be. A big piece was to be used for wheat and peas and beans, and
+a little piece at the end was to be given to Margery.
+
+"What shall we have in it?" asked her mother.
+
+"Flowers," said Margery, with shining eyes,--"blue, and white, and
+yellow, and pink,--every kind of flower!"
+
+"Surely, flowers," said her mother, "and shall we not have a little
+salad garden in the middle?"
+
+"What is a salad garden?" Margery asked.
+
+"It is a garden where you have all the things that make nice salad,"
+said her mother, laughing, for Margery was fond of salads; "you have
+lettuce, and endive, and mustard and cress, and parsley, and radishes,
+and beetroot, and young onions."
+
+"Oh! how good it sounds!" said Margery. "I should love a salad garden."
+
+That very evening, Margery's father took pencil and paper, and drew out
+a plan for her garden; first, they talked it all over, then he drew what
+they decided on; it looked like the diagram on the next page.
+
+"The outside strip is for flowers," said Margery's father, "and next is
+a footpath, all the way round the beds; that is to let you get at the
+flowers to weed and to pick; there is a wider path through the middle,
+and the rest is for rows of salad vegetables."
+
+"Papa, it is glorious!" said Margery.
+
+Papa laughed. "I hope you will still think it glorious when the weeding
+time comes," he said, "for you know, you and mother have promised to
+take care of this garden, while I take care of the big one."
+
+"I wouldn't _not_ take care of it for anything!" said Margery. "I want
+to feel that it is my very own."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Her father kissed her, and said it was certainly her "very own."
+
+Two evenings after that, when Margery was called in from her first
+ramble in the fields, she found the postman at the door.
+
+"Something for you, Margery," said her mother, with the look she had
+when something nice was happening.
+
+It was a box, quite a big box, with a label on it that said:--
+
+     MISS MARGERY BROWN,
+         PRIMROSE COTTAGE,
+               21 NARCISSUS ROAD,
+                     COLCHESTER.
+
+     From Seeds and Plants Company, Reading.
+
+Margery could hardly wait to open it. It was filled with little
+packages, all with printed labels; and in the packages, of course, were
+seeds. It made Margery dance, just to read the names,--nasturtium, giant
+helianthus, canariensis, calendula, Canterbury bells: more names than I
+can tell you; and other packages, bigger, that said, "Sweet Peas,"
+"French beans," "Carrots," "Wallflowers," and such things! Margery could
+almost smell the posies, she was so excited. Only, she had seen so
+little of flowers that she did not know what all the names meant. She
+did not know that a helianthus was a sunflower until her mother told her
+so, and she had never seen the dear, blue, bell-shaped flowers that
+always grow in old-fashioned gardens, and are called Canterbury bells.
+She thought the calendula must be a strange, grand flower, by its name;
+but her mother told her it was the gay, sturdy, everydayish little
+flower called a marigold. There was a great deal for a little city girl
+to be surprised about, and it did seem as if morning was a long way off!
+
+"Did you think you could plant them in the morning?" asked her mother.
+"You know, dear, the ground has to be made ready first; it takes a
+little time,--it may be several days before you can plant."
+
+That was another surprise. Margery had thought she could begin to sow
+the seed right off.
+
+But this was what had happened. Early the next morning, a man came
+driving up to the cottage with two strong white horses; in his wagon was
+a plough. I suppose you have seen ploughs, but Margery never had, and
+she watched with great interest, while the man and her father took the
+plough from the cart and harnessed the horses to it. It was a great,
+three-cornered piece of sharp steel, with long handles coming up from
+it, so that a man could hold it in place. It looked like this:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I brought a two-horse plough because it's virgin soil," the man said.
+Margery wondered what in the world he meant; it had not been
+cultivated, of course, but what had that do with the kind of plough?
+"What does he mean, father?" she whispered, when she got a chance. "He
+means that this land has not been ploughed before; it will be hard to
+turn the soil, and one horse could not pull the plough," said her
+father.
+
+It took the man two hours to plough the little strip of land. He drove
+the sharp end of the plough into the soil, and held it firmly so, while
+the horses drew it along in a straight line. Margery found it
+fascinating to watch the long line of dark earth and green grass come
+rolling up and turn over, as the knife passed it. She could see that it
+took real skill and strength to keep the line even, and to avoid the
+stones. Sometimes the plough struck a hidden stone, and then the man was
+jerked almost off his feet. But he only laughed, and said, "Tough piece
+of land; it will be a lot better next year."
+
+When he had ploughed, the man went back to his cart and unloaded another
+farm implement. This one was like a three-cornered platform of wood,
+with a long, curved, strong rake under it. It was called a harrow, and
+it looked like the diagram on the next page.
+
+The man harnessed the horses to it, and then he stood on the platform
+and drove all over the strip of land. It was fun to watch, but perhaps
+it was a little hard to do. The man's weight kept the harrow steady,
+and let the teeth of the rake scratch and cut the ground up, so that it
+did not stay in ridges.
+
+"He scrambles the ground, father!" said Margery.
+
+"It needs 'scrambling,'" laughed her father. "We are going to get more
+weeds than we want on this fresh soil, and the more the ground is
+broken, the fewer there will be."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+After the ploughing and harrowing, the man drove off, and Margery's
+father said that he himself would do the rest of the work in the late
+afternoons, when he came home from business; they could not afford too
+much help, he said, and he had learned to take care of a garden when he
+was a boy. So Margery did not see any more done until the next day.
+
+But the next day there was hard work for Margery's father! Every bit of
+that ground had to be broken up still more with a spade, and then the
+clods which were full of grass-roots had to be taken on a fork and
+shaken, till the earth fell out; when the grass was thrown to one side.
+That would not have had to be done if the land had been ploughed in the
+autumn; the grass would have rotted in the ground, and would have made
+food for the plants. Now, Margery's father put the fertiliser on the
+top, and then raked it into the earth.
+
+At last, it was time to make the place for the seeds. Margery and her
+mother helped. Father tied one end of a cord to a little stake, and
+drove the stake in the ground at one end of the garden. Then he took the
+cord to the other end of the garden and pulled it tight, tied it to
+another stake, and drove that down. That made a straight line. Then he
+hoed a trench, a few inches deep, the whole length of the cord, and
+scattered fertiliser in it. Pretty soon the whole garden was lined with
+little trenches.
+
+"Now for the seed," said father.
+
+Margery ran and brought the seed box. "May I help?" she asked.
+
+"If you watch me sow one row, I think you can do the next," said her
+father.
+
+So Margery watched. Her father took a handful of peas, and, stooping,
+walked slowly along the line, letting the seed trickle through his
+fingers. It was pretty to watch; it made Margery think of a photograph
+her teacher had, a photograph of a famous picture called "The Sower."
+Perhaps you have seen it.
+
+Putting in the seed was not so easy to do as to watch; sometimes Margery
+dropped in too much, and sometimes not enough; but her father was
+patient with her, and soon she did better.
+
+They planted peas, beans, spinach, carrots, and parsnips. And Margery's
+father made a row of holes, after that, for the tomato plants. He said
+those had to be transplanted; they could not be sown from seed.
+
+When the seeds were in the trenches they had to be covered up, and
+Margery really helped at that. It is fun to do it. You stand beside the
+little trench and walk backward, and as you walk you hoe the loose earth
+back over the seeds; the same earth that was hoed up you pull back
+again. Then you rake very gently over the surface, with the back of a
+rake, to even it all off. Margery liked it, because now the garden began
+to look _like_ a garden.
+
+But best of all was the work next day, when her own little particular
+garden was begun. Father Brown loved Margery and Margery's mother so
+much that he wanted their garden to be perfect, and that meant a great
+deal more work. He knew very well that the old grass would begin to come
+through again on such soil, and that it would make terribly hard
+weeding. He was not going to have any such thing for his two "little
+girls," as he called them. So he gave that little garden particular
+attention. This is what he did.
+
+After he had thrown out all the turf, he shovelled clean earth on to the
+garden,--as much as three solid inches of it; not a bit of grass was in
+that. Then it was ready for raking and fertilising, and for the lines.
+The little footpaths were marked out by Father Brown's feet; Margery and
+her mother laughed well at his actions, for it looked like some kind of
+dance. Mr Brown had seen gardeners do it when he was a little boy, and
+he did it very nicely: he walked along the sides of the square, with one
+foot turned a little out, and the other straight, taking such tiny steps
+that his feet touched each other all the time. This tramped out a path
+just wide enough for a person to walk.
+
+The wider path was marked with lines and raked.
+
+Margery thought, of course, all the flowers would be put in as the
+vegetables were; but she found that it was not so. For some, her father
+poked little holes with his finger; for some, he made very shallow
+trenches; and some very small seeds were scattered lightly over the top
+of the ground.
+
+Margery and her mother had taken so much pains in thinking out the
+arrangement of the flowers, that perhaps you will like to hear just how
+they designed that garden. At the back were the sweet peas, which would
+grow tall, like a screen; on the two sides, for a kind of hedge, were
+yellow sunflowers; and along the front edge were the gay nasturtiums.
+Margery planned that, so that she could look into the garden from the
+front, but have it shut away from the vegetable patch by the tall
+flowers on the sides. The two front corners had canariensis in them.
+Canariensis is a pretty creeper with golden blossoms, very dainty and
+bright. And then, in little square patches all round the garden, were
+planted London pride, blue bachelor's buttons, yellow marigolds, tall
+larkspur, many-coloured asters, hollyhocks and stocks. All these lovely
+flowers used to grow in our grandmothers' gardens, and if you don't know
+what they look like, I hope you can find out next summer.
+
+Between the flowers and the middle path went the seeds for that
+wonderful salad garden; all the things Mrs Brown had named to Margery
+were there. Margery had never seen anything more wonderful than the
+little round lettuce-seeds. They were so tiny that it did not seem
+possible that green lettuce leaves could come from them. But they surely
+would.
+
+Mother and father and Margery were late to supper that evening. But they
+were all so happy that it did not matter. The last thing Margery
+thought of, as she went to sleep at night, was the dear, smooth little
+garden, with its funny footpath, and with the little sticks standing at
+the ends of the rows, labelled "lettuce," "beets," "helianthus," and so
+on.
+
+"I have a garden! I have a garden!" was Margery's last thought as she
+went off to dreamland.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] I have always been inclined to avoid, in my work among children,
+the "how to make" and "how to do" kind of story; it is too likely to
+trespass on the ground belonging by right to its more artistic and less
+intentional kinsfolk. Nevertheless, there is a legitimate place for the
+instruction-story. Within its own limits, and especially in a school
+use, it has a real purpose to serve, and a real desire to meet. Children
+have a genuine taste for such morsels of practical information, if the
+bites are not made too big and too solid. And to the elementary teacher,
+from whom so much is demanded in the way of practical instruction, I
+know that these stories are a boon. They must be chosen with care, and
+used with discretion, but they need never be ignored.
+
+I venture to give some little stories of this type, which I hope may be
+of use in the schools where country life and country work is an unknown
+experience to the children.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE COTYLEDONS
+
+
+This is another story about Margery's garden.
+
+The next morning after the garden was planted, Margery was up and out at
+six o'clock. She could not wait to look at her garden. To be sure, she
+knew that the seeds could not sprout in a single night, but she had a
+feeling that _something_ might happen at any moment. The garden was just
+as smooth and brown as the night before, and no little seedlings were in
+sight.
+
+But a very few mornings after that, when Margery went out, she saw a
+funny little crack opening up through the earth, the whole length of the
+patch. Quickly she knelt down on the footpath, to see. Yes! Tiny green
+leaves, a whole row of them, were pushing their way through the crust!
+Margery knew what she had put there: it was the radish-row; these must
+be radish leaves. She examined them very closely, so that she might
+know a radish next time. The little leaves, no bigger than half your
+little-finger nail, grew in twos,--two on each tiny stem; they were
+almost round.
+
+Margery flew back to her mother, to say that the first seeds were up.
+And her mother, nearly as excited as Margery, came to look at the little
+crack.
+
+Each day, after that, the row of radishes grew, till, in a week, it
+stood as high as your finger, green and sturdy. But about the third day,
+while Margery was stooping over the radishes, she saw something very,
+very small and green, peeping above ground, where the lettuce was
+planted. Could it be weeds? No, for on looking very closely she saw that
+the wee leaves faintly marked a regular row. They did not make a crack,
+like the radishes; they seemed too small and too far apart to push the
+earth up like that. Margery leaned down and looked with all her eyes at
+the baby plants. The tiny leaves grew two on a stem, and were almost
+round. The more she looked at them the more it seemed to Margery that
+they looked exactly as the radish looked when it first came up. "Do you
+suppose," Margery said to herself, "that lettuce and radish look alike
+while they are growing? They don't look alike when they are on the
+table!"
+
+Day by day the lettuce grew, and soon the little round leaves were
+easier to examine; they certainly were very much like radish leaves.
+
+Then, one morning, while she was searching for signs of other seeds,
+Margery discovered the beets. In irregular patches on the row, hints of
+green were coming. The next day and the next they grew, until the beet
+leaves were big enough to see.
+
+Margery looked. Then she looked again. Then she wrinkled her forehead.
+"Can we have made a mistake?" she thought. "Do you suppose we can have
+planted _all_ radishes?"
+
+For those little beet leaves were almost round, and they grew two on a
+stem, precisely like the lettuce and the radish; except for the size,
+all three rows looked alike.
+
+It was too much for Margery. She ran to the house and found her father.
+Her little face was so anxious that he thought something unpleasant had
+happened. "Papa," she said, all out of breath, "do you think we could
+have made a mistake about my garden? Do you think we could have put
+radishes in all the rows?"
+
+Father laughed. "What makes you think such a thing?" he asked.
+
+"Papa," said Margery, "the little leaves all look exactly alike! every
+plant has just two tiny leaves on it, and shaped the same; they are
+roundish, and grow out of the stem at the same place."
+
+Papa's eyes began to twinkle. "Many of the dicotyledonous plants look
+alike at the beginning," he said, with a little drawl on the big word.
+That was to tease Margery, because she always wanted to know the big
+words she heard.
+
+"What's 'dicotyledonous'?" said Margery, carefully.
+
+"Wait till I come home to-night, dear," said her father, "and I'll tell
+you."
+
+That evening Margery was waiting eagerly for him. When her father
+finished his supper they went together to the garden, and father
+examined the seedlings carefully. Then he pulled up a little radish
+plant and a tiny beet.
+
+"These little leaves," he said, "are not the real leaves of the plant;
+they are only little pockets to hold food for the plant to live on till
+it gets strong enough to push up into the air. As soon as the real
+leaves come out and begin to draw food from the air, these little
+substitutes wither up and fall off. These two lie folded up in the
+little seed from the beginning, and are full of plant food. They don't
+have to be very special in shape, you see, because they don't stay on
+the plant after it is grown up."
+
+"Then every plant looks like this at first?" said Margery.
+
+"No, dear, not every one; plants are divided into two kinds: those which
+have two food leaves, like these plants, and those which have only one;
+these are called dicotyledonous, and the ones which have but one food
+leaf are monocotyledonous. Many of the dicotyledons look alike."
+
+"I think that is interesting," said Margery.
+
+"I always, supposed the plants were different from the minute they began
+to grow."
+
+"Indeed, no," said father. "Even some of the trees look like this when
+they first come through; you would not think a birch tree could look
+like a vegetable or a flower, would you? But it does, at first; it looks
+so much like these things that in the great nurseries, where trees are
+raised for forests and parks, the workmen have to be very carefully
+trained, or else they would pull up the trees when they are weeding.
+They have to be taught the difference between a birch tree and a weed."
+
+"How funny!" said Margery, dimpling.
+
+"Yes, it sounds funny," said father; "but, you see, the birch tree is
+dicotyledonous, and so are many weeds, and the dicotyledons look so much
+alike at first."
+
+"I am glad to know that, father," said Margery, soberly. "I believe I
+shall learn a good deal from living in the country; don't you think so?"
+
+Margery's father took her in his arms. "I hope so, dear," he said; "the
+country is a good place for little girls."
+
+And that was all that happened, that day.
+
+
+
+
+THE TALKATIVE TORTOISE[27]
+
+
+Once upon a time, a Tortoise lived in a pond with two Ducks, who were
+her very good friends. She enjoyed the company of the Ducks, because she
+could talk with them to her heart's content; the Tortoise liked to talk.
+She always had something to say, and she liked to hear herself say it.
+
+After many years of this pleasant living, the pond became very low, in a
+dry season; and finally it dried up. The two Ducks saw that they could
+no longer live there, so they decided to fly to another region, where
+there was more water. They went to the Tortoise to bid her good-bye.
+
+"Oh, don't leave me behind!" begged the Tortoise. "Take me with you; I
+must die if I am left here."
+
+"But you cannot fly!" said the Ducks. "How can we take you with us?"
+
+"Take me with you! take me with you!" said the Tortoise.
+
+The Ducks felt so sorry for her that at last they thought of a way to
+take her. "We have thought of a way which will be possible," they said,
+"if only you can manage to keep still long enough. We will each take
+hold of one end of a stout stick, and do you take the middle in your
+mouth; then we will fly up in the air with you and carry you with us.
+But remember not to talk! If you open your mouth, you are lost."
+
+The Tortoise said she would not say a word; she would not so much as
+move her mouth; and she was very grateful. So the Ducks brought a strong
+little stick and took hold of the ends, while the Tortoise bit firmly on
+the middle. Then the two Ducks rose slowly in the air and flew away with
+their burden.
+
+When they were above the treetops, the Tortoise wanted to say, "How high
+we are!" But she remembered, and kept still. When they passed the church
+steeple she wanted to say, "What is that which shines?" But she
+remembered, and held her peace. Then they came over the village square,
+and the people looked up and saw them. "Look at the Ducks carrying a
+Tortoise!" they shouted; and every one ran to look. The Tortoise wanted
+to say, "What business is it of yours?" But she didn't. Then she heard
+the people shout, "Isn't it strange! Look at it! Look!"
+
+The Tortoise forgot everything except that she wanted to say, "Hush, you
+foolish people!" She opened her mouth,--and fell to the ground. And that
+was the end of the Tortoise.
+
+It is a very good thing to be able to hold one's tongue!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] Very freely adapted from one of the _Fables of Bidpai_.
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT OF SICILY[28]
+
+
+An old legend says that there was once a king named Robert of Sicily,
+who was brother to the Great Pope of Rome and to the Emperor of
+Allemaine. He was a very selfish king, and very proud; he cared more for
+his pleasures than for the needs of his people, and his heart was so
+filled with his own greatness that he had no thought for God.
+
+One day, this proud king was sitting in his place at church, at vesper
+service; his courtiers were about him, in their bright garments, and he
+himself was dressed in his royal robes. The choir was chanting the Latin
+service, and as the beautiful voices swelled louder, the king noticed
+one particular verse which seemed to be repeated again and again. He
+turned to a learned clerk at his side and asked what those words meant,
+for he knew no Latin.
+
+"They mean, 'He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and hath
+exalted them of low degree,'" answered the clerk.
+
+"It is well the words are in Latin, then," said the king angrily, "for
+they are a lie. There is no power on earth or in heaven which can put me
+down from my seat!" and he sneered at the beautiful singing, as he
+leaned back in his place.
+
+Presently the king fell asleep, while the service went on. He slept
+deeply and long. When he awoke the church was dark and still, and he was
+all alone. He, the king, had been left alone in the church, to awake in
+the dark! He was furious with rage and surprise, and, stumbling through
+the dim aisles, he reached the great doors and beat at them, madly,
+shouting for his servants.
+
+The old sexton heard some one shouting and pounding in the church, and
+thought it was some drunken vagabond who had stolen in during the
+service. He came to the door with his keys and called out, "Who is
+there?"
+
+"Open! open! It is I, the king!" came a hoarse, angry voice from within.
+
+"It is a crazy man," thought the sexton; and he was frightened. He
+opened the doors carefully and stood back, peering into the darkness.
+Out past him rushed the figure of a man in tattered, scanty clothes,
+with unkempt hair and white, wild face. The sexton did not know that he
+had ever seen him before, but he looked long after him, wondering at his
+wildness and his haste.
+
+In his fluttering rags, without hat or cloak, not knowing what strange
+thing had happened to him, King Robert rushed to his palace gates,
+pushed aside the startled servants, and hurried, blind with rage, up the
+wide stair and through the great corridors, toward the room where he
+could hear the sound of his courtiers' voices. Men and women servants
+tried to stop the ragged man, who had somehow got into the palace, but
+Robert did not even see them as he fled along. Straight to the open
+doors of the big banquet hall he made his way, and into the midst of the
+grand feast there.
+
+The great hall was filled with lights and flowers; the tables were set
+with everything that is delicate and rich to eat; the courtiers, in
+their gay clothes, were laughing and talking; and at the head of the
+feast, on the king's own throne, sat a king. His face, his figure, his
+voice were exactly like Robert of Sicily; no human being could have told
+the difference; no one dreamed that he was not the king. He was dressed
+in the king's royal robes, he wore the royal crown, and on his hand was
+the king's own ring. Robert of Sicily, half naked, ragged, without a
+sign of his kingship on him, stood before the throne and stared with
+fury at this figure of himself.
+
+The king on the throne looked at him. "Who art thou, and what dost thou
+here?" he asked. And though his voice was just like Robert's own, it had
+something in it sweet and deep, like the sound of bells.
+
+"I am the king!" cried Robert of Sicily. "I am the king, and you are an
+impostor!"
+
+The courtiers started from their seats, and drew their swords. They
+would have killed the crazy man who insulted their king; but he raised
+his hand and stopped them, and with his eyes looking into Robert's eyes
+he said, "Not the king; you shall be the king's jester! You shall wear
+the cap and bells, and make laughter for my court. You shall be the
+servant of the servants, and your companion shall, be the jester's ape."
+
+With shouts of laughter, the courtiers drove Robert of Sicily from the
+banquet hall; the waiting-men, with laughter, too, pushed him into the
+soldiers' hall; and there the pages brought the jester's wretched ape,
+and put a fool's cap and bells on Robert's head. It was like a terrible
+dream; he could not believe it true, he could not understand what had
+happened to him. And when he woke next morning, he believed it was a
+dream, and that he was king again. But as he turned his head, he felt
+the coarse straw under his cheek instead of the soft pillow, and he saw
+that he was in the stable, with the shivering ape by his side. Robert of
+Sicily was a jester, and no one knew him for the king.
+
+Three long years passed. Sicily was happy and all things went well under
+the king, who was not Robert. Robert was still the jester, and his heart
+grew harder and more bitter with every year. Many times, during the
+three years, the king, who had his face and voice, had called him to
+himself, when none else could hear, and had asked him the one question,
+"Who art thou?" And each time that he asked it his eyes looked into
+Robert's eyes, to find his heart. But each time Robert threw back his
+head and answered, proudly, "I am the king!" And the other king's eyes
+grew sad and stern.
+
+At the end of three years, the Pope called the Emperor of Allemaine and
+the King of Sicily, his brothers, to a great meeting in his city of
+Rome. The King of Sicily went, with all his soldiers and courtiers and
+servants,--a great procession of horsemen and footmen. Never had there
+been seen a finer sight than the grand train, men in bright armour,
+riders in wonderful cloaks of velvet and silk, servants, carrying
+marvellous presents to the Pope. And at the very end rode Robert, the
+jester. His horse was poor and old, many-coloured, and the ape rode with
+him. Every one in the villages through which they passed ran after the
+jester, and pointed and laughed.
+
+The Pope received his brothers and their trains in the square before
+Saint Peter's. With music and flags and flowers he made the King of
+Sicily welcome, and greeted him as his brother. In the midst of it, the
+jester broke through the crowd and threw himself before the Pope. "Look
+at me!" he cried; "I am your brother, Robert of Sicily! This man is an
+impostor, who has stolen my throne. I am Robert, the king!"
+
+The Pope looked at the poor jester with pity, but the Emperor of
+Allemaine turned to the King of Sicily, and said, "Is it not rather
+dangerous, brother, to keep a madman as jester?" And again Robert was
+pushed back among the serving-men.
+
+It was Holy Week, and the king and the emperor, with all their trains,
+went every day to the great services in the cathedral. Something
+wonderful and holy seemed to make these services more beautiful than
+ever before. All the people of Rome felt it: it was as if the presence
+of an angel were there. Men thought of God, and felt His blessing on
+them. But no one knew who it was that brought the beautiful feeling. And
+when Easter Day came, never had there been so lovely, so holy a day: in
+the great churches, filled with flowers, and sweet with incense, the
+kneeling people listened to the choirs singing, and it was like the
+voices of angels; their prayers were more earnest than ever before,
+their praise more glad; there was something heavenly in Rome.
+
+Robert of Sicily went to the services with the rest, and sat in the
+humblest place with the servants. Over and over again he heard the
+sweet voices of the choirs chant the Latin words he had heard long ago:
+_He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted them of
+low degree_. And at last, as he listened, his heart was softened. He,
+too, felt the strange blessed presence of a heavenly power. He thought
+of God, and of his own wickedness; he remembered how selfish he had
+been, and how little good he had done; he realised, that his power had
+not been from himself, at all. On Easter night, as he crept to his bed
+of straw, he wept, not because he was so wretched, but because he had
+not been a better king when power was his.
+
+At last all the festivities were over, and the King of Sicily went home
+to his own land again, with his people. Robert the jester came home too.
+
+On the day of their home-coming, there was a special service in the
+royal church, and even after the service was over for the people, the
+monks held prayers of thanksgiving and praise. The sound of their
+singing came softly in at the palace windows. In the great banquet room,
+the king sat, wearing his royal robes and his crown, while many subjects
+came to greet him. At last, he sent them all away, saying he wanted to
+be alone; but he commanded the jester to stay. And when they were alone
+together the king looked into Robert's eyes, as he had done before, and
+said, softly, "Who art thou?"
+
+Robert of Sicily bowed his head. "Thou knowest best," he said, "I only
+know that I have sinned."
+
+As he spoke, he heard the voices of the monks singing, _He hath put down
+the mighty from their seat_,--and his head sank lower. But suddenly the
+music seemed to change; a wonderful light shone all about. As Robert
+raised his eyes, he saw the face of the king smiling at him with a
+radiance like nothing on earth, and as he sank to his knees before the
+glory of that smile, a voice sounded with the music, like a melody
+throbbing on a single string,--
+
+"I am an angel, and thou art the king!"
+
+Then Robert of Sicily was alone. His royal robes were upon him once
+more; he wore his crown and his royal ring. He was king. And when the
+courtiers came back they found their king kneeling by his throne,
+absorbed in silent prayer.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[28] Adapted from Longfellow's poem.
+
+
+
+
+THE JEALOUS COURTIERS[29]
+
+
+I wonder if you have ever heard the anecdote about the artist of
+Düsseldorf and the jealous courtiers. This is it. It seems there was
+once a very famous artist who lived in the little town of Düsseldorf. He
+did such fine work that the Elector, Prince Johann Wilhelm, ordered a
+portrait statue of himself, on horseback, to be done in bronze. The
+artist was overjoyed at the commission, and worked early and late at the
+statue.
+
+At last the work was done, and the artist had the great statue set up in
+the public square of Düsseldorf, ready for the opening view. The Elector
+came on the appointed day, and with him came his favourite courtiers
+from the castle. Then the statue was unveiled. It was very
+beautiful,--so beautiful that the prince exclaimed in surprise. He could
+not look enough, and presently he turned to the artist and shook hands
+with him, like an old friend. "Herr Grupello," he said, "you are a great
+artist, and this statue will make your fame even greater than it is; the
+portrait of me is perfect!"
+
+When the courtiers heard this, and saw the friendly hand-shake, their
+jealousy of the artist was beyond bounds. Their one thought was, how
+could they safely do something to humiliate him. They dared not pick
+flaws in the portrait statue, for the prince had declared it perfect.
+But at last one of them said, with an air of great frankness, "Indeed,
+Herr Grupello, the portrait of his Royal Highness is perfect; but permit
+me to say that the statue of the horse is not quite so successful: the
+head is too large; it is out of proportion."
+
+"No," said another, "the horse is really not so successful; the turn of
+the neck, there, is awkward."
+
+"If you would change the right hind-foot, Herr Grupello," said a third,
+"it would be an improvement."
+
+Still another found fault with the horse's tail.
+
+The artist listened, quietly. When they had all finished, he turned to
+the prince and said, "Your courtiers, prince, find a good many flaws in
+the statue of the horse; will you permit me to keep it a few days more,
+to do what I can with it?"
+
+The Elector assented, and the artist ordered a temporary screen to be
+built around the statue, so that his assistants could work undisturbed.
+For several days the sound of hammering came steadily from behind the
+enclosure. The courtiers, who took care to pass that way, often, were
+delighted. Each one said to himself, "I must have been right, really;
+the artist himself sees that something was wrong; now I shall have
+credit for saving the prince's portrait by my artistic taste!"
+
+Once more the artist summoned the prince and his courtiers, and once
+more the statue was unveiled. Again the Elector exclaimed at its beauty,
+and then he turned to his courtiers, one after another, to see what they
+had to say.
+
+"Perfect!" said the first. "Now that the horse's head is in proportion,
+there is not a flaw."
+
+"The change in the neck was just what was needed," said the second; "it
+is very graceful now."
+
+"The rear right foot is as it should be, now," said a third, "and it
+adds so much to the beauty of the whole!"
+
+The fourth said that he considered the tail greatly improved.
+
+"My courtiers are much pleased now," said the prince to Herr Grupello;
+"they think the statue much improved by the changes you have made."
+
+Herr Grupello smiled a little. "I am glad they are pleased," he said,
+"but the fact is, I have changed nothing!"
+
+"What do you mean?" said the prince in surprise. "Have we not heard the
+sound of hammering every day? What were you hammering at then?"
+
+"I was hammering at the reputation of your courtiers, who found fault
+simply because they were jealous," said the artist. "And I rather think
+that their reputation is pretty well hammered to pieces!"
+
+It was, indeed. The Elector laughed heartily, but the courtiers slunk
+away, one after another, without a word.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] Adapted from H.A. Guerber's _Märchen und Erzählungen_ (D.C. Heath &
+Co.).
+
+
+
+
+PRINCE CHERRY[30]
+
+There was once an old king, so wise and kind and true that the most
+powerful good fairy of his land visited him and asked him to name the
+dearest wish of his heart, that she might grant it.
+
+"Surely you know it," said the good king; "it is for my only son, Prince
+Cherry; do for him whatever you would have done for me."
+
+"Gladly," said the great fairy; "choose what I shall give him. I can
+make him the richest, the most beautiful, or the most powerful prince in
+the world; choose."
+
+"None of those things are what I want," said the king. "I want only that
+he shall be good. Of what use will it be to him to be beautiful, rich,
+or powerful, if he grows into a bad man? Make him the best prince in the
+world, I beg you!"
+
+"Alas, I cannot make him good," said the fairy; "he must do that for
+himself. I can give him good advice, reprove him when he does wrong, and
+punish him if he will not punish himself; I can and will be his best
+friend, but I cannot make him good unless he wills it."
+
+The king was sad to hear this, but he rejoiced in the friendship of the
+fairy for his son. And when he died, soon after, he was happy to know
+that he left Prince Cherry in her hands.
+
+Prince Cherry grieved for his father, and often lay awake at night,
+thinking of him. One night, when he was all alone in his room, a soft
+and lovely light suddenly shone before him, and a beautiful vision stood
+at his side. It was the good fairy. She was clad in robes of dazzling
+white, and on her shining hair she wore a wreath of white roses.
+
+"I am the Fairy Candide," she said to the prince. "I promised your
+father that I would be your best friend, and as long as you live I shall
+watch over your happiness. I have brought you a gift; it is not
+wonderful to look at, but it has a wonderful power for your welfare;
+wear it, and let it help you."
+
+As she spoke, she placed a small gold ring on the prince's little
+finger. "This ring," she said, "will help you to be good; when you do
+evil, it will prick you, to remind you. If you do not heed its warnings
+a worse thing will happen to you, for I shall become your enemy." Then
+she vanished.
+
+Prince Cherry wore his ring, and said nothing to anyone of the fairy's
+gift. It did not prick him for a long time, because he was good and
+merry and happy. But Prince Cherry had been rather spoiled by his nurse
+when he was a child; she had always said to him that when he should
+become king he could do exactly as he pleased. Now, after a while, he
+began to find out that this was not true, and it made him angry.
+
+The first time that he noticed that even a king could not always have
+his own way was on a day when he went hunting. It happened that he got
+no game. This put him in such a bad temper that he grumbled and scolded
+all the way home. The little gold ring began to feel tight and
+uncomfortable. When he reached the palace his pet dog ran to meet him.
+
+"Go away!" said the prince, crossly.
+
+But the little dog was so used to being petted that he only jumped up on
+his master, and tried to kiss his hand. The prince turned and kicked the
+little creature. At the instant, he felt a sharp prick in his little
+finger, like a pin prick.
+
+"What nonsense!" said the prince to himself. "Am I not king of the whole
+land? May I not kick my own dog, if I choose? What evil is there in
+that?"
+
+A silver voice spoke in his ear: "The king of the land has a right to do
+good, but not evil; you have been guilty of bad temper and of cruelty
+to-day; see that you do better to-morrow."
+
+The prince turned sharply, but no one was to be seen; yet he recognised
+the voice as that of Fairy Candide.
+
+He followed her advice for a little, but presently he forgot, and the
+ring pricked him so sharply that his finger had a drop of blood on it.
+This happened again and again, for the prince grew more self-willed and
+headstrong every day; he had some bad friends, too, who urged him on, in
+the hope that he would ruin himself and give them a chance to seize the
+throne. He treated his people carelessly and his servants cruelly, and
+everything he wanted he felt that he must have.
+
+The ring annoyed him terribly; it was embarrassing for a king to have a
+drop of blood on his finger all the time! At last he took the ring off
+and put it out of sight. Then he thought he should be perfectly happy,
+having his own way; but instead, he grew more unhappy as he grew less
+good. Whenever he was crossed, or could not have his own way instantly,
+he flew into a passion.
+
+Finally, he wanted something that he really could not have. This time it
+was a most beautiful young girl, named Zelia; the prince saw her, and
+loved her so much that he wanted at once to make her his queen. To his
+great astonishment, she refused.
+
+"Am I not pleasing to you?" asked the prince in surprise.
+
+"You are very handsome, very charming, prince," said Zelia; "but you are
+not like the good king, your father; I fear you would make me very
+miserable if I were your queen."
+
+In a great rage, Prince Cherry ordered the young girl to be put in
+prison; and the key of her dungeon he kept. He told one of his friends,
+a wicked man who flattered him for his own purposes, about the thing,
+and asked his advice.
+
+"Are you not king?" said the bad friend. "May you not do as you will?
+Keep the girl in a dungeon till she does as you command, and if she will
+not, sell her as a slave."
+
+"But would it not be a disgrace for me to harm an innocent creature?"
+said the prince.
+
+"It would be a disgrace to you to have it said that one of your subjects
+dared disobey you!" said the courtier.
+
+He had cleverly touched the prince's worst trait, his pride. Prince
+Cherry went at once to Zelia's dungeon, prepared to do this cruel thing.
+
+Zelia was gone. No one had the key save the prince himself; yet she was
+gone. The only person who could have dared to help her, thought the
+prince, was his old tutor, Suliman, the only man left who ever rebuked
+him for anything. In fury, he ordered Suliman to be put in fetters and
+brought before him.
+
+As his servants left him, to carry out the wicked order, there was a
+clash, as of thunder, in the room, and then a blinding light. Fairy
+Candide stood before him. Her beautiful face was stern, and her silver
+voice rang like a trumpet, as she said, "Wicked and selfish prince, you
+have become baser than the beasts you hunt; you are furious as a lion,
+revengeful as a serpent, greedy as a wolf, and brutal as a bull; take,
+therefore, the shape of those beasts whom you resemble!"
+
+With horror, the prince felt himself being transformed into a monster.
+He tried to rush upon the fairy and kill her, but she had vanished with
+her words. As he stood, her voice came from the air, saying, sadly,
+"Learn to conquer your pride by being in submission to your own
+subjects." At the same moment, Prince Cherry felt himself being
+transported to a distant forest, where he was set down by a clear
+stream. In the water he saw his own terrible image; he had the head of a
+lion, with bull's horns, the feet of a wolf, and a tail like a serpent.
+And as he gazed in horror, the fairy's voice whispered, "Your soul has
+become more ugly than your shape is; you yourself have deformed it."
+
+The poor beast rushed away from the sound of her words, but in a moment
+he stumbled into a trap, set by bear-catchers. When the trappers found
+him they were delighted to have caught a curiosity, and they immediately
+dragged him to the palace courtyard. There he heard the whole court
+buzzing with gossip. Prince Cherry had been struck by lightning and
+killed, was the news, and the five favourite courtiers had struggled to
+make themselves rulers, but the people had refused them, and offered the
+crown to Suliman, the good old tutor.
+
+Even as he heard this, the prince saw Suliman on the steps of the
+palace, speaking to the people. "I will take the crown to keep in
+trust," he said. "Perhaps the prince is not dead."
+
+"He was a bad king; we do not want him back," said the people.
+
+"I know his heart," said Suliman, "it is not all bad; it is tainted, but
+not corrupt; perhaps he will repent and come back to us a good king."
+
+When the beast heard this, it touched him so much that he stopped
+tearing at his chains, and became gentle. He let his keepers lead him
+away to the royal menagerie without hurting them.
+
+Life was very terrible to the prince, now, but he began to see that he
+had brought all his sorrow on himself, and he tried to bear it
+patiently. The worst to bear was the cruelty of the keeper. At last, one
+night, this keeper was in great danger; a tiger got loose, and attacked
+him. "Good enough! Let him die!" thought Prince Cherry. But when he saw
+how helpless the keeper was, he repented, and sprang to help. He killed
+the tiger and saved the keeper's life.
+
+As he crouched at the keeper's feet, a voice said, "Good actions never
+go unrewarded!" And the terrible monster was changed into a pretty
+little white dog.
+
+The keeper carried the beautiful little dog to the court and told the
+story, and from then on, Cherry was carefully treated, and had the best
+of everything. But in order to keep the little dog from growing, the
+queen ordered that he should be fed very little, and that was pretty
+hard for the poor prince. He was often half starved, although so much
+petted.
+
+One day he had carried his crust of bread to a retired spot in the
+palace woods, where he loved to be, when he saw a poor old woman hunting
+for roots, and seeming almost starved.
+
+"Poor thing," he thought, "she is even more hungry than I"; and he ran
+up and dropped the crust at her feet.
+
+The woman ate it, and seemed greatly refreshed.
+
+Cherry was glad of that, and he was running happily back to his kennel
+when he heard cries of distress, and suddenly he saw some rough men
+dragging along a young girl, who was weeping and crying for help. What
+was his horror to see that the young girl was Zelia! Oh, how he wished
+he were the monster once more, so that he could kill the men and rescue
+her! But he could do nothing except bark, and bite at the heels of the
+wicked men. That did not stop them; they drove him off, with blows, and
+carried Zelia into a palace in the wood.
+
+Poor Cherry crouched by the steps, and watched. His heart was full of
+pity and rage. But suddenly he thought, "I was as bad as these men; I
+myself put Zelia in prison, and would have treated her worse still, if I
+had not been prevented." The thought made him so sorry and ashamed that
+he repented bitterly the evil he had done.
+
+Presently a window opened, and Cherry saw Zelia lean out and throw down
+a piece of meat. He seized it and was just going to devour it, when the
+old woman to whom he had given his crust snatched it away and took him
+in her arms. "No, you shall not eat it, you poor little thing," she
+said, "for every bit of food in that house is poisoned."
+
+At the same moment, a voice said, "Good actions never go unrewarded!"
+And instantly Prince Cherry was transformed into a little white dove.
+
+With great joy, he flew to the open palace window to seek out his Zelia,
+to try to help her. But though he hunted in every room, no Zelia was to
+be found. He had to fly away, without seeing her. He wanted more than
+anything else to find her, and stay near her, so he flew out into the
+world, to seek her.
+
+He sought her in many lands, until one day, in a far eastern country, he
+found her sitting in a tent, by the side of an old, white-haired hermit.
+Cherry was wild with delight. He flew to her shoulder, caressed her hair
+with his beak, and cooed in her ear.
+
+"You dear, lovely little thing!" said Zelia. "Will you stay with me? If
+you will, I will love you always."
+
+"Ah, Zelia, see what you have done!" laughed the hermit. At that
+instant, the white dove vanished, and Prince Cherry stood there, as
+handsome and charming as ever, and with a look of kindness and modesty
+in his eyes which had never been there before. At the same time, the
+hermit stood up, his flowing hair changed to shining gold, and his face
+became a lovely woman's face; it was the Fairy Candide. "Zelia has
+broken your spell," she said to the prince, "as I meant she should, when
+you were worthy of her love."
+
+Zelia and Prince Cherry fell at the fairy's feet. But with a beautiful
+smile she bade them come to their kingdom. In a trice, they were
+transported to the prince's palace, where King Suliman greeted them with
+tears of joy. He gave back the throne with all his heart, and King
+Cherry ruled again, with Zelia for his queen.
+
+He wore the little gold ring all the rest of his life, but never once
+did it have to prick him hard enough to make his finger bleed.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] A shortened version of the familiar tale.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLD IN THE ORCHARD[31]
+
+
+There was once a farmer who had a fine olive orchard. He was very
+industrious, and the farm always prospered under his care. But he knew
+that his three sons despised the farm work, and were eager to make
+wealth fast, through adventure.
+
+When the farmer was old, and felt that his time had come to die, he
+called the three sons to him and said, "My sons, there is a pot of gold
+hidden in the olive orchard. Dig for it, if you wish it."
+
+The sons tried to get him to tell them in what part of the orchard the
+gold was hidden; but he would tell them nothing more.
+
+After the farmer was dead, the sons went to work to find the pot of
+gold; since they did not know where the hiding-place was, they agreed to
+begin in a line, at one end of the orchard, and to dig until one of them
+should find the money.
+
+They dug until they had turned up the soil from one end of the orchard
+to the other, round the tree-roots and between them. But no pot of gold
+was to be found. It seemed as if some one must have stolen it, or as if
+the farmer had been wandering in his wits. The three sons were bitterly
+disappointed to have all their work for nothing.
+
+The next olive season, the olive trees in the orchard bore more fruit
+than they had ever given before; the fine cultivating they had had from
+the digging brought so much fruit, and of so fine a quality, that when
+it was sold it gave the sons a whole pot of gold!
+
+And when they saw how much money had come from the orchard, they
+suddenly understood what the wise father had meant when he said, "There
+is gold hidden in the orchard; dig for it."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] An Italian folk tale.
+
+
+
+
+MARGARET OF NEW ORLEANS
+
+
+If you ever go to the beautiful city of New Orleans, somebody will be
+sure to take you down into the old business part of the city, where
+there are banks and shops and hotels, and show you a statue which stands
+in a little square there. It is the statue of a woman, sitting in a low
+chair, with her arms around a child, who leans against her. The woman is
+not at all pretty: she wears thick, common shoes, a plain dress, with a
+little shawl, and a sun-bonnet; she is stout and short, and her face is
+a square-chinned Irish face; but her eyes look at you like your
+mother's.
+
+Now there is something very surprising about this statue: it was the
+first one that was ever made in America in honour of a woman. Even in
+Europe there are not many monuments to women, and most of the few are to
+great queens or princesses, very beautiful and very richly dressed. You
+see, this statue in New Orleans is not quite like anything else.
+
+It is the statue of a woman named Margaret. Her whole name was Margaret
+Haughery, but no one in New Orleans remembers her by it, any more than
+you think of your dearest sister by her full name; she is just Margaret.
+This is her story, and it tells why people made a monument for her.
+
+When Margaret was a tiny baby, her father and mother died, and she was
+adopted by two young people as poor and as kind as her own parents. She
+lived with them until she grew up. Then she married, and had a little
+baby of her own. But very soon her husband died, and then the baby died,
+too, and Margaret was all alone in the world. She was poor, but she was
+strong, and knew how to work.
+
+All day, from morning until evening, she ironed clothes in a laundry.
+And every day, as she worked by the window, she saw the little
+motherless children from the orphan asylum, near by, working and
+playing about. After a while, there came a great sickness upon the city,
+and so many mothers and fathers died that there were more orphans than
+the asylum could possibly take care of. They needed a good friend, now.
+You would hardly think, would you, that a poor woman who worked in a
+laundry could be much of a friend to them? But Margaret was. She went
+straight to the kind Sisters who had the asylum and told them she was
+going to give them part of her wages and was going to work for them,
+besides. Pretty soon she had worked so hard that she had some money
+saved from her wages. With this, she bought two cows and a little
+delivery cart. Then she carried her milk to her customers in the little
+cart every morning; and as she went, she begged the pieces of food left
+over from the hotels and rich houses, and brought it back in the cart to
+the hungry children in the asylum. In the very hardest times that was
+often all the food the poor children had.
+
+A part of the money Margaret earned went every week to the asylum, and
+after a few years that was made very much larger and better. Margaret
+was so careful and so good at business that, in spite of her giving, she
+bought more cows and earned more money. With this, she built a home for
+orphan babies; she called it her baby house.
+
+After a time, Margaret had a chance to get a bakery, and then she became
+a bread-woman instead of a milk-woman. She carried the bread just as she
+had carried the milk, in her cart. And still she kept giving money to
+the asylum. Then the great war came, the Civil War. In all the trouble
+and sickness and fear of that time, Margaret drove her cart of bread;
+and somehow she had always enough to give the starving soldiers, and for
+her babies, beside what she sold. And despite all this, she earned
+enough so that when the war was over she built a big steam factory for
+her bread. By this time everybody in the city knew her. The children all
+over the city loved her; the business men were proud of her; the poor
+people all came to her for advice. She used to sit at the open door of
+her office, in a calico gown and a little shawl, and give a good word to
+everybody, rich or poor.
+
+Then, by and by, one day, Margaret died. And when it was time to read
+her will, the people found that, with all her giving, she had still
+saved a great deal of money, and that she had left every penny of it to
+the different orphan asylums of the city,--each one of them was given
+something. Whether they were for white children or black, for Jews,
+Catholics, or Protestants, made no difference; for Margaret always said,
+"They are all orphans alike." And just think, dears, that splendid,
+wise will was signed with a cross instead of a name, for Margaret had
+never learned to read or write!
+
+When the people of New Orleans knew that Margaret was dead, they said,
+"She was a mother to the motherless; she was a friend to those who had
+no friends; she had wisdom greater than schools can teach; we will not
+let her memory go from us." So they made a statue of her, just as she
+used to look, sitting in her own office door, or driving in her own
+little cart. And there it stands to-day, in memory of the great love and
+the great power of plain Margaret Haughery, of New Orleans.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DAGDA'S HARP
+
+
+You know, dears, in the old countries there are many fine stories about
+things which happened so very long ago that nobody knows exactly how
+much of them is true. Ireland is like that. It is so old that even as
+long ago as four thousand years it had people who dug in the mines, and
+knew how to weave cloth and to make beautiful ornaments out of gold, and
+who could fight and make laws; but we do not know just where they came
+from, nor exactly how they lived. These people left us some splendid
+stories about their kings, their fights, and their beautiful women; but
+it all happened such a long time ago that the stories are mixtures of
+things that really happened and what people said about them, and we
+don't know just which is which. The stories are called _legends_. One of
+the prettiest legends is the story I am going to tell you about the
+Dagda's harp.
+
+It is said that there were two quite different kinds of people in
+Ireland: one set of people with long dark hair and dark eyes, called
+Fomorians--they carried long slender spears made of golden bronze when
+they fought--and another race of people who were golden-haired and
+blue-eyed, and who carried short, blunt, heavy spears of dull metal.
+
+The golden-haired people had a great chieftain who was also a kind of
+high priest, who was called the Dagda. And this Dagda had a wonderful
+magic harp. The harp was beautiful to look upon, mighty in size, made of
+rare wood, and ornamented with gold and jewels; and it had wonderful
+music in its strings, which only the Dagda could call out. When the men
+were going out to battle, the Dagda would set up his magic harp and
+sweep his hand across the strings, and a war song would ring out which
+would make every warrior buckle on his armour, brace his knees, and
+shout, "Forth to the fight!" Then, when the men came back from the
+battle, weary and wounded, the Dagda would take his harp and strike a
+few chords, and as the magic music stole out upon the air, every man
+forgot his weariness and the smart of his wounds, and thought of the
+honour he had won, and of the comrade who had died beside him, and of
+the safety of his wife and children. Then the song would swell out
+louder, and every warrior would remember only the glory he had helped
+win for the king; and each man would rise at the great table, his cup in
+his hand, and shout "Long live the King!"
+
+There came a time when the Fomorians and the golden-haired men were at
+war; and in the midst of a great battle, while the Dagda's hall was not
+so well guarded as usual, some of the chieftains of the Fomorians stole
+the great harp from the wall, where it hung, and fled away with it.
+Their wives and children and some few of their soldiers went with them,
+and they fled fast and far through the night, until they were a long way
+from the battlefield. Then they thought they were safe, and they turned
+aside into a vacant castle, by the road, and sat down to a banquet,
+hanging the stolen harp on the wall.
+
+The Dagda, with two or three of his warriors, had followed hard on their
+track. And while they were in the midst of their banqueting, the door
+was suddenly burst open, and the Dagda stood there, with his men. Some
+of the Fomorians sprang to their feet, but before any of them could
+grasp a weapon, the Dagda called out to his harp on the wall, "Come to
+me, O my harp!"
+
+The great harp recognised its master's voice, and leaped from the wall.
+Whirling through the hall, sweeping aside and killing the men who got in
+its way, it sprang to its master's hand. And the Dagda took his harp and
+swept his hand across the strings in three great, solemn chords. The
+harp answered with the magic Music of Tears. As the wailing harmony
+smote upon the air, the women of the Fomorians bowed their heads and
+wept bitterly, the strong men turned their faces aside, and the little
+children sobbed.
+
+Again the Dagda touched the strings, and this time the magic Music of
+Mirth leaped from the harp. And when they heard that Music of Mirth, the
+young warriors of the Fomorians began to laugh; they laughed till the
+cups fell from their grasp, and the spears dropped from their hands,
+while the wine flowed from the broken bowls; they laughed until their
+limbs were helpless with excess of glee.
+
+Once more the Dagda touched his harp, but very, very softly. And now a
+music stole forth as soft as dreams, and as sweet as joy: it was the
+magic Music of Sleep. When they heard that, gently, gently, the Fomorian
+women bowed their heads in slumber; the little children crept to their
+mothers' laps; the old men nodded; and the young warriors drooped in
+their seats and closed their eyes: one after another all the Fomorians
+sank into sleep.
+
+When they were all deep in slumber, the Dagda took his magic harp, and
+he and his golden-haired warriors stole softly away, and came in safety
+to their own homes again.
+
+
+
+
+THE TAILOR AND THE THREE BEASTS[32]
+
+
+There was once a tailor in Galway, and he started out on a journey to go
+to the king's court at Dublin.
+
+He had not gone far when he met a white horse, and he saluted him.
+
+"God save you," said the tailor.
+
+"God save you," said the horse. "Where are you going?"
+
+"I am going to Dublin," said the tailor, "to build a court for the king
+and to get a lady for a wife, if I am able to do it." For, it seems the
+king had promised his daughter and a great lot of money to anyone who
+should be able to build up his court. The trouble was, that three giants
+lived in the wood near the court, and every night they came out of the
+wood and threw down all that was built by day. So nobody could get the
+court built.
+
+"Would you make me a hole," said the old white garraun, "where I could
+go in to hide whenever the people come to fetch me to the mill or the
+kiln, so that they won't see me; for they tire me out doing work for
+them?"
+
+"I'll do that, indeed," said the tailor, "and welcome."
+
+He brought his spade and shovel, and he made a hole, and he asked the
+old white horse to go down into it so that he could see if it would fit
+him. The white horse went down into the hole, but when he tried to come
+up again, he was not able.
+
+"Make a place for me now," said the white horse, "by which I can come up
+out of the hole here, whenever I am hungry."
+
+"I will not," said the tailor; "remain where you are until I come back,
+and I'll lift you up."
+
+The tailor went forward next day, and the fox met him.
+
+"God save you," said the fox.
+
+"God save you," said the tailor.
+
+"Where are you going?" said the fox.
+
+"I'm going to Dublin, to try to make a court for the king."
+
+"Would you make a place for me where I can hide?" said the fox. "The
+rest of the foxes are always beating me, and they will not allow me to
+eat anything with them."
+
+"I'll do that for you," said the tailor.
+
+He took his axe and his saw, and he made a thing like a crate, and he
+told the fox to get into it so that he could see whether it would fit
+him. The fox went into it, and when the tailor had him down, he shut him
+in. When the fox was satisfied at last that he had a nice place of it
+within, he asked the tailor to let him out, and the tailor answered that
+he would not.
+
+"Wait there until I come back again," said he.
+
+The tailor went forward the next day, and he had not walked very far
+when he met a lion; and the lion greeted him.
+
+"God save you," said the lion.
+
+"God save you," said the tailor.
+
+"Where are you going?" said the lion.
+
+"I'm going to Dublin to make a court for the king if I am able to make
+it," said the tailor.
+
+"If you were to make a plough for me," said the lion, "I and the other
+lions could be ploughing and harrowing until we'd have a bit to eat in
+the harvest."
+
+"I'll do that for you," said the tailor.
+
+He brought his axe and his saw, and he made a plough. When the plough
+was made he put a hole in the beam of it, and got the lion to go in
+under the plough so that he might see if he was any good as a
+ploughman. He placed the lion's tail in the hole he had made for it, and
+then clapped in a peg, and the lion was not able to draw out his tail
+again.
+
+"Loose me now," said the lion, "and we'll fix ourselves and go
+ploughing."
+
+The tailor said he would not loose him until he came back himself. He
+left him there then, and he came to Dublin.
+
+When he arrived, he engaged workmen and began to build the court. At the
+end of the day he had the workmen put a great stone on top of the work.
+When the great stone was raised up, the tailor put some sort of
+contrivance under it, that he might be able to throw it down as soon as
+the giants came near to it. The workpeople then went home, and the
+tailor went in hiding behind the big stone.
+
+When the darkness of the night was come, he saw the three giants
+arriving, and they began throwing down the court until they arrived at
+the place where the tailor was in hiding up above, and one of them
+struck a blow with his sledge on the place where he was. The tailor
+threw down the stone, and it fell on him and killed him. The other two
+went home then and left all of the court that was remaining without
+throwing it down, since their companion was dead.
+
+The workmen came again the next day, and they were working until night,
+and as they were going home the tailor told them to put up the big
+stone on the top of the work, as it had been the night before. They did
+that for him, went home, and the tailor went in hiding the same as he
+did the evening before.
+
+When the people had all gone to rest, the two giants came, and they were
+throwing down all that was before them, but as soon as they began, the
+tailor commenced manoeuvring until he was able to throw down the great
+stone, so that it fell upon the skull of the giant that was under him,
+and it killed him. After this there was only the one giant left, and he
+never came again until the court was finished.
+
+Then when the work was over, the tailor went to the king and told him to
+give him his wife and his money, as he had the court finished; and the
+king said he would not give him any wife until he had killed the other
+giant, for he said that it was not by his strength he had killed the two
+giants before, and that he would give him nothing now until he killed
+the other one for him. Then the tailor said that he would kill the other
+giant for him, and welcome; that there should be no delay at all about
+that.
+
+The tailor went then till he came to the place where the other giant
+was, and asked did he want a servant-boy. The giant said he did want
+one, if he could get one who would do everything that he would do
+himself.
+
+"Anything that you will do, I will do," said the tailor.
+
+They went to their dinner then, and when they had eaten it, the giant
+asked the tailor "would he dare to swallow as much boiling broth as
+himself." The tailor said, "I will certainly do that, but you must give
+me an hour before we commence." The tailor went out then, and he got a
+sheepskin, which he sewed up until he made a bag of it, and he slipped
+it down under his coat. He came in then and told the giant first to
+drink a gallon of the broth himself. The giant drank that up while it
+was boiling. "I'll do that," said the tailor. He went on until it was
+all poured into the skin, and the giant thought he had drunk it. The
+giant drank another gallon then, and the tailor let another gallon down
+into the skin, but the giant thought he was drinking it.
+
+"I'll do a thing now that you will not dare to do," said the tailor.
+
+"You will not," said the giant. "What is it you would do?"
+
+"Make a hole and let out the broth again," said the tailor.
+
+"Do it yourself first," said the giant.
+
+The tailor gave a prod of the knife, and he let the broth out of the
+skin.
+
+"Now you do that," said he.
+
+"I will," said the giant, giving such a prod of the knife into his own
+stomach that he killed himself. That is the way the tailor killed the
+third giant.
+
+He went to the king then, and desired him to send him out his wife and
+his money, saying that he would throw down the court again if he did not
+do so immediately. They were afraid then that he would throw down the
+court, and they sent the wife to him.
+
+When the tailor was a day gone, himself and his wife, they repented and
+followed him to take his wife away from him again. The people who went
+after him followed him until they came to the place where the lion was,
+and the lion said to them, "The tailor and his wife were here yesterday.
+I saw them going by, and if you will loose me now, I am swifter than
+you, and I will follow them until I overtake them." When they heard
+that, they released the lion.
+
+The lion and the people of Dublin went on, and pursued the tailor, until
+they came to the place where the fox was, and the fox greeted them, and
+said, "The tailor and his wife were here this morning, and if you will
+loose me, I am swifter than you, and I will follow them, and overtake
+them." They therefore set the fox free.
+
+The lion and the fox and the army of Dublin went on then, trying to
+catch the tailor, and they kept going until they came to the place
+where the old white garraun was, and the old white garraun told them
+that the tailor and his wife were there in the morning, and "Loose me,"
+said he; "I am swifter than you, and I'll overtake them." They released
+the old white garraun then, and the old white garraun, the fox, the
+lion, and the army of Dublin pursued the tailor and his wife, and it was
+not long before they came up with them.
+
+When the tailor saw them coming, he got out of the coach with his wife,
+and he sat down on the ground.
+
+When the old white garraun saw the tailor sitting on the ground, he
+said, "That's the position he was in when he made the hole for me, that
+I couldn't get out of, when I went down into it. I'll go no nearer to
+him."
+
+"No!" said the fox, "but that's the way he was when he was making the
+thing for me, and I'll go no nearer to him."
+
+"No!" says the lion, "but that's the very way he had, when he was making
+the plough that I was caught in. I'll go no nearer to him."
+
+They all left him then and returned. The tailor and his wife came home
+to Galway.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] From _Beside the Fire_, Douglas Hyde (David Nutt).
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE SEA BECAME SALT
+
+
+This story was told long ago by our Northern forefathers who brought it
+with them in their dragon ships when they crossed the North Sea to
+settle in England. In those days men were apt to invent stories to
+account for things about them which seemed peculiar, and loving the sea
+as they did, it is not strange that they had remarked the peculiarity of
+the ocean water and had found a reason why it is so different from the
+water in the rivers and steams.
+
+This is not the only story that has come down to tell us how people of
+old accounted for the sea being salt. There are many such stories, each
+different from the other, all showing that the same childlike spirit of
+inquiry was at work in different places, striving to find an answer to
+this riddle of nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There sprang from the sons of Odin a race of men who became mighty kings
+of the earth, and one of these, named Frode, ruled over the lands that
+are called Denmark.
+
+Now about this time were found in Denmark two great millstones, so large
+that no one had the strength to turn them. So Frode sent for all the
+wise men of the land and bade them examine the stones and tell him of
+what use they were, since no one could grind with them.
+
+And after the wise men had looked closely at them and read the magic
+letters which were cut upon their edge, they said that the millstones
+were precious indeed, since they would grind out of nothing anything
+that the miller might wish.
+
+So King Frode sent messengers over the world to find for him two
+servants who would be strong enough to grind with the millstones, and
+after a long, long time his messengers found him two maid-servants, who
+were bigger and stronger than anyone in Denmark had ever seen. But no
+one guessed that these were really Giant-Maidens who bore a grudge
+against all of the race of Odin.
+
+Directly the Giant-Maidens were brought before Frode, and before they
+had rested after their long journey, or satisfied their hunger, he bade
+them go to the mill, and grind for him gold and peace and happiness.
+
+     "They sang and swung
+      The swift mill stone,
+      And with loud voice
+      They made their moan.
+      'We grind for Frode
+      Wealth and gold
+      Abundant riches
+      He shall behold.'"
+
+Presently Frode came into the mill to see that the new servants were
+performing their task diligently. And as he watched them from the shadow
+by the door, the maidens stayed their grinding for a while to rest.
+
+The greedy man could not bear to see even an instant's pause, and he
+came out of the shadow, and bade them, with harsh words, go on grinding,
+and cease not except for so long as the cuckoo was silent, or while he
+himself sang a song. Now it was early summer-time, and the cuckoo was
+calling all the day and most of the night.
+
+So the Giant-Maidens waxed very wroth with King Frode, and as they
+resumed their labours they sang a song of the hardness of their lot in
+the household of this pitiless King.
+
+They had been grinding out wealth and happiness and peace, but now they
+bade the magic stones to grind something very different.
+
+Presently, as the great stones moved round and round, Frode, who still
+stood by, heard one chant in a low, sing-song voice,--
+
+"I see a fire east of the town--the curlews awake and sound a note of
+warning. A host approaches in haste, to burn the dwelling of the king."
+
+And the next took up her song,--
+
+"No longer will Frode sit on his throne, and rule over rings of red gold
+and mighty millstones. Now must we grind with all our might--and,
+behold! red warriors come forth--and revenge, and bloodshed, and ruin."
+
+Then Frode shook from head to foot in his terror, for he heard the tramp
+of a mighty host of warriors advancing from the sea. And as he looked
+for a way of escape, the braces of the millstones broke with the strong
+grinding, and fell in two. And the whole world shook and trembled with
+the mighty shock of that breaking.
+
+But through the crash and din came the voices of the Giant-Maidens,
+loudly chanting,--
+
+     "We have turned the stone round;
+      Though weary the maidens,
+      See what they have ground!"
+
+And that same night a mighty sea-king came up and slew Frode and
+plundered his city.
+
+When he had sacked the city, the sea-king took on board his ship the two
+Giant-Maidens, and with them the broken millstones. And he bade them
+begin at once to grind salt, for of this he had very scanty store.
+
+So they ground and ground; and in the middle of the night, being weary,
+they asked the sea-king if he had not got salt enough.
+
+But the sea-king was hard of heart, like Frode, and he roughly bade them
+go on grinding. And the maidens did so, and worked to such effect that
+within a short time the millstones had ground out so much salt that the
+weight of it began to sink the ship. Down, down it sank, ship and giants
+and millstones, and in that spot, in the very middle of the ocean, arose
+a whirlpool, from whence the salt is carried north and south, east and
+west, throughout the waters of the earth.
+
+And that is how the sea became salt.
+
+
+
+
+THE CASTLE OF FORTUNE[33]
+
+
+One lovely summer morning, just as the sun rose, two travellers started
+on a journey. They were both strong young men, but one was a lazy fellow
+and the other was a worker.
+
+As the first sunbeams came over the hills, they shone on a great castle
+standing on the heights, as far away as the eye could see. It was a
+wonderful and beautiful castle, all glistening towers that gleamed like
+marble, and glancing windows that shone like crystal. The two young men
+looked at it eagerly, and longed to go nearer.
+
+Suddenly, out of the distance, something like a great butterfly, of
+white and gold, swept toward them. And when it came nearer, they saw
+that it was a most beautiful lady, robed in floating garments as fine as
+cobwebs and wearing on her head a crown so bright that no one could tell
+whether it was of diamonds or of dew. She stood, light as air, on a
+great, shining, golden ball, which rolled along with her, swifter than
+the wind. As she passed the travellers, she turned her face to them and
+smiled.
+
+"Follow me!" she said.
+
+The lazy man sat down in the grass with a discontented sigh. "She has
+an easy time of it!" he said.
+
+But the industrious man ran after the lovely lady and caught the hem of
+her floating robe in his grasp. "Who are you, and whither are you
+going?" he asked.
+
+"I am the Fairy of Fortune," the beautiful lady said, "and that is my
+castle. You may reach it to-day, if you will; there is time, if you
+waste none. If you reach it before the last stroke of midnight, I will
+receive you there, and will be your friend. But if you come one second
+after midnight, it will be too late."
+
+When she had said this, her robe slipped from the traveller's hand and
+she was gone.
+
+The industrious man hurried back to his friend, and told him what the
+fairy had said.
+
+"The idea!" said the lazy, man, and he laughed; "of course, if we had a
+horse there would be some chance, but _walk_ all that way? No, thank
+you!"
+
+"Then good-bye," said his friend, "I am off." And he set out, down the
+road toward the shining castle, with a good steady stride, his eyes
+straight ahead.
+
+The lazy man lay down in the soft grass, and looked rather wistfully at
+the far-away towers. "If only I had a good horse!" he sighed.
+
+Just at that moment he felt something warm nosing about at his shoulder,
+and heard a little whinny. He turned round, and there stood a little
+horse! It was a dainty creature, gentle-looking, and finely built, and
+it was saddled and bridled.
+
+"Hello!" said the lazy man. "Luck often comes when one isn't looking for
+it!" And in an instant he had leaped on the horse, and headed him for
+the castle of fortune. The little horse started at a fine pace, and in a
+very few minutes they overtook the other traveller, plodding along on
+foot.
+
+"How do you like shank's pony?" laughed the lazy man, as he passed his
+friend.
+
+The industrious man only nodded, and kept on with his steady stride,
+eyes straight ahead.
+
+The horse kept his good pace, and by noon the towers of the castle stood
+out against the sky, much nearer and more beautiful. Exactly at noon,
+the horse turned aside from the road, into a shady grove on a hill, and
+stopped.
+
+"Wise beast," said his rider: "'haste makes waste,' and all things are
+better in moderation. I'll follow your example, and eat and rest a bit."
+He dismounted and sat down in the cool moss, with his back against a
+tree. He had a lunch in his traveller's pouch, and he ate it
+comfortably. Then he felt drowsy from the heat and the early ride, so he
+pulled his hat over his eyes, and settled himself for a nap. "It will go
+all the better for a little rest," he said.
+
+That _was_ a sleep! He slept like the seven sleepers, and he dreamed the
+most beautiful things you could imagine. At last, he dreamed that he had
+entered the castle of fortune and was being received with great
+festivities. Everything he wanted was brought to him, and music played
+while fireworks were set off in his honour. The music was so loud that
+he awoke. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and behold, the fireworks were
+the very last rays of the setting sun, and the music was the voice of
+the other traveller, passing the grove on foot!
+
+"Time to be off," said the lazy man, and looked about him for the pretty
+horse. No horse was to be found. The only living thing near was an old,
+bony, grey donkey. The man called, and whistled, and looked, but no
+little horse appeared. After a long while he gave it up, and, since
+there was nothing better to do, he mounted the old grey donkey and set
+out again.
+
+The donkey was slow, and he was hard to ride, but he was better than
+nothing; and gradually the lazy man saw the towers of the castle draw
+nearer.
+
+Now it began to grow dark; in the castle windows the lights began to
+show. Then came trouble! Slower, and slower, went the grey donkey;
+slower, and slower, till, in the very middle of a pitch-black wood, he
+stopped and stood still. Not a step would he budge for all the coaxing
+and scolding and beating his rider could give. At last the rider kicked
+him, as well as beat him, and at that the donkey felt that he had had
+enough. Up went his hind heels, and down went his head, and over it went
+the lazy man on to the stony ground.
+
+There he lay groaning for many minutes, for it was not a soft place, I
+can assure you. How he wished he were in a soft, warm bed, with his
+aching bones comfortable in blankets! The very thought of it made him
+remember the Castle of Fortune, for he knew there must be fine beds
+there. To get to those beds he was even willing to bestir his poor
+limbs, so he sat up and felt about him for the donkey.
+
+No donkey was to be found.
+
+The lazy man crept round and round the spot where he had fallen,
+scratched his hands on the stumps, tore his face in the briers, and
+bumped his knees on the stones. But no donkey was there. He would have
+laid down to sleep again, but he could hear now the howls of hungry
+wolves in the woods; that it did not sound pleasant. Finally, his hand
+struck against something that felt like a saddle. He grasped it,
+thankfully, and started to mount his donkey.
+
+The beast he took hold of seemed very small, and, as he mounted, he felt
+that its sides were moist and slimy. It gave him a shudder, and he
+hesitated; but at that moment he heard a distant clock strike. It was
+striking eleven! There was still time to reach the castle of fortune,
+but no more than enough; so he mounted his new steed and rode on once
+more. The animal was easier to sit on than the donkey, and the saddle
+seemed remarkably high behind; it was good to lean against. But even the
+donkey was not so slow as this; the new steed was slower than he. After
+a while, however, he pushed his way out of the woods into the open, and
+there stood the castle, only a little way ahead! All its windows were
+ablaze with lights. A ray from them fell on the lazy man's beast, and he
+saw what he was riding: it was a gigantic snail! a snail as large as a
+calf!
+
+A cold shudder ran over the lazy man's body, and he would have got off
+his horrid animal then and there, but just then the clock struck once
+more. It was the first of the long, slow strokes that mark midnight! The
+man grew frantic when he heard it. He drove his heels into the snail's
+sides, to make him hurry. Instantly, the snail drew in his head, curled
+up in his shell, and left the lazy man sitting in a heap on the ground!
+
+The clock struck twice. If the man had run for it, he could still have
+reached the castle, but, instead, he sat still and shouted for a horse.
+
+"A beast, a beast!" he wailed, "any kind of a beast that will take me to
+the castle!"
+
+The clock struck three times. And as it struck the third note, something
+came rustling and rattling out of the darkness, something that sounded
+like a horse with harness. The lazy man jumped on its back, a very
+queer, low back. As he mounted, he saw the doors of the castle open, and
+saw his friend standing on the threshold, waving his cap and beckoning
+to him.
+
+The clock struck four times, and the new steed began to stir; as it
+struck five, he moved a pace forward; as it struck six, he stopped; as
+it struck seven, he turned himself about; as it struck eight, he began
+to move backward, away from the castle!
+
+The lazy man shouted, and beat him, but the beast went slowly backward.
+And the clock struck nine. The man tried to slide off, then, but from
+all sides of his strange animal great arms came reaching up and held him
+fast. And in the next ray of moonlight that broke the dark clouds, he
+saw that he was mounted on a monster crab!
+
+One by one, the lights went out, in the castle windows. The clock struck
+ten. Backward went the crab. Eleven! Still the crab went backward. The
+clock struck twelve! Then the great doors shut with a clang, and the
+castle of fortune was closed for ever to the lazy man.
+
+What became of him and his crab no one knows to this day, and no one
+cares. But the industrious man was received by the Fairy of Fortune, and
+made happy in the castle as long as he wanted to stay. And ever
+afterward she was his friend, helping him not only to happiness for
+himself, but also showing him how to help others, wherever he went.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] Adapted from the German of _Der Faule und der Fleissige_, by Robert
+Reinick.
+
+
+
+
+DAVID AND GOLIATH[34]
+
+
+A long time ago, there was a boy named David, who lived in a country in
+the Far East. He was good to look upon, for he had fair hair and a ruddy
+skin; and he was very strong and brave and modest. He was shepherd-boy
+for his father, and all day--often all night--he was out in the fields,
+far from home, watching over the sheep. He had to guard them from wild
+animals, and lead them to the right pastures, and care for them.
+
+By and by, war broke out between the people of David's country and a
+people that lived near at hand; these men were called Philistines, and
+the people of David's country were named Israelites. All the strong men
+of Israel went up to the battle, to fight for their king. David's three
+older brothers went, but he was only a boy, so he was left behind to
+care for the sheep.
+
+After the brothers had been gone some time, David's father longed very
+much to hear from them, and to know if they were safe; so he sent for
+David, from the fields, and said to him, "Take now for thy brothers an
+ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves, and run to the camp,
+where thy brothers are; and carry these ten cheeses to the captain of
+their thousand, and see how thy brothers fare, and bring me word again."
+(An ephah is about three pecks.)
+
+David rose early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and
+took the corn and the loaves and the cheeses, as his father had
+commanded him, and went to the camp of the Israelites.
+
+The camp stood on a mountain on the one side, and the Philistines stood
+on a mountain on the other side; and there was a valley between. David
+came to the place where the Israelites were, just as the host was going
+forth to the fight, shouting for the battle. So he left his gifts in the
+hands of the keeper of the baggage, and ran into the army, amongst the
+soldiers, to find his brothers. When he found them, he saluted them and
+began to talk with them.
+
+But while he was asking them the questions his father had commanded,
+there arose a great shouting and tumult among the Israelites, and men
+came running back from the front line of battle; everything became
+confusion. David looked to see what the trouble was, and he saw a
+strange sight: down the slope of the opposite mountain came striding a
+Philistine warrior, calling out something in a taunting voice; he was a
+gigantic man, the largest David had ever seen, and he was covered with
+armour, that shone in the sun: he had a helmet of brass upon his head,
+and he was armed with a coat of mail, and he had greaves of brass upon
+his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders; his spear was so
+tremendous that the staff of it was like a weaver's beam, and his shield
+so great that a man went before him, to carry it.
+
+"Who is that?" asked David.
+
+"It is Goliath, of Gath, champion of the Philistines," said the soldiers
+about. "Every day, for forty days, he has come forth, so, and challenged
+us to send a man against him, in single combat; and since no one dares
+to go out against him alone, the armies cannot fight." (That was one of
+the laws of warfare in those times.)
+
+"What!" said David, "does none dare go out against him?"
+
+As he spoke, the giant stood still, on the hillside opposite the host
+of Israel, and shouted his challenge, scornfully. He said, "Why are ye
+come out to set your battle in array? Am I not a Philistine, and ye
+servants of Saul? Choose you a man, and let him come down to me. If he
+be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants;
+but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our
+servants, and serve us. I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a
+man, that we may fight together!"
+
+When King Saul heard these words, he was dismayed, and all the men of
+Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were sore afraid. David
+heard them talking among themselves, whispering and murmuring. They were
+saying, "Have ye seen this man that is come up? Surely if anyone killeth
+him that man will the king make rich; perhaps he will give him his
+daughter in marriage, and make his family free in Israel!"
+
+David heard this, and he asked the men if it were so. It was surely so,
+they said.
+
+"But," said David, "who is this Philistine, that he should defy the
+armies of the living God?" And he was stirred with anger.
+
+Very soon, some of the officers told the king about the youth who was
+asking so many questions, and who said that it was shame upon Israel
+that a mere Philistine should defy the armies of the living God.
+Immediately Saul sent for him. When David came before Saul, he said to
+the king, "Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go
+and fight with this Philistine."
+
+But Saul looked at David, and said, "Thou art not able to go against
+this Philistine, to fight with him, for thou art but a youth, and he has
+been a man of war from his youth."
+
+Then David said to Saul, "Once I was keeping my father's sheep, and
+there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock; and I
+went out after the lion, and struck him; and delivered the lamb out of
+his mouth, and when he arose against me, I caught him by the beard, and
+struck him, and slew him! Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear;
+and this Philistine shall be as one of them, for he hath defied the
+armies of the living God. The Lord, who delivered me out of the paw of
+the lion and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the
+hand of this Philistine."
+
+"Go," said Saul, "and the Lord be with thee!"
+
+And he armed David with his own armour,--he put a helmet of brass upon
+his head, and armed him with a coat of mail. But when David girded his
+sword upon his armour, and tried to walk, he said to Saul, "I cannot go
+with these, for I am not used to them." And he put them off.
+
+Then he took his staff in his hand and went and chose five smooth stones
+out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had; and his
+sling was in his hand; and he went out and drew near to the Philistine.
+
+And the Philistine came on and drew near to David; and the man that bore
+his shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked about and saw
+David, he disdained him, for David was but a boy, and ruddy, and of a
+fair countenance. And he said to David, "Am I a dog, that thou comest to
+me with a cudgel?" And with curses he cried out again, "Come to me, and
+I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of
+the field."
+
+But David looked at him, and answered, "Thou comest to me with a sword,
+and with a spear, and with a shield; but I come to thee in the name of
+the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast
+defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hand, and I will
+smite thee, and take thy head from thee, and I will give the carcasses
+of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and
+to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there
+is a God in Israel! And all this assembly shall know that the Lord
+saveth not with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord's, and he
+will give you into our hands."
+
+And then, when the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet
+David, David made haste and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.
+And when he was a little way from him, he put his hand in his bag, and
+took from thence a stone, and put it in his sling, and slung it, and
+smote the Philistine in the forehead, so that the stone sank into his
+forehead; and he fell on his face to the earth.
+
+And David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and
+drew it out of its sheath, and slew him with it.
+
+Then, when the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.
+But the army of Israel pursued them, and victory was with the men of
+Israel.
+
+And after the battle, David was taken to the king's tent, and made a
+captain over many men; and he went no more to his father's house, to
+herd the sheep, but became a man, in the king's service.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[34] From the text of the Revised Version of the Old Testament, with
+introduction and slight interpolations, changes of order, and omissions.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHEPHERD'S SONG
+
+
+David had many fierce battles to fight for King Saul against the enemies
+of Israel, and he won them all. Then, later, he had to fight against the
+king's own soldiers, to save himself, for King Saul grew wickedly
+jealous of David's fame as a soldier, and tried to kill him. Twice, when
+David had a chance to kill the king, he forbore to harm him; but even
+then, Saul continued trying to take his life, and David was kept away
+from his home as if he were an enemy.
+
+But when King Saul died, the people chose David for their king, because
+there was no one so brave, so wise, or so faithful to God. King David
+lived a long time, and made his people famous for victory and happiness;
+he had many troubles and many wars, but he always trusted that God would
+help him, and he never deserted his own people in any hard place.
+
+After a battle, or when it was a holiday, or when he was very thankful
+for something, King David used to make songs, and sing them before the
+people. Some of these songs were so beautiful that they have never been
+forgotten. After all these hundreds and hundred of years, we sing them
+still; we call them Psalms.
+
+Often, after David had made a song, his chief musician would sing with
+him, as the people gathered to worship God. Sometimes the singers were
+divided into two great choruses, and went to the service in two
+processions; then one chorus would sing a verse of David's song, and the
+other procession would answer with the next, and then both would sing
+together; it was very beautiful to hear. Even now, we sometimes do that
+with the songs of David in our churches.
+
+One of his Psalms that everybody loves is a song that David made when he
+remembered the days before he came to Saul's camp. He remembered the
+days and nights he used to spend in the fields with the sheep, when he
+was just a shepherd-boy; and he thought to himself that God had taken
+care of him just as carefully as he himself used to care for the little
+lambs. It is a beautiful song; I wish we knew the music that David made
+for it, but we only know his words. I will tell it to you now, and then
+you may learn it, to say for yourselves.
+
+     =The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
+
+     He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me
+     beside the still waters.
+
+     He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of
+     righteousness for his name's sake.
+
+     Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
+     death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod
+     and thy staff they comfort me.
+
+     Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine
+     enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth
+     over.
+
+     Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
+     life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.=
+
+
+
+
+THE HIDDEN SERVANTS[35]
+
+
+This is a legend about a hermit who lived long ago. He lived high up on
+the mountainside in a tiny cave; his food was roots and acorns, a bit of
+bread given by a peasant, or a cheese brought by a woman who wanted his
+prayers; his work was praying, and thinking about God. For forty years
+he lived so, preaching to the people, praying for them, comforting them
+in trouble, and, most of all, worshipping in his heart. There was just
+one thing he cared about: it was to make his soul so pure and perfect
+that it could be one of the stones in God's great Temple of Heaven.
+
+One day, after the forty years, he had a great longing to know how far
+along he had got with his work,--how it looked to the Heavenly Father.
+And he prayed that he might be shown a man--
+
+     "Whose soul in the heavenly grace had grown
+      To the selfsame measure as his own;
+      Whose treasure on the celestial shore
+      Could neither be less than his nor more."
+
+As he looked up from his prayer, a white-robed angel stood in the path
+before him. The hermit bowed before the messenger with great gladness,
+for he knew that his wish was answered. "Go to the nearest town," the
+angel said, "and there, in the public square, you will find a mountebank
+(a clown) making the people laugh for money. He is the man you seek; his
+soul has grown to the selfsame stature as your own; his treasure on the
+celestial shore is neither less than yours nor more."
+
+When the angel had faded from sight, the hermit bowed his head again,
+but this time with great sorrow and fear. Had his forty years of prayer
+been a terrible mistake, and was his soul indeed like a clown, fooling
+in the market-place? He knew not what to think. Almost he hoped he
+should not find the man, and could believe that he had dreamed the angel
+vision. But when he came, after a long, tiring walk to the village, and
+the square, alas! there was the clown, doing his silly tricks for the
+crowd.
+
+The hermit stood and looked at him with terror and sadness, for he felt
+that he was looking at his own soul. The face he saw was thin and tired,
+and though it kept a smile or a grin for the people, it seemed very sad
+to the hermit. Soon the man felt the hermit's eyes; he could not go on
+with his tricks. And when he had stopped and the crowd had left, the
+hermit went and drew the man aside to a place where they could rest; for
+he wanted more than anything else on earth to know what the man's soul
+was like, because what it was, his was.
+
+So, after a little, he asked the clown, very gently, what his life was,
+what it had been. And the clown answered, very sadly, that it was just
+as it looked,--a life of foolish tricks, for that was the only way of
+earning his bread that he knew.
+
+"But have you never been anything different?" asked the hermit,
+painfully.
+
+The clown's head sank in his hands. "Yes, holy father," he said, "I have
+been something else. I was a thief! I once belonged to the most wicked
+band of mountain robbers that ever tormented the land, and I was as
+wicked as the worst."
+
+Alas! The hermit felt that his heart was breaking. Was this how he
+looked to the Heavenly Father--like a thief, a cruel mountain robber? He
+could hardly speak, and the tears streamed from his old eyes, but he
+gathered strength to ask one more question. "I beg you," he said, "if
+you have ever done a single good deed in your life, remember it now, and
+tell it to me"; for he thought that even one good deed would save him
+from utter despair.
+
+"Yes, one," the clown said, "but it was so small, it is not worth
+telling; my life has been worthless."
+
+"Tell me that one!" pleaded the hermit.
+
+"Once," said the man, "our band broke into a convent garden and stole
+away one of the nuns, to sell as a slave or to keep for a ransom. We
+dragged her with us over the rough, long way to our mountain camp, and
+set a guard over her for the night. The poor thing prayed to us so
+piteously to let her go! And as she begged, she looked from one hard
+face to another, with trusting, imploring eyes, as if she could not
+believe men could be really bad. Father, when her eyes met mine
+something pierced my heart! Pity and shame leaped up, for the first
+time, within me. But I made my face as hard and cruel as the rest, and
+she turned away, hopeless.
+
+"When all was dark and still, I stole like a cat to where she lay bound.
+I put my hand on her wrist and whispered, 'Trust me, and I will take you
+safely home.' I cut her bonds with my knife, and she looked at me to
+show that she trusted. Father, by terrible ways that I knew, hidden from
+the others, I took her safe to the convent gate. She knocked; they
+opened; and she slipped inside. And, as she left me, she turned and
+said, 'God will remember.'
+
+"That was all. I could not go back to the old bad life, and I had never
+learned an honest way to earn my bread. So I became a clown, and must be
+a clown until I die."
+
+"No! no! my son," cried the hermit, and now his tears were tears of joy.
+"God has remembered; your soul is in his sight even as mine, who have
+prayed and preached for forty years. Your treasure waits for you on the
+heavenly shore just as mine does."
+
+"As _yours_? Father, you mock me!" said the clown.
+
+But when the hermit told him the story of his prayer and the angel's
+answer, the poor clown was transfigured with joy, for he knew that his
+sins were forgiven. And when the hermit went home to his mountain, the
+clown went with him. He, too, became a hermit, and spent his time in
+praise and prayer.
+
+Together they lived, and worked, and helped the poor. And when, after
+two years, the man who had been a clown died, the hermit felt that he
+had lost a brother more holy than himself.
+
+For ten years more the hermit lived in his mountain hut, thinking always
+of God, fasting and praying, and doing no least thing that was wrong.
+Then, one day, the wish once more came, to know how his work was
+growing, and once more he prayed that he might see a being--
+
+     "Whose soul in the heavenly grace had grown
+      To the selfsame measure as his own;
+      Whose treasure on the celestial shore
+      Could neither be less than his nor more."
+
+Once more his prayer was answered. The angel came to him, and told him
+to go to a certain village on the other side of the mountain, and to a
+small farm in it, where two women lived. In them he should find two
+souls like his own, in God's sight.
+
+When the hermit came to the door of the little farm, the two women who
+lived there were overjoyed to see him, for everyone loved and honoured
+his name. They put a chair for him on the cool porch, and brought food
+and drink. But the hermit was too eager to wait. He longed greatly to
+know what the souls of the two women were like, and from their looks he
+could see only that they were gentle and honest. One was old, and the
+other of middle age.
+
+Presently he asked them about their lives. They told him the little
+there was to tell: they had worked hard always, in the fields with their
+husbands, or in the house; they had many children; they had seen hard
+times,--sickness, sorrow; but they had never despaired.
+
+"But what of your good deeds," the hermit asked,--"what have you done
+for God?"
+
+"Very little," they said, sadly, for they were too poor to give much. To
+be sure, twice every year, when they killed a sheep for food, they gave
+half to their poorer neighbours.
+
+"That is very good, very faithful," the hermit said. "And is there any
+other good deed you have done?"
+
+"Nothing," said the older woman, "unless, unless--it might be called a
+good deed----" She looked at the younger woman, who smiled back at her.
+
+"What?" said the hermit.
+
+Still the woman hesitated; but at last she said, timidly, "It is not
+much to tell, father, only this, that it is twenty years since my
+sister-in-law and I came to live together in the house; we have brought
+up our families here; and in all the twenty years there has never been a
+cross word between us, or a look that was less than kind."
+
+The hermit bent his head before the two women, and gave thanks in his
+heart. "If my soul is as these," he said, "I am blessed indeed."
+
+And suddenly a great light came into the hermit's mind, and he saw how
+many ways there are of serving God. Some serve him in churches and in
+hermits' cells, by praise and prayer; some poor souls who have been very
+wicked turn from their wickedness with sorrow, and serve him with
+repentance; some live faithfully and gently in humble homes, working,
+bringing up children, keeping kind and cheerful; some bear pain
+patiently, for His sake. Endless, endless ways there are, that only the
+Heavenly Father sees.
+
+And so, as the hermit climbed the mountain again, he thought,--
+
+     "As he saw the star-like glow
+      Of light, in the cottage windows far,
+      How many God's hidden servants are!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[35] Adapted, with quotations, from the poem in _The Hidden Servants_,
+by Francesca Alexander.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE GOTTLIEB[36]
+
+
+Across the North Sea, in a country called Germany, lived a little boy
+named Gottlieb. His father had died when he was but a baby, and although
+from early morning till late at night his mother sat plying her needle,
+she found it difficult indeed to provide food and clothing and shelter
+for her little boy and herself.
+
+Gottlieb was not old enough to work, but he would often sit on a small
+stool at his mother's feet and dream about the wonderful things he would
+do for his dear mother when he grew to be a man, and she was comforted
+as she looked upon her boy, and the thought that she was working for him
+often gave strength to her tired fingers.
+
+But one night Gottlieb saw that his mother was more than usually
+troubled. Every now and then she would sigh, and a tear would trickle
+down her cheek. The little boy had grown quick to read these signs of
+distress, and he thought, "Christmas will be here soon, and dear mother
+is thinking of what a sad time it will be."
+
+What would Gottlieb have given to be able to comfort his mother! He
+could only sit and brood, while his young heart swelled and a lump rose
+in his throat at the thought that he could do nothing.
+
+Presently, however, a happy fancy came to him. Was not the Christ Child
+born on Christmas Day, and did not He send good gifts to men on His
+birthday? But then came the thought, "He will never find us. Our home is
+so mean and small." It seemed foolish to hope, but a boy is not long
+cast down, and as Gottlieb sat dreaming, a happy inspiration came to
+him. Stealing softly from the room he took paper and pen, for he had
+learnt to write, and spelt out, word after word, a letter which he
+addressed to the Christ Child.
+
+You may be sure that the postman was puzzled what to do with this letter
+when he sorted it out of the heap in the letter-box. Perhaps the
+Burgomaster would know the right thing to do? So the postman took the
+letter to the great burly man who lived in the big house and wore a gold
+chain round his neck. The Burgomaster opened the envelope, and as he
+read the letter written in the trembling hand of a child, tears came
+into his eyes. But he spoke gruffly enough to the postman, "This must
+be a foolish boy; a small one, I have no doubt."
+
+Soon Christmas morning dawned, and Gottlieb woke very early. But others
+were up before him, for, to his surprise, he saw a strange gentleman
+with his mother. His wondering eyes soon perceived other unusual
+objects, for the hearth was piled with wood, and the table was loaded
+with food and dainties such as he had never even imagined.
+
+Gottlieb entered the room just as his mother threw herself at the
+stranger's feet to bless him for his generous goodness to the widow and
+orphan. "Nay, give me no thanks, worthy dame," said the visitor. "Rather
+be grateful to your little son, and to the good Lord to whom he wrote
+for aid."
+
+Then he turned to Gottlieb with a smile, "You see that although you
+wrote to the Christ Child, your prayer for aid came only to the
+Burgomaster. The gifts you asked for are here, but they come from my
+hand." But Gottlieb answered him humbly, "Nay, sir, the Christ Child
+sent them, for He put the thought in your heart."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[36] Adapted from the poem by Phoebe Gary, in _A Treasury of Verse_,
+Part I., M.G. Edgar.
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE FIR TREE BECAME THE CHRISTMAS TREE[37]
+
+
+When you stand round the Christmas tree and look longingly at the toys
+hanging from the prickly branches, it does not occur to you to ask why
+it is always this particular tree that is so honoured at Christmas. The
+dark green Fir looks so majestic when laden with bright toys and lit up
+by Christmas candles, that perhaps it is not easy to believe that it is
+the most modest of trees. But so it is, and because of its humility it
+was chosen to bear Christmas gifts to the children. This is the story:
+
+When the Christ Child was born, all people, animals, trees, and other
+plants felt that a great happiness had come into the world. And truly,
+the Heavenly Father had sent with the Holy Babe His blessings of Peace
+and Goodwill to all. Every day people came to see the sweet Babe,
+bringing presents in their hands. By the stable wherein lay the Christ
+Child stood three trees, and as the people came and went under their
+spreading branches, they thought that they, too, would like to give
+presents to the Child.
+
+Said the Palm, "I will choose my biggest leaf and place it as a fan
+beside the manger to waft soft air to the Child."
+
+"And I," said the Olive, "I will sprinkle sweet-smelling oil over Him."
+
+"What can I give to the Child?" asked the Fir.
+
+"You?" said the others. "You have nothing to offer. Your needles would
+prick the wee Babe, and your tears are sticky."
+
+This made the poor Fir very unhappy indeed, and it said, sadly, "Yes,
+you are right. I have nothing that would be good enough to offer to the
+Christ Child."
+
+Now, quite near to the trees had stood an Angel, who had heard all that
+had passed. He was moved to pity the Fir, who was so lowly and without
+envy of the other trees, and he resolved to help it.
+
+High in the dark of the heavens the stars were beginning to twinkle, and
+the Angel begged some of the little ones to come down and rest upon the
+branches of the Fir. This they were glad to do, and their silvery light
+shone among the branches just like Christmas candles. From where He lay
+the Christ Child could see the great dark evening world and the darker
+forms of the trees keeping watch, like faithful guardians, beside the
+open door of the stable; and to its delight the Fir Tree saw the face of
+the Babe illumined with a heavenly smile as He looked upon the twinkling
+lights.
+
+The Christ Child did not forget the lovely sight, and long afterward he
+bade that to celebrate His birthday there should be placed in every
+house a Fir Tree, which might be lit up with candles to shine for the
+children as the stars shone for Him on His first birthday.
+
+Was not the Fir Tree richly rewarded for its meekness? Surely there is
+no other tree that shines on so many happy faces!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37] From the German of Hedwig Levi.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIAMOND AND THE DEWDROP[38]
+
+
+A costly Diamond, that had once sparkled in a lady's ring, lay in a
+field amid tall grasses and oxeye daisies.
+
+Just above it, was a big Dewdrop that clung timidly to a nodding
+grass-blade.
+
+Overhead, the blazing sun shone in all his noonday glory.
+
+Ever since the first pink blush of dawn, the modest Dewdrop had gazed
+fixedly down upon the rich gem, but feared to address a person of such
+exalted consequence.
+
+At last, a large Beetle, during his rambles, chanced to espy the
+Diamond, and he also recognised him to be some one of great rank and
+importance.
+
+"Sire," he said, making a low bow, "permit your humble servant to offer
+you greeting."
+
+"Tha--nks," responded the Diamond in languid tones of affectation.
+
+As the Beetle raised his head from his profound bow, his gaze happened
+to alight upon the Dewdrop.
+
+"A relative of yours, I presume, Sire?" he remarked affably, waving one
+of his feelers in the direction of the Dewdrop.
+
+The Diamond burst into a rude, contemptuous laugh.
+
+"Quite _too_ absurd, I declare!" he exclaimed loftily. "But there, what
+_can_ you expect from a low, grovelling beetle? Away, sir, pass on! Your
+very presence is distasteful to me. The _idea_ of placing ME upon the
+same level--in the same family, as a low-born, mean, insignificant,
+utterly valueless----" Here the Diamond fairly choked for breath.
+
+"But has he not beauty exactly like your own, Sire?" the Beetle ventured
+to interpose, though with a very timid air.
+
+"BEAU--TY!" flashed the Diamond, with fine disdain--"the impudent fellow
+merely apes and imitates ME. However, it is some small consolation to
+remember that 'Imitation is the sincerest flattery.' But, even
+_allowing_ him to possess it, mere beauty without _rank_ is ridiculous
+and worthless. A Boat without _water_--a Carriage, but no _horses_--a
+Well, but never a _winch_: such is beauty without rank and wealth! There
+is no _real worth_ apart from rank and wealth. Combine Beauty, Rank,
+_and_ Wealth, and you have the whole world at your feet. Now you know
+the secret of the world worshipping ME."
+
+And the Diamond sparkled and gleamed with vivid, violet flashes, so that
+the Beetle was glad to shade his eyes.
+
+The poor Dewdrop had listened silently to all that had passed, and felt
+so wounded, that at last he wished he never had been born. Slowly a
+bright tear fell and splashed the dust.
+
+Just then, a Skylark fluttered to the ground and eagerly darted his beak
+at the Diamond.
+
+"Alas!" he piped, with a great sob of disappointment. "What I thought to
+be a precious dewdrop is only a worthless diamond. My throat is parched
+for want of water. I must die of thirst!"
+
+"Really? The world will never get over your loss," cruelly sneered the
+Diamond.
+
+But a sudden and noble resolve came to the Dewdrop. Deeply did he repent
+his foolish wish. _He could now lay down his life that the life of
+another might be saved!_
+
+"May _I_ help you, please?" he gently asked.
+
+The Lark raised his drooping head.
+
+"Oh, my precious, precious friend, if you will, you can save my life!"
+
+"Open your mouth then."
+
+And the Dewdrop slid from the blade of grass, tumbled into the parched
+beak, and was eagerly swallowed.
+
+"Ah--well, well!" pondered the Beetle as he continued his homeward way.
+"I've been taught a lesson that I shall not easily forget. Yes, yes!
+Simple worth is far better than rank or wealth without modesty and
+unselfishness--and there is no _true_ beauty where these virtues are
+absent!"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] By Rev. Albert E. Sims.
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's notes: All words marked [A] in the original were presumed.
+The text was not clear enough to make them out definitively.
+
+Marchen changed to Märchen to fit rest of text.
+
+Standarized punctuation.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Stories to Tell Children, by Sara Cone Bryant
+
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