Educating by Story-Telling / Showing the Value of Story-Telling as an Educational Tool for the Use of All Workers with Children

by Mrs. Katherine Dunlap Cather

STORIES FOR TELLING

THE STORY OF THE MAN IN THE MOON

(Alsatian Folk Tale—Christmas Story—Ethics, teaching honesty)

The man in the moon was once a merry peasant, who ever so long ago lived quite amicably with his good wife and children, and had a hut with a wooden floor and a roof whose thatch was as thick as any in the village. Always there was plenty of black bread and goat’s milk, and sometimes on Sundays or holidays the family felt rich enough to afford a bit of pork. But one Holy Night that peasant turned dishonest, and then something happened.

“What shall we have for the Christmas feast?” asked his wife, who was fat and jolly. “Shall it be our good rye bread and a fine joint of meat?”

“To be sure,” the merry husband answered, “but that is not enough. There shall be cabbage too.”

At his words the wife opened her mouth so wide that it looked like a big round window in her face.

“Cabbage!” she gasped. “Pray, how can that be, since we have not a leaf in the hut?”

The peasant nodded in a knowing way and answered, “To be sure, there is none there now, but there will be by and by.”

Then he held his tongue as if he thought it unwise to talk too freely to a woman, took a basket, and went out of the door. His wife was much excited. She was sure he had some secret message from the fairies, for it was in that far-away time when strange and marvelous things happened.

Down along the road the peasant hurried, smiling like a village maiden on the way to meet her sweetheart at the fair. Everywhere lights gleamed from the windows, and he laughed at the sight of them, for he knew people were inside, thinking of the feast and the Holy Night.

“Which makes it safe for me,” he murmured. On and on he went, never stopping until he came to a cabbage patch, the largest and finest in the village. They were bigger than his head, those cabbages, and every one of them belonged to the mayor.

“But some shall go into my good wife’s pot,” he laughed as he saw them, and climbing the fence he went into the patch and began to help himself.

Then suddenly along the road came a child on a snow-white horse. He rode as if nothing could halt him, but seeing the man in the patch, he stopped and shouted, “What are you doing?” The peasant looked to right and left and began to stammer, “Just b-b-b-borrowing some of the m-m-m-mayor’s cabbages,” he replied, as he threw a plump one into his basket.

The clear, strong tones rang out again, “You steal, and on the Holy Night too! So you and your basket shall go to the moon.”

Then, whisk! Up the peasant started and never stopped until he came to the middle of the moon, and there he has stayed ever since. Whether or not he ate the cabbages, no one knows, but he and his basket are there to this day, and every night when the moon is full you may see them.

THE DISCONTENTED PIG

(Thuringian Folk Tale—Ethics, teaching contentment)

Ever so long ago, in the time when there were fairies, and men and animals talked together, there was a curly-tailed pig. He lived by himself in a house at the edge of the village, and every day he worked in his garden. Whether the sun shone or the rain fell he hoed and dug and weeded, turning the earth around his tomato vines and loosening the soil of the carrot plot, until word of his fine vegetables traveled through seven counties, and each year he won the royal prize at the fair.

But after a time that little pig grew tired of the endless toil.

“What matters it if I do have the finest vegetables in the kingdom,” he thought, “since I must work myself to death getting them to grow? I mean to go out and see the world and find an easier way of making a living.”

So he locked the door of his house and shut the gate of his garden and started down the road.

A good three miles he traveled, till he came to a cottage almost hidden in a grove of trees. Lovely music sounded around him and Little Pig smiled, for he had an ear for sweet sounds.

“I will go look for it,” he said, following in the direction from which it seemed to come.

Now it happened that in that house dwelt Thomas, a cat, who made his living playing on the violin. Little Pig saw him standing in the door pushing the bow up and down across the strings. It put a thought into his head. Surely this must be easier and far more pleasant than digging in a garden!

“Will you teach me to play the violin, friend cat?” he asked.

Thomas looked up from his bow and nodded his head.

“To be sure,” he answered; “just do as I am doing.”

And he gave him the bow and fiddle.

Little Pig took them and began to saw, but squeak! quang! No sweet music fell upon his ear. The sounds he heard were like the squealing of his baby brother pigs when a wolf came near them.

“Oh!” he cried; “this isn’t music!”

Thomas, the cat, nodded his head.

“Of course not,” he said. “You haven’t tried long enough. He who would play the violin must work.”

“Then I think I’ll look for something else,” Piggywig answered, “because this is quite as hard as weeding my garden.”

And he gave back the bow and fiddle and started down the road.

He walked on and on, until he came to a hut where lived a dog who made cheese. He was kneading and molding the curd into cakes, and Little Pig thought it looked quite easy.

“I think I’d like to go into the cheese business myself,” he said to himself. So he asked the dog if he would teach him.

This the dog was quite willing to do, and a moment later Little Pig was working beside him.

Soon he grew hot and tired and stopped to rest and fan himself.

“No, no!” exclaimed the dog, “you will spoil the cheese. There can be no rest time until the work is done.”

Little Pig opened his eyes in amazement.

“Indeed!” he replied. “Then this is just as hard as growing vegetables or learning to play a violin. I mean to look for something easier.”

And he started down the road.

On the other side of the river, in a sweet green field, a man was taking honey out of beehives. Little Pig saw him as he crossed the bridge and thought that of all the trades he had seen, this suited him best. It must be lovely there in the meadow among the flowers. Honey was not heavy to lift, and once in a while he could have a mouthful of it. He ran as fast as he could go to ask the man if he would take him into his employ.

This plan pleased the bee man as much as it pleased the pig.

“I’ve been looking for a helper for a year and a day,” he said. “Begin work at once.”

He gave Little Pig a veil and a pair of gloves, telling him to fasten them on well. Then he told him to lift a honeycomb out of a hive.

Little Pig ran to do it, twisting his curly tail in the joy of having at last found a business that suited him. But buzz, buzz! The bees crept under his veil and inside his gloves. They stung him on his fingers, his mouth, his ears, and the end of his nose, and he squealed and dropped the honey and ran.

“Come back, come back!” the man called.

“No, no!” Little Pig answered with a big squeal. “No, no, the bees hurt me!”

The man nodded his head.

“Of course they do,” he said. “They hurt me too! That is part of the work. You cannot be a beekeeper without getting stung.”

Little Pig blinked his beady eyes and began to think hard.

“It seems that every kind of work has something unpleasant about it. To play the violin you must practice until your arm aches. When you make cheese you dare not stop a minute until the work is done, and in taking honey from a hive the bees sting you until your head is on fire. Work in my garden is not so bad after all, and I am going back to it.”

So he said good-by to the bee man and was soon back in his carrot patch. He hoed and raked and weeded, singing as he worked, and there was no more contented pig in all that kingdom. Every autumn he took his vegetables to the fair and brought home the royal prize, and sometimes, on holidays, the cat and the dog and the bee man came to call.

THE BAT AND HIS PARTNERS

(Old Bavarian Folk Tale—Helpful in Nature Study)

Once upon a time a strange thing happened. A cormorant, a bat, and a bramble met at the mouth of the river Elbe one day and told a sorrowful story. Each was almost bankrupt; so they decided to postpone paying their debts, put their remaining possessions together, and share in the consequent weal or woe.

They bought a merchant vessel, a ship large and strong, and so seaworthy it seemed it could sail to the nethermost parts of the Spanish Main. Wool was precious then as now, and in a country far away a hundredweight of sheep’s fleece brought many a gold doubloon. So they freighted the vessel with the best wool that was to be had and joyfully watched the white sails disappear in the pearl-gray mist. But a storm arose and angry winds dashed their galleon against demon-like rocks. Instead of reaching a distant land of gold doubloons the ship went to Davy Jones’s locker, and her precious cargo made couches for the mermaids.

Then sad indeed was the plight of these partners on the North Sea shore! Bailiffs began to sue them for payment of their debts, and ever since that time the bat has flown by night, for in no other way can he avoid his creditors. The cormorant, a solitary black figure, still broods beside the waves and dives into the sea, hoping to retrieve his shattered fortune, while the bramble has turned thief. Whenever a sheep goes by, he seizes a bit of the fleece, trying in this way to make up for the loss of the wool that went to the bottom of the Spanish Main instead of bringing him the gold of which he had dreamed.

BRIER ROSE

Retold from Grimm

(Wonder Tale)

In olden times there lived a king and queen, who lamented day by day that they had no children; and yet never a one was born. One day, as the queen was bathing and thinking of her wishes, a frog skipped out of the water and said to her: “Your wish shall be fulfilled. Before a year passes you shall have a daughter.”

As the frog had said, so it happened, and a little girl was born who was so beautiful that the king almost lost his senses; but he ordered a great feast to be held, and invited to it not only his relatives, friends, and acquaintances, but also all the wise women who were kind and affectionate to children. There happened to be thirteen in his dominions, but since he had only twelve golden plates out of which they could eat, one had to stay at home. The feast was celebrated with all the magnificence possible, and, as soon as it was over, the wise women presented the infant with their wonderful gifts: one with virtue, another with beauty, a third with riches, and so on, so that the child had everything that is to be desired in the world. Just as eleven had given their presents, the thirteenth old lady stepped in suddenly. She was in a tremendous passion because she had not been invited, and, without greeting any one or looking at any one, she exclaimed loudly, “The princess shall prick herself with a spindle on her fifteenth birthday and shall die!” and without a word further she turned her back and left the hall. All were terrified, but the twelfth fairy, who had not yet given her wish, then stepped up. Because she could not take away the evil wish, but could only soften it, she said, “She shall not die, but shall fall into a sleep of a hundred years’ duration.”

The king, who naturally wished to protect his child from this misfortune, issued a decree commanding that every spindle in the kingdom should be burnt. Meanwhile all the gifts of the wise women were fulfilled, and the maiden became so beautiful, gentle, virtuous, and clever, that every one who saw her fell in love with her. It happened on the day when she was just fifteen years old that the queen and the king were not at home, and so she was left alone in the castle. The maiden looked about in every place, going through all the rooms and chambers just as she pleased, until she came at last to an old tower. Up the narrow winding staircase she tripped until she arrived at a door, in the lock of which was a rusty key. This she turned, and the door sprang open, and there in the little room sat an old woman with a spindle, spinning flax.

“Good day to you,” said the princess, “what is this that you are doing here?”

“I am spinning,” said the old woman, nodding her head.

“What thing is that which twists round so merrily?” inquired the maiden, and she took the spindle to try her hand at spinning. Scarcely had she done so when the prophecy was fulfilled, for she pricked her finger; and at the very same moment she fell back in a deep sleep upon a bed which stood near. This sleep extended over the whole palace. The king and queen, who had just come in, fell asleep in the hall, and all their courtiers with them; the horses in the stables, the doves upon the eaves, the flies upon the walls, and even the fire upon the hearth, all ceased to stir; the meat which was cooking ceased to frizzle; and the cook at the instant of pulling the hair of the kitchen boy lost his hold and began to snore, too. The wind also fell entirely, and not a leaf rustled on the trees round the castle.

Now around the palace a thick hedge of briers began growing, which every year grew higher and higher, till the castle was quite hidden from view, so that one could not even see the flag upon the tower. Then there went a legend through the land, of the beautiful maiden Brier Rose, for so was the sleeping princess named, and from time to time princes came, endeavoring to penetrate through the hedge into the castle; but it was not possible, for the thorns held them as if by hands, and the youths were unable to release themselves, and so perished miserably.

After the lapse of many years, there came another king’s son into the country, and heard an old man tell the legend of the hedge of briers; how that behind it stood a castle where slept a wonderfully beauteous princess called Brier Rose, who had slumbered nearly a hundred years, and with her the queen and king and all their court. The old man further related what he had heard from his grandfather, that many princes had come and tried to penetrate the hedge, and had died a miserable death. But the youth was not to be daunted, and, however much the old man tried to dissuade him, he would not listen, but cried out, “I fear not, I will see this hedge of briers!”

Just at that time came the last day of the hundred years, when Brier Rose was to wake again. As the young prince approached the hedge, the thorns turned to fine large flowers, which of their own accord made a way for him to pass through, and again closed up behind him. In the courtyard he saw the horses and dogs lying fast asleep, and on the eaves were the doves with their heads beneath their wings. As soon as he went into the house, there were the flies asleep upon the wall, the cook still stood with his hands on the hair of the kitchen boy, and the maid stood at the board with the unplucked fowl in her hand. He went on, and in the hall he found the courtiers lying asleep, and above, by the throne, were the king and queen. He went on farther, and all was so quiet that he could hear himself breathe, until at last he came to the tower and opened the door of the little room where slept Brier Rose. There she lay, looking so beautiful that he could not turn away his eyes, and he bent over her and kissed her. Just as he did so she opened her eyes, awoke, and greeted him with smiles. Then they went down together, and immediately the king and queen awoke, and the whole court, and all stared at each other wonderingly. Now the horses in the stable got up and shook themselves; the dogs wagged their tails; the doves upon the eaves drew their heads from under their wings, looked around, and flew away; the flies upon the walls began to crawl; the fire began to burn brightly and to cook the meat; the meat began again to frizzle; the cook gave his lad a box upon the ear which made him call out; and the maid began to pluck the fowl furiously. The whole palace was once more in motion as if nothing had occurred, for the hundred years’ sleep had made no change in any one.

By and by the wedding of the prince with Brier Rose was celebrated with great splendor, and to the end of their lives they lived happily and contented.

THE COAT OF ALL COLORS

Retold from Grimm

(Thuringian Wonder Tale)

There was once a king whose wife had golden hair and was altogether so beautiful that her equal was not to be found in the world. It happened that she fell ill, and when she felt she must soon die she called the king and said, “If you marry again after my death, take no one who is not as beautiful as I have been, nor one who has not golden hair like mine, and this you must promise me.” After the king had promised she closed her eyes, and soon died.

For a long time the king would not be comforted and thought not of taking a second wife, but his councillors at last said that he must marry again. Then messengers were sent far and wide to seek a bride who should be as beautiful as the late queen, but there was no one to be found in the whole world so beautiful and with such golden hair. So the messengers returned home without accomplishing anything.

Now the king had a daughter who was just as beautiful as her dead mother. She had also the same golden hair, and, as she grew up, the king saw how like she was to his lost wife. He told his councilors that he wished to marry his daughter to his oldest councilor, and that she should be as queen. When the oldest councilor heard this he was delighted. But the daughter was frightened at the resolve of the king, and hoped yet to turn him from his intention. So she said to him, “Before I fulfill your wish I must first have three dresses: one as golden as the sun, another as silver as the moon, and a third as shining as the stars; further, I desire a cloak composed of thousands of skins and hides, and to which every beast in your kingdom must contribute a portion of his skin.”

The princess thought this would be impossible to do, and so she should reclaim her father from his intention. But the king would not give it up, and the cleverest maidens in his kingdom had to weave the three dresses, one as golden as the sun, a second as silver as the moon, and a third as shining as the stars, while his huntsmen had to catch all the beasts in the whole kingdom and from each take a piece of skin wherewith a mantle of a thousand pieces was made. At length, when all was ready, the king let the mantle be fetched, and, spreading it before him, said, “Tomorrow shall the wedding be.”

When the king’s daughter now saw that there was no hope left of turning her father from his resolve, she determined to flee away. In the night, while all slept, she got up and took three of her treasures, a golden ring, a gold spinning wheel, and a gold reel; she put also in a nutshell the three dresses of the sun, moon, and stars, and putting on the mantle of all skins, she dyed her hands and face black with soot. Then, commending herself to God, she set off and traveled the whole night till she came to a large wood, where, feeling very tired, she took refuge in a hollow tree and went to sleep. The sun rose, and she still slept and slept on till it was again far into the morning. Then it happened that the king who owned this forest came to hunt in it. As soon as his dogs ran to the tree they snapped about it, barked, and growled, so that the king said to his huntsmen, “See what wild animal it is that is concealed there.” The hunters obeyed his orders, and, when they returned, they said, “In that hollow lies a wonderful creature whose like we have never before seen; its skin is composed of a thousand different colors, but it lies quite quiet and asleep.” The king said, “Try if you can catch it alive, and then bind it to the carriage, and we will take it with us.”

As soon as the hunters caught hold of the maiden, she awoke full of terror, and called out to them, “I am a poor child forsaken by both father and mother! Pray pity me, and take me with you!” They named her “Allerleirauh,” because of her mantle, and took her home with them to serve in the kitchen and rake out the ashes. They went to the royal palace, and there they showed her a little stable under the step where no daylight could enter, and told her she could live and sleep there. Afterwards she went into the kitchen, and there she had to carry water and wood to make the fire, to pluck the fowls, to peel the vegetables, to rake out the ashes, and to do all manner of dirty work.

Here, for a length of time, Allerleirauh lived wretchedly; but it happened once that a feast was held in the palace, and she asked the cook, “May I go and look on for a little while? I will place myself just outside the door.” The cook said, “Yes, but in half an hour’s time you must return and rake out the ashes.”

Allerleirauh took an oil lamp, and, going to her stable, put off the gown of skins and washed the soot from her face and hands so that her real beauty was displayed. Then she opened her nut and took out the dress which shone as the sun, and as soon as she was ready she went up to the ballroom, where every one made way for her, supposing that she was certainly some princess. The king himself soon came up to her, and, taking her hand, danced with her, thinking the while in his heart that he had never seen any one like her. As soon as the dance was finished she disappeared, and nobody knew whither. The watchmen stationed at the gates were called and questioned, but they had not seen her.

She had run back to her stable and, having quickly taken off her dress, had again blackened her face and hands, put on the dress of all skins, and became “Allerleirauh” once more. As soon as she went into the kitchen to do her work in sweeping up the ashes, the cook said, “Let that be for once till the morning, and cook the king’s supper for me instead, while I go upstairs to have a peep; but mind you do not let one of your hairs fall in, or you will get nothing to eat for the future.”

So saying, he went away, and Allerleirauh cooked the king’s supper, making some soup as good as she possibly could, and when it was ready she went into the stable, and fetched her gold ring, and laid it in the dish. When the dance was at an end, the king ordered his supper to be brought, which, when he had tasted, he thought he had never eaten anything so nice before. Just as he nearly finished it he saw a gold ring at the bottom, and, not being able to imagine how it came there, he commanded the cook to be brought before him. The cook was terrified when he heard this order, and said to Allerleirauh, “Are you certain you did not let a hair fall into the soup? For if it is so, you will catch a beating.”

Then he came before the king, who asked who had cooked the supper, and he answered, “I did.” But the king said, “That is not true; for it is of a much better kind and much better cooked than usual.” Then the cook said, “I must confess that not I, but Allerleirauh, cooked it.” So that the king commanded that she should be brought up.

When Allerleirauh came, the king asked, “Who are you?”

“I am a poor child, without father or mother,” replied she.

“Why did you come to my palace?” then inquired the king.

“I am good for nothing else but to have the boots thrown at my head,” said she.

The king asked again, “Where did you get this ring, then, which was in the soup?”

Allerleirauh said, “I know nothing of it.” And, as she would say no more, she was at last sent away.

After a time there was another ball, and Allerleirauh asked the cook’s permission to go again and look on, and he consented, and told her, “Return here in half an hour to cook the king again the same soup which he liked so much before.”

Allerleirauh ran into the stable and, washing herself quickly, took out of the shell the dress which was silver as the moon, and put it on. Then she went up to the ballroom and appeared like a princess, and the king, stepping up to her, was very glad to see her again; and, as the dancing had just begun, they joined it. But as soon as it was over, his partner disappeared so quickly that the king did not notice where she went. She ran to her stable and changed her garments again, and then went into the kitchen to make the soup. While the cook was upstairs, she fetched the golden spinning wheel and put it in the tureen, so that the soup was served up with it. Afterwards it was brought before the king, who ate it, and found it tasted as good as the former; and the cook was called, who was obliged to confess again that Allerleirauh had made it. Allerleirauh was accordingly taken before the king, but she repeated what she had before said, that she was of no use but to have boots thrown at her, and that she knew nothing of the gold spinning wheel.

Not long afterwards a third feast was given by the king, at which everything went as before. The cook said to Allerleirauh when she asked leave to go, “You are certainly a witch, and always put something in the soup which makes it taste better than mine. Still, since you beg so hard, you shall go at the usual time.” This time she put on the dress shining as the stars, and stepped with it into the ballroom. The king danced again with her, and thought he had never seen any maiden so beautiful, and while the dance went on he slipped the gold ring on to her finger without her perceiving it and told the musicians to prolong the time. When at last it ended, he would have kept fast hold of her hand, but she tore herself away, and sprang so quickly in among the people that she disappeared from his sight. Allerleirauh ran as well as she could back to her stable; but she had stayed over and above the half hour, and she had not time to pull off her beautiful dress, but was obliged to throw over it her cloak of skins. Neither did she quite finish the blacking of her skin, but left one finger white. Then she ran into the kitchen, cooked the soup for the king, and put in it the reel, while the cook stayed upstairs. Afterwards, when the king found the reel at the bottom of his soup, he summoned Allerleirauh, and perceived at once her white finger, and the ring which he had put on it during the dance. He took her by the hand and held her fast, and when she tried to force herself from him and run away, her cloak of skins fell partly off and the starry dress was displayed to view. The king then pulled the cloak wholly off, and down came her golden hair, and there she stood in all her beauty, and could no longer conceal herself. As soon, then, as the soot and ashes were washed off her face, she stood up and appeared more beautiful than any one could conceive possible on earth. But the king said to her, “You are my dear bride, and we will never separate from each other.” Thereupon was the wedding celebrated, and they lived happily to the end of their lives.

THE POOR MAN AND THE RICH MAN

Retold from Grimm

(Folk Tale—Ethics, teaching kindness)

In olden times, when the good angels walked the earth in the form of men, it happened that one of them, while he was wandering about very tired, saw night coming upon him before he had found a shelter. But there stood on the road close by two houses opposite to one another, one of which was large and handsome, while the other appeared miserably poor. The former belonged to a rich man, and the other to a poor man, so that the angel thought he could lodge with the former, because it would be less burdensome to him than to the other to entertain a guest. Accordingly he knocked at the door, and the rich man, opening the window, asked the stranger what he sought. The angel replied, “I seek a night’s lodging.” Then the rich man scanned the stranger from head to foot, and perceiving that he wore ragged clothes, and seemed like one who had not much money in his pocket, he shook his head and said, “I cannot take you in; my rooms are full of herbs and seeds, and, should I shelter every one who knocks at my door, I might soon take the beggar’s staff into my own hand. Seek a welcome elsewhere.”

So saying, he shut his window to, and left the good angel, who immediately turned his back upon him and went over to the little house. Here he had scarcely knocked, when the door was opened and the poor man bade the wanderer welcome, and said, “Stop here this night with me; it is quite dark, and today you can go no farther.” This reception pleased the angel much, and he walked in; and the wife of the poor man also bade him welcome and, holding out her hand, said, “Make yourself at home, and though it is not much that we have, we will give it to you with all our heart.” Then she placed some potatoes at the fire, and while they roasted she milked her goat for something to drink with them. When the table was laid, the good angel sat down and ate with them, and the rude fare tasted good, because they who partook of it had happy faces. After they had finished, when bedtime came, the wife called the husband aside and said to him, “Let us sleep tonight on straw, my dear, that this poor wanderer may have our bed whereon to rest himself, for he has been walking all day long, and is doubtless very tired.”

“With all my heart,” replied her husband; “I will offer it to him;” and, going up to the angel, he begged him, if he pleased, to lie in their bed that he might rest his limbs thoroughly. The good angel at first refused to take the bed of his hosts, but at last he yielded to their entreaties and lay down, while they made a straw couch upon the ground. The next morning they arose early and cooked their guest a breakfast of the best that they had, and when the sun shone through the window he got up, too, and, after eating with them, prepared to set out again. When he stood in the doorway he turned round and said to his hosts, “Because you are so compassionate and pious, you may wish three times and I will grant, each time, what you desire.”

The poor man replied, “Ah, what else can I wish than eternal happiness, and that we two, so long as we live, may have health and strength and our necessary daily bread? For the third thing I know not what to wish.”

“Will you not wish for a new house in place of this old one?” asked the angel.

“Oh, yes!” said the man, “if I may keep on this spot, so would it be welcome.”

Then the good angel fulfilled his wishes and changed their old house into a new one, and, giving them once more his blessing, went out of the house.

It was already broad daylight when the rich man arose and, looking out of his window, saw a handsome new house of red brick where formerly an old hut had stood. The sight made him open his eyes, and he called his wife up and asked, “Tell me what has happened; yesterday evening an old, miserable hut stood opposite, and today there is a fine new house! Run out and hear how this has happened!”

The wife went and asked the poor man, who related that the evening before a wanderer had come, seeking a night’s lodging, and that in the morning he had taken his leave, and granted them three wishes—eternal happiness, health and food during their lives, and instead of their old hut, a fine new house. When he had finished his tale, the wife of the rich man ran home and told her husband all that had passed, and he exclaimed, “Ah! had I only known it! The stranger had been here before, and would have passed the night with us, but I sent him away.”

“Hasten, then!” returned his wife. “Mount your horse, and perhaps you may overtake the man, and then you must ask three wishes for yourself also.”

The rich man followed this advice, and soon overtook the angel. He spoke softly and glibly, begging that the angel would not take it ill that he had not let him in at first, for that he had gone to seek the key of the house door, and meanwhile he had gone away, but if the angel came back the same way he would be glad if he would call again. The angel promised that he would come on his return, and the rich man then asked if he might not wish thrice as his neighbor had been allowed. “Yes,” said the angel, “you may certainly, but it will not be good for you, and it were better you did not wish.”

But the rich man thought he might easily obtain something which would tend to his happiness, if he only knew that it would be fulfilled, and so the angel at length said, “Ride home, and the three wishes which you shall make shall be answered.”

The rich man now had what he desired, and, as he rode homewards, began to consider what he should wish. While he thought he let his rein fall loose, and his horse presently began to jump, so that he was jerked about, and so much so that he could fix his mind on nothing. He patted his horse on the neck, and said, “Be quiet, Bess!” but it only began fresh friskings, so that at last he became savage, and cried quite impatiently, “I wish you might break your neck!” No sooner had he said so than down it fell upon the ground and never moved again, and thus the first wish was fulfilled. But the rich man, being covetous by nature, would not leave the saddle behind, and so, cutting it off, he slung it over his back and went onwards on foot. “You still have two wishes,” thought he to himself, and so was comforted, but as he slowly passed over the sandy common the sun scorched him terribly, for it was midday, and he soon became vexed and passionate; moreover, the saddle hurt his back; and besides, he had not yet decided what to wish for. “If I should wish for all the treasures and riches in the world,” said he to himself, “hereafter something or other will occur to me, I know beforehand; but I will so manage that nothing at all shall remain for me to wish for.”

Many times he thought he knew what to wish, but soon it appeared too little. Then it came into his thoughts how well his wife was situated, sitting at home in a cool room, and appropriately dressed. This idea angered him uncommonly, and, without knowing it, he said aloud, “I wish she were sitting upon this saddle, and could not get off it, instead of its being slipping about on my back.”

As soon as these words were out of his mouth, the saddle disappeared from his back, and he perceived that his second wish had passed its fulfillment. Now he became very hot, and began to run, intending to lock himself up in his room and consider there something great for his last wish. But when he arrived and opened the house door he found his wife sitting upon the saddle in the middle of the room, and crying and shrieking because she could not get off. So he said to her, “Be contented; I will wish for the riches in all the world, only keep sitting there.”

But his wife shook her head, saying, “Of what use are all the riches of the world to me, if I sit upon this saddle? You have wished me on it, and you must also wish me off.”

So, whether he liked it or not, he was forced to utter his third wish, that his wife might be freed from the saddle, and immediately it was done. Thus the rich man gained nothing from his wishes but vexation, trouble, scolding, and a lost horse; but the poor people lived contented and pious to their lives’ end.

THE SILVER CONES

Adapted from Story by Johanna Spyri

(Ethics—Geography)

In the mountain land of Bohemia there lived in the long ago a miner with his wife and little daughter. They were happy in their hut in the forest, but after a time the father and mother died, and the child was left alone in the world. She had no money, and no aunts or cousins to take her in, and it seemed as if she would have to go hungry. But always there are kindly hearts among the poor, and one of the miners opened his house that she might have a home. He had six children of his own and little bread and meat to spare, but his good wife said, “We will divide what we have.” So little Hilda became one of the family, and they grew to love her very much.

It was midwinter, and Christmas day not far away. The children thought of nothing but the coming of St. Nicholas, who they hoped would not forget them on the Holy Night, when every boy and girl in Bohemia expects a visit from the gift bringer. But when they spoke to the miner about it he shook his head and said, “Do not set your hearts upon his coming. Our hut is very small and stands so far in the forest that he may not be able to find it.”

Gretchen, his little daughter, had a very different idea. She declared St. Nicholas could find a house in the dark if it were no bigger than an ant hill, and went to bed to dream of the toys and sweetmeats he would bring.

Day after day passed, and nearer, nearer came the season of Christ’s birth. The children talked of him as they sat by the fire at night, as they picked up dead branches in the forest, and as they bedded the goats and shut them in, for Bohemian mountain folk are a toiling people, and even boys and girls must work.

At last the day before Christmas came, and in the afternoon little Hilda started out with her basket to get some cones. She wanted the fire to be brighter and more cheerful than ever that night, and perhaps if she met a servant from the castle, he might take some to feed the prince’s fire, and give her a silver piece.

“And if he does,” she thought as she trudged on her way, “I can buy something for the miner and his dear children.”

Now, in that land of Bohemia, on the summit of a lofty mountain, a creature named Rübezahl made his home. He possessed all magic powers, and was so mighty that his sway extended to the very center of the earth. There he had chambers of gold and silver, and diamonds and jewels without number, and often gave of his treasures to those who were good enough to deserve them. He could change himself at will into any form. Now he was a bat flying in the night, now a country swain selling his wares at the fair, and now a woodman cutting down trees in the forest, because thus he was able to find out who was worthy and who unworthy, and to reward or punish them as they deserved.

Hilda had often heard of the strange ways of Rübezahl, and wondered if he would ever cross her path.

“I suppose not,” she murmured, “because I am just a little girl.”

As she came near the fir trees, a tiny white-haired man walked out of the shadow. He had a long white beard and a jolly red face, and looked as if he were the friend of children.

“What are you doing?” he called to her.

“I’ve come to gather cones,” she replied; “some for our fire and some to sell, if the servant from the castle will only buy.”

Then she told him of the miner’s family, of how eager she was to get some money that she might buy a gift for his children, and of her hope that St. Nicholas would not forget them on the Holy Night.

The little old man seemed much interested, and when she finished her story he said, “The largest cones are on that tree. If you hope to sell, gather the best ones.”

He pointed to a great, dark fir just beyond them, and then went back into the shadows of the forest.

Little Hilda thanked him and ran to the spot. She could see the cones like beehives on the branches, and just as she came under them there was such a downfall of beautiful brown things it frightened her and she began to run. But thinking of what she could do with such big ones, she went back, filled her basket, and started homeward.

It was very heavy, and the farther she went the heavier it grew.

“I’ll have to ask little Gretchen to help me take it up the hill path to the castle,” she thought. But by the time she reached the hut it had become such a load she could not move it, and the miner had to carry it in himself.

“They are lovely big ones and of a beautiful brown color,” she said as the children crowded around to see.

But when they looked at the basket again, they saw no brown at all. Instead there was a gleam brighter than that of the moonbeams through the fir trees, for a wonderful thing had happened. In the twinkling of an eye every one of those cones had turned into shining silver, which sparkled and glistened so that they dazzled the eyes.

Then the little girl remembered the old man in the forest and told the miner about him.

He nodded his head in a knowing way and said, “Surely it was Rübezahl, and he has rewarded you for being sweet and gentle.”

All of which seemed like a dream to little Hilda, but when she looked into the basket she knew it was true. And so knew all the other mountain folk, when the stars of the Holy Night shone out and the children went from door to door distributing silver cones. The good folk who gave her a home received so many that never again were they poor. They built a fine house with a porch and twenty windows, and were as rich as any one in Bohemia.

To make things lovelier still, St. Nicholas found the hut, just as Gretchen had said he would, and left some sweets and toys for the children. He laughed loud and long when he saw the shining cones, for he had heard all about it from Rübezahl himself.

This all happened very, very long ago, in the time so far away that even the oldest grandmother cannot remember the Holy Night when Hilda gave precious gifts to the miners; but the story has come down from the fathers and the fathers’ fathers, and that is why, even to this day, the mountain folk of Bohemia still deck their Christmas trees with silvered cones.

THE FORGET-ME-NOT

Adapted from Version by Hoffman von Fallersleben

(Thuringian Folk Tale—Helpful in Nature Study)

In the beginning of things, when God the Father created every beast of the forest and every bird and tree and blossom, he gave each one a name, and the snowdrop, the lily, the pansy, the violet, and all the other flower sisterhood rejoiced and were glad, for each thought its own name the loveliest in the world. Everywhere in field and woodland there was happiness, and the blossoms lifted their faces toward heaven in gratitude, thanking the Gracious Giver.

But suddenly there was a sound of weeping. Somewhere in the meadow a flower had raised its voice in sorrow, and all the other flowers looked to see. At first they could not tell whence the sound came, then they beheld a tiny blossom, with petals the color of heaven and a heart the color of gold. It was sobbing bitterly, and the lily, looking down in pity, asked, “Why weepest thou?”

“Alas,” came the reply, “I have forgotten my name.” Then—wonderful sound—the primrose and the violet and the pansy heard the voice of God the Father, for although the blossom was very tiny and half hidden by the grasses of the field, He heard and saw and knew.

“Forgotten your name?” He spake in tones that were sweet and tender. “Then shalt thou be called ‘Forget-me-not,’ for that thou canst always remember.”

“Forget-me-not,” repeated the gorgeous rose and the modest violet, and the tiny one smiled through its tears and said, “Forget-me-not.”

And ever since that day at creation time, when God the Father named every beast of the forest and every bird and flower and tree, the wee blossom whose petals are the color of heaven and whose heart is the color of gold, has been called “Forget-me-not.”

THE LITTLE STEPMOTHER

(Thuringian Folk Tale—Nature Study)

Once upon a time, say the peasants of the Rhineland, a woodman lived with his wife and two daughters in a little hut in the forest. They were very poor, but what mattered that, since they were very happy?

They had five chairs,—one apiece, and one for company,—clean, sweet feather beds to keep them warm at night, a bit of soup to eat with their black bread, and once each year they went to the fair.

But after a time the mother died, and things were different. The father took another wife, who had two children of her own, and she was very unkind to her husband’s little daughters. She forced them to do all the work, and if the poor woodman so much as opened his mouth to object, she beat him with her slipper. You will know how greedy she was when I tell you that she took two of the fine wood chairs for her own children and kept two for herself, and you remember there were only five in the hut. That left one for the husband and his daughters, and as the father was kind and good, he let them have it all to themselves and patiently stood while he ate his meals.

For a long time that greedy little stepmother ruled her husband and his children with an iron hand, while her own daughters acted like spoiled princesses, until one night something happened. The hut and the family disappeared. Just how it came to pass, nobody knows, but the next morning the other woodmen found a little flower growing where the house had stood, and they knew that a fairy or witch or something had turned the family into the blossom which you may see almost any summer day. The greedy stepmother still sits on her two chairs, with her children on each side of her holding a chair apiece. The woodman’s little daughters are crowded together on one, just as they were in the hut. And what of the poor henpecked husband, who did not dare to object to anything his spouse chose to do? Look in the center, right under her slipper, and you will find what most people say is the pistil. But the peasants of the Rhineland know better. It is the woodman, who once upon a time lived in the hut in the forest, and the flower you call the pansy is to them “The Little Stepmother.”

THE RABBIT AND THE EASTER EGGS

(Bavarian Folk Tale)

Once, in the German land of Bavaria, there was a mother who was very poor. She was sad as Easter time drew near, for it was the custom in that land to give presents then just as we do at Christmas, and she had nothing for her children. She grieved about it day and night, and one day was so unhappy over it that she wept.

“Never fear,” the old grandmother said, “the hens are laying well, and I know how to make beautiful dyes from moss and leaves. We can color some eggs for Hans and Annchen, and they will be happy.”

This was a lovely thought to the poor mother, and she went to work. Soon she had beautiful red, blue, yellow, purple, and orange eggs, and when Easter morning came she and the grandmother hid them in a nest in the woods. It was a lovely spot, with a thick carpet of moss underfoot and the snowy blossoms of the wild plum overhead.

Then they all went to the tiny chapel that stood at the other side of the village, to listen to the music and hear the good pastor tell the story of Easter day, after which they walked home by the woodland path.

Little Hans and Annchen were running ahead of the others, and all at once they called, “Oh, Mother, Grandmother, come!”

The good mother said, “They must have found the eggs,” and hurried to see.

Yes, there the children knelt, bending over the nest of eggs lovelier than they had ever seen.

“They are beautiful, Mother!” exclaimed Hans. “See, they look like hen’s eggs, yet they are every color, like the rainbow. How did they get here in the woods?”

“I know,” cried little Annchen. “A fairy bird laid them.”

Just then a rabbit leaped out of some tall grass behind the nest, and hopped away into the forest.

The children screamed with delight. “The rabbit laid the eggs! The rabbit laid the eggs!” they shouted.

And ever since that time Bavarian children have played that rabbits lay Easter eggs.

THE EASTER EGGS

Adapted from Story by Canon Schmidt

(Ethics)

During the days of the Crusades a little village stood in the heart of a little valley. The people living there were very poor, but so good and gentle that despite their poverty they were happier than many of the great folk of the realm. They had none of the cares that trouble the rich. Their rude black huts, each with its tiny garden plot and bit of meadow land where they pastured the cow or goats, satisfied them because they knew nothing else, and they lived so simply and healthfully that there were men over a hundred years of age among them. Sometimes they burned charcoal for the iron works in the mountains and earned a few pennies, when they felt rich indeed, but if there was no money they did not complain. They ate their vegetables and black bread and drank their goat’s milk in contentment.

One day, when the corn ears were yellowing, a little girl hurried down the mountain side where she had been tending goats. She ran to her home at the edge of the village, and called to her mother in the garden, “Oh, mamma, come quickly! A beautiful woman with two pretty children is waiting for me on the mountain. They are very tired and hungry, and she asked me for some bread and milk.”

Kind hearts beat in the breasts of those village folk, and although they had little themselves, they were always ready to share their small store. Quickly the mother filled a jar with goat’s milk and took some bread, butter, and cheese, and she and her husband followed the little daughter up the mountain side. After a while they came to a turn in the path, and saw a woman, very young and very beautiful, sitting on a rock under a beech tree. She was holding a little girl who was as lovely as herself, and beside them, on the ground, a tiny dark-eyed boy played with a bunch of thistles. Not far away an old man was unloading a mule and opening bundles as if preparing to camp for the night. Their clothing was of the costly kind that is worn only by the very rich, and it seemed strange that they should be asking food of the poor.

The village wife offered the bread, butter, and cheese she had brought with her, which the woman received with smiles and words of thanks. She kept nothing herself, but gave all to the old man and children, who ate the coarse peasant fare as if it tasted very good, and as she watched them tears streamed down her cheeks. She asked many questions about the valley, and finding that no one but charcoal burners lived there, and that strangers almost never came by, exclaimed, “I think God must have sent me here. I have been driven from home and am seeking a spot where we may rest in peace.”

They went down to the valley together, and the peasant and his wife led the way to a vacant house, which the woman rented for her home. It was a very humble cottage, but she said it suited her, for it was new and clean, and from its little windows one could see out over the cabins and the garden plots to the tall, dark fir trees on the mountain slopes. She took one of the village girls for a servant, and the worn, unhappy look began to leave her face.

Early the next morning she called the maid Marie, gave her a silver piece, and said, “Go and get some eggs for breakfast.”

The girl looked at her in surprise.

“Oh, madame!” she asked sorrowfully, “do you mean that I must take the eggs of the dear little birds that sing in the forest?”

“Of course not,” her mistress replied, thinking her very silly, “I want hen’s eggs, not bird’s eggs.”

But Marie looked more amazed than before.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘hens,’” she said. “We have none of them here.”

“You have no hens!” the woman exclaimed. “How can that be?”

Then she remembered that this was a village of poor peasants and that only the rich had chickens, because they had just been brought to Europe from Asia, and were very costly. So she bade the old man Kuno go to the city across the mountains and bring her everything she needed.

“And be sure not to forget the cock and hens,” she called after him as he rode away.

Late that afternoon the man returned, and the woman met him at the door. “Have you brought the chickens?” she asked.

Nodding in reply, he set the cage on the ground.

By this time the village children had gathered around, and were greatly excited about the strange-looking birds. They laughed and clapped their hands, for they never had seen anything like them, and when Kuno turned them out of the cage and they walked around picking up the grain he threw to them, their joy knew no bounds. Then the cock flapped his wings and crowed and some of the hens cackled, and the children danced and screamed in delight. They stayed until it was dark, and early the next morning came again and brought their fathers and mothers to see the wonderful birds that sang such curious songs.

Summer passed and autumn came. The last apples fell from the trees, nuts dropped in the frost-painted forest, and the sharp winds of November blew down from the peaks, yet still the lovely stranger and her children stayed in the village. That was very strange, for the valley was entirely surrounded by rugged mountains, and was a rough, wild country in winter, when the tiny houses were almost buried in the snow. But they seemed happy there, and the people wondered much about it. They talked of it as they herded the goats on the slopes, as they burned charcoal in the shadow of the fir trees, and always would end by saying, “She is some great lady, for she speaks the language of court, and she and her children have costly clothes and many gold pieces.”

But they found out nothing, for when they asked the children who their mother was they said, “She is mamma, and we are Blanche and Edmund.”

So still they wondered and still they did not know. But they were glad she lived among them, because they had grown to love her very much. She was kind and charitable toward every one in the village. She gave food to the poor and took care of the sick, and the peasants repaid her with many kindnesses. They gave her game they killed in the forest, and when spring came and the snow melted, the village children roamed the woods for the earliest violets and cowslips, and brought them to her door.

These acts of kindness touched her, and the morning before Easter she thought, “I must do something to make them happy.” But what could it be? She couldn’t give them a feast, because, although she had plenty of money, it was impossible to get any meat in the village; and she couldn’t give them presents, because there was no place to buy them. She had nothing but eggs, which she thought would be no treat at all. Then an idea came to her. Calling Marie, the maid, she told her of it and they merrily went to work.

They went into the woods and gathered roots, moss, and berries such as were used for dyeing in those days. They made cakes and custards. They colored eggs red, blue, green, orange, and lilac, and planned to give the people a grand surprise. Late in the afternoon little Blanche and Edmund went out through the village and stopped at every house, saying, “Mamma invites you, you and all your family, great and small, to a feast at our house tomorrow. Come after the mass.”

Everybody accepted the invitation. They had never been to a real feast, and to go to one at the house of the lovely stranger would be fine indeed. They took out their best holiday attire, polished their shoe buckles until they shone, and made ready for a gala time, and on Easter morning a line of men, women, and children went from the chapel to the cottage of the lady.

She met them at the door and led them into the garden, where two long tables were spread. The parents were told to sit down, but she said to the children, “It is not time for you to eat yet. Go into the woods with Edmund and Blanche, and make little nests of moss. Put them under the trees, and be sure to remember where you left them.”

They ran out laughing, and the parents sat down to the feast, and a splendid feast it seemed to them! There were eggs in the shell, fried eggs, eggs in milk, omelets, and sweet, yellow custards, and as they never had tasted eggs before, they thought them wonderfully delicious.

After a while the children came back for their share in the good things, and as soon as they had finished eating, the woman said, “Go out and look for your pretty nests.”

A rush and a scramble and they were in the woods, and a moment later cries of delight and wonder were heard, for in each nest they found five lovely eggs of red, blue, green, purple, and orange. They came pell-mell to show them to their fathers and mothers, who discovered something written upon them.

It was a motto, and the villagers, who were too unlettered to read it, asked the lady to tell them what it meant. They smiled as they listened, as if believing in the truth of the words they heard:

In God’s protecting goodness trust,

For He will aid the kind and just.

The afternoon passed joyously, and when the chapel bell rang out the Angelus, the villagers departed, and the woman stood in the doorway with a smile upon her face, watching them go to their homes. While she watched, a youth carrying a bundle came walking down the mountain path. He seemed very tired and sad, and tears came into his eyes as she called to him. He told her he was on his way to a village beyond to see his mother, who was old and sick, and that he had walked a long way without food.

“I have a little money,” he said, “but must not spend it for myself, because it is needed at home.”

Touched by his story, the woman took him into the house, where a good meal was set before him; and as he was about to start away, she gave him a gold piece and some eggs for his little brother and sister.

Refreshed by rest and food he strode on his way through the village, took the path that led to the other side of the mountains, and after a while came to the edge of a ravine. From that point the trail was narrow and dangerous, and he walked rapidly because he wanted to reach home before night.

But suddenly he stopped. Looking down to where a tiny stream wound through the gulch, he saw a horse. It was saddled and bridled, which seemed very strange to him.

“I wonder if some one has fallen and needs help,” he murmured.

So, although he wanted to be on his way, he climbed down over the crags.

It was as he feared. A man was lying there, motionless as if dead. He was dressed in heavy armor, by which the lad knew he was some one rich and great.

Pulling off the helmet to use as a dipper, he ran to the river for water, and poured it over the drawn, white face.

The rider opened his eyes slowly, and when he saw the youth kneeling beside him said, “Thank God for sending you! I fell down over the cliffs, and thought I was to lie here and die. Oh, I am so weak and faint!” he sighed.

The peasant boy remembered the pretty eggs in his bundle that were intended for his little brother and sister at home. “But they would want me to give them to this poor fellow,” he thought. So he shelled one and held it to the trembling lips.

The man ate it as if nearly starved, and another and another. Then, seeing the motto on the one that was still unbroken, he opened his eyes wide.

“Stop,” he said as the boy was about to break it. “Let me have it as it is and I will give you a gold piece for it.”

Then the peasant youth, who was stalwart and strong, helped him on to his horse, and led him to his own village, where the doctor said he must lie still for six weeks. He groaned as he heard those words, and exclaimed, “Six weeks, and my master waiting for word of her!”

But he was a soldier, and knew how to wait. He stayed patiently, and at the end of the time went on his way.

Meanwhile, back in the village in the valley, the beautiful stranger lived on with her children. She seemed very happy until one day the man Kuno went to the city across the mountain, and returned looking pale and worried.

“Madame,” he said as she met him at the door, “I have bad news for you.”

She turned white, as if some terrible thing had happened, took him into the house, and they talked together for a long time. Then Kuno left the cottage and hurried through the village to the house of the miller, who was also the mayor.

“My mistress wishes to speak to you,” he said.

The man went back with him, and when they reached the house, the woman told a strange story.

“I am Rosalinde, daughter of the Duke of Burgundy,” she said. “In my father’s court were two knights, Hanno of Schraffeneck and Arno of Lindenburg, who were suitors for my hand. I chose Arno, and Hanno was furiously angry. He vowed he would have revenge, but I was happy with my husband, and did not fear him.

“All went well for a long time. Then the emperor summoned my husband to go on the Holy Wars to Palestine, and he rode away with the Crusaders, leaving me alone with the children. Hanno, too, was summoned to fight the Moslems, but he stayed behind, vowing that now he would have his revenge, and unless I married him he would put me into prison and kill my children.

“The castle of my lord was strong, but there was no one to defend it after he and his train went away, and Hanno brought many men and began a siege. My good Kuno, who knew a secret passage, aided me to escape and brought me across the mountains to your village, where I have felt safe. But today he saw Hanno in the city, asking people if a lady with two children and an old domestic had passed that way.”

She stopped a moment as if she could not speak for tears, then went on sadly, “Kuno hid and was not seen, but I fear that when Hanno comes through the valley, the people will tell him I am here, and then he will put me in prison and kill my children.”

The miller shook his head and spoke words of comfort.

“Have no fear, madame,” he said. “The villagers will not tell that you are here, and if Hanno comes and tries to take you, we will defend you with our lives.”

Then he went from house to house, telling the story of the Lady Rosalinde. Soon every one in the village knew it and the people swore to protect her at any cost, and the next day when Hanno came, they pretended to be so stupid that they didn’t know what he was talking about.

“She has not been here,” he said to his men. And they went away.

After that all was peaceful in the village, and the Lady Rosalinde was no longer afraid. Her children played with the charcoal burners’ children, and every evening they went to the little chapel at the edge of the forest to pray for the safe return of the husband and father from Palestine.

One lovely evening in the month of May, they went to the church as usual, and when they came out, sat down on some rocks to watch the sun sink behind the mountain. A pilgrim came by, bending low over a staff, his long white hair reaching his shoulders and his beard flowing down over his breast. He noticed the children and spoke to them, and little Edmund said, “We have just been to church to pray for our dear papa.”

The Lady Rosalinde was terribly frightened, for she thought he might be some one who would carry word to Hanno, but a moment later her fear turned to joy, for the pilgrim snatched off his beard and white hair, and a young, handsome knight stood before them. Little Blanche and Edmund screamed in delight, for they knew it was their father.

“How did you find us?” Lady Rosalinde asked.

“I found you, my dear Rosalinde, because you were good and charitable.”

Then he told how he had returned from the Crusades to a ruined castle.

“I questioned the peasants around, who said Hanno had besieged it, and that you and the children had escaped. Then I led my train against him and took him prisoner, and sent out horsemen to find word of you. It seemed they would never come back, and when they did my heart almost broke, for although they had scoured the land they had no news. There was one, however, who did not return, and thinking he had been killed, I gave up hope. But six weeks later he came with a strange story, and gave me a colored egg, and imagine my joy, to find upon it in your own handwriting, the motto of my house:

“In God’s protecting goodness trust,

For He will aid the kind and just.”

Then, continuing the story, Lord Arno told how he had gone in the guise of a pilgrim to the home of the peasant from whom the cavalier received the egg, and learning that his wife and children were in the valley, had come seeking them.

Word that the lovely woman had been found by her husband soon traveled throughout the village, and the people, young and old, came to welcome him.

He was a true and valiant knight and thanked them for their kindness to his loved ones, for the Lady Rosalinde had told him of her stay in the valley, and of how good and gentle the peasants were.

“And now, my dear friends,” he said, “to show you how grateful I am, I promise to give a fine, big cow to every family in the village. And every year at Easter time, my wife and I will send colored eggs to the children, not only to those of this valley, but to every boy and girl in the realm.”

Then Lord Arno and his family departed, rebuilt their ruined castle, and lived happily there. But they never forgot the charcoal burners in the valley, and every year sent quantities of gay eggs to the children. As years passed the custom spread from country to country, until now colored eggs are given at Easter time to children in every Christian land.

PRINCE UNEXPECTED

From the Polish of Glinski

(Slavic Wonder Tale)

There were a king and a queen who had been married for three years, but had no children, at which they were both much distressed. Once upon a time the king found himself obliged to make a visit of inspection round his dominions; he took leave of his queen, set off, and was not at home for eight months.

Towards the end of the ninth month the king returned from his progress through his country, and was already hard by his capital city, when, as he journeyed over an uninhabited plain during the most scorching heat of summer, he felt such excessive thirst that he sent his servants round about to see if they could find water anywhere and let him know of it at once. The servants dispersed in various directions, sought in vain for a whole hour, and returned without success to the king.

The thirst-tormented king proceeded to traverse the whole plain far and wide himself, not believing that there was not a spring somewhere or other; on he rode, and on a level spot, on which there had not previously been any water, he espied a well with a new wooden fence round it, full to the brim with spring water, in the midst of which floated a silver cup with a golden handle. The king sprang from his horse and reached after the cup with his right hand; but the cup, just as if it were alive and had eyes, darted quickly on one side and floated again by itself. The king knelt down and began to try to catch it, now with his right hand, now with his left, but it moved and dodged away in such a manner that, not being able to seize it with one hand, he tried to catch it with both. But scarcely had he reached out with both hands when the cup dived like a fish, and floated again on the surface.

“Hang it!” thought the king, “I can’t help myself with the cup, I’ll manage without it.” He then bent down to the water, which was as clear as crystal and as cold as ice, and began in his thirst to drink. Meanwhile his long beard, which reached down to his girdle, dipped into the water. When he had quenched his thirst and wished to get up again, something was holding his beard and would not let it go. He pulled once and again, but it was of no use; he cried out therefore in anger, “Who’s there? Let go!”

“It’s I, the subterranean king, immortal Bony, and I shall not let go till you give me that which you left unknowingly at home, and which you do not expect to find on your return.”

The king looked into the depth of the well, and there was a huge head like a tub, with green eyes and a mouth from ear to ear; the creature was holding the king by the beard with extended claws like those of a crab, and was laughing mischievously.

The king thought that a thing of which he had not known before starting, and which he did not expect on his return, could not be of great value; so he said to the apparition, “I give it.”

The apparition burst with laughter and vanished with a flash of fire, and with it vanished also the well, the water, the wooden fence, and the cup; and the king was again on a hillock by a little wood kneeling on dry sand, and there was nothing more. The king got up, crossed himself, sprang on his horse, hastened to his attendants, and rode on.

In a week or maybe a fortnight the king arrived at his capital; the people came out in crowds to meet him; he went in procession to the great court of the palace and entered the corridor. In the corridor stood the queen awaiting him, and holding close to her bosom a cushion, on which lay a child, beautiful as the moon, kicking in swaddling clothes. The king recollected himself, sighed painfully, and said within himself: “This is what I left without knowing and found without expecting!” And bitterly, bitterly did he weep. All marveled, but nobody dared to ask the cause. The king, without saying a word, took his son in his arms, gazed long on his innocent face, carried him into the palace himself, laid him in the cradle, and, suppressing his sorrow, devoted himself to the government of his realm; but he was never again cheerful as formerly, since he was perpetually tormented by the thought that some day Bony would claim his son.

Meanwhile weeks, months, and years flowed on, and no one came for his son. The prince, named “Unexpected,” grew and developed, and eventually became a handsome youth. The king also in course of time regained his usual cheerfulness, and forgot what had taken place; but alas! everybody did not forget so easily.

Once the prince, while hunting in a forest, became separated from his suite and found himself in a savage wilderness. Suddenly there appeared before him a hideous old man with green eyes, who said, “How do you do, Prince Unexpected? You have made me wait for you a long time.”

“Who are you?”

“That you will find out hereafter, but now, when you return to your father, greet him from me, and tell him that I should be glad if he would close accounts with me, for if he doesn’t soon get out of my debt of himself, he will repent it bitterly.” After saying this the hideous old man disappeared, and the prince in amazement turned his horse, rode home, and told the king his adventure.

The king turned as pale as a sheet, and revealed the frightful secret to his son. “Do not weep, father!” replied the prince, “it is no great misfortune! I shall manage to force Bony to renounce the right over me, which he tricked you out of in so underhand a manner, but if in the course of a year I do not return, it will be a token that we shall see each other no more.”

The prince prepared for his journey; the king gave him a suit of steel armor, a sword, and a horse, and the queen hung round his neck a cross of pure gold. At leave-taking they embraced affectionately, wept heartily, and the prince rode off.

On he rode one day, two days, three days, and at the end of the fourth day at the setting of the sun he came to the shore of the sea; and in the selfsame bay he espied twelve dresses, white as snow, though in the water, as far as the eye could reach, there was no living soul to be seen—only twelve white geese were swimming at a distance from the shore. Curious to know to whom they belonged, he took one of the dresses, let his horse loose in a meadow, concealed himself in a neighboring thicket, and waited to see what would come to pass. Thereupon the geese, after disporting themselves on the sea, swam to the shore. Eleven of them went to the dresses, each threw herself on the ground and became a beautiful damsel, dressed herself with speed, and flew away into the plain.

The twelfth goose, the last and prettiest of all, did not venture to come out on the shore, but only wistfully stretched out her neck, looking on all sides. On seeing the prince she called out with a human voice: “Prince Unexpected, give me my dress; I will be grateful to you in return.” The prince hearkened to her, placed the dress on the grass, and modestly turned away in another direction.

The goose came out on the grass, changed herself into a damsel, dressed herself hastily, and stood before the prince; she was young and more beautiful than eye had seen or ear heard of. Blushing, she gave him her white hand, and, casting her eyes down, said with a pleasing voice: “I thank you, good prince, for hearkening to me. I am the youngest daughter of immortal Bony. He has twelve young daughters, and rules in the subterranean realm. My father, prince, has long been expecting you and is very angry. However, don’t grieve, and don’t be frightened, but do as I tell you. As soon as you see King Bony, fall at once on your knees, and paying no regard to his outcry, upbraiding, and threats, approach him boldly. What will happen afterwards you will learn, but now we must part.”

On saying this the princess stamped on the ground with her little foot; the ground sprang open at once, and they descended into the subterranean realm, right into Bony’s palace, which shone all underground brighter than our sun. The prince stepped boldly into the reception room. Bony was sitting on a golden throne with a glittering crown on his head; his eyes gleamed like two saucers of green glass and his hands were like the nippers of a crab. As soon as the prince espied him at a distance, he fell on his knees, and Bony yelled so horribly that the vaults of the subterranean dominion quaked; but the prince boldly moved on his knees towards the throne, and when he was only a few paces from it, the king smiled and said: “Thou hast marvelous luck in succeeding in making me smile; remain in our subterranean realm, but before thou becomest a true citizen thereof thou art bound to execute three commands of mine; but because it is late today, we will begin tomorrow; meanwhile go to thy room.”

The prince slept comfortably in the room assigned to him, and early on the morrow Bony summoned him and said: “We will see, prince, what thou canst do. In the course of the following night build me a palace of pure marble; let the windows be of crystal, the roof of gold, an elegant garden round about it, and in the garden seats and fountains; if thou buildest it, thou wilt gain thyself my love; if not, I shall command thy head to be cut off.”

The prince heard the command, returned to his apartment, and was sitting mournfully thinking of the death that threatened him, when outside at the window a bee came buzzing and said, “Let me in!” He opened the lattice, in flew the bee, and the princess, Bony’s youngest daughter, appeared before the wondering prince.

“What are you thus thinking about, Prince Unexpected?”

“Alas! I am thinking that your father wishes to deprive me of life.”

“Don’t be afraid! Lie down to sleep, and when you get up tomorrow morning your palace will be ready.”

So, too, it came to pass. At dawn the prince came out of his room and espied a more beautiful palace than he had ever seen, and Bony, when he saw it, wondered, and would not believe his own eyes.

“Well! thou hast won this time, and now thou hast my second command. I shall place my twelve daughters before thee tomorrow; if thou dost not guess which of them is the youngest, thou wilt place thy head beneath the ax.”

“I unable to recognize the youngest princess!” said the prince in his room. “What difficulty can there be in that?”

“This,” answered the princess, flying into the room in the shape of a bee, “that if I don’t help you, you won’t recognize me, for we are all so alike that even our father distinguishes us only by our dress.”

“What am I to do?”

“What, indeed! That will be the youngest over whose right eye you espy a ladycow. Only look well. Adieu!”

On the morrow King Bony again summoned Prince Unexpected. The princesses stood in a row side by side, all dressed alike and with eyes cast down. The prince looked and marveled how alike all the princesses were; he went past them once, twice—he did not find the appointed token; the third time he saw a ladycow over the eyebrow of one, and cried out: “This is the youngest princess!”

“How the deuce have you guessed it?” said Bony angrily. “There must be some trickery here. I must deal with your lordship differently. In three hours you will come here again, and will show your cleverness in my presence. I shall light a straw, and you will stitch a pair of boots before it goes out, and if you don’t do it you will perish.”

The prince returned desponding and found the bee already in his apartment. “Why pensive again, prince?”

“How shouldn’t I be pensive, when your father wants me to stitch him a pair of boots, for what sort of cobbler am I?”

“What else will you do?”

“What am I to do? I shan’t stitch the boots, and I’m not afraid of death—one can die but once!”

“No, prince, you shall not die! I will endeavor to rescue you, and we will either escape together or perish together! We must flee—there’s nothing else to be done.”

Saying this, the princess spat on one of the window panes, and the spittle immediately froze. She then went out of the room with the prince, locked the door after her, and threw the key far away. Then, taking each other by the hands, they ascended rapidly, and in a moment found themselves on the very spot whence they had descended into the subterranean realm; there was the selfsame sea, the selfsame fresh meadow, and in the meadow cantered the prince’s well-fed horse, who, as soon as he descried his rider, came galloping straight to him. The prince didn’t stop long to think, but sprang on his horse, the princess seated herself behind him, and off they set as swift as an arrow.

King Bony at the appointed hour did not wait for Prince Unexpected, but sent to ask him why he did not appear. Finding the door locked, the servants knocked at it vigorously, and the spittle answered them from the middle of the room in the prince’s voice, “Anon.” The servants carried this answer to the king; he waited, waited, no prince; he therefore again sent the same servants, who heard the same answer: “Anon!” and carried what they had heard to the king.

“What’s this? Does he mean to make fun of me?” shouted the king in wrath. “Go at once, break the door open, and conduct him to me!”

The servants hurried off, broke open the door, and rushed in. What, indeed? There was nobody there, and the spittle on the pane of glass was splitting with laughter at them. Bony all but burst with rage, and ordered them all to start off in pursuit of the prince, threatening them with death if they returned empty-handed. They sprang on horseback and hastened away after the prince and princess.

Meanwhile Prince Unexpected and the princess, Bony’s daughter, were hurrying away on their spirited horse, and amidst their rapid flight heard “Tramp, tramp,” behind them. The prince sprang from the horse, put his ear to the ground, and said, “They are pursuing us.”

“Then,” said the princess, “we have no time to lose.” Instantly she transformed herself into a river, changed the prince into a bridge and the horse into a raven, and divided the grand highway beyond the bridge into three roads. Swiftly on the fresh track hastened the pursuers, came to the bridge, and stood stupefied; they saw the track up to the bridge, but beyond it disappeared, and the highway divided into three roads. There was nothing to be done but to return, and they came with naught. Bony shouted with rage, and cried out: “A bridge and a river! It was they. How was it that ye did not guess it? Back, and don’t return without them!” The pursuers recommenced the pursuit.

“I hear ‘Tramp, tramp!’” whispered the princess, Bony’s daughter, affrightedly to Prince Unexpected, who sprang from the saddle, put his ear to the ground, and replied: “They are making haste, and are not far off.”

That instant the princess and prince, and with them also their horse, became a gloomy forest, in which there were roads, byroads, and footpaths without number, and on one of them it seemed that two riders were hastening on a horse. Following the fresh track, the pursuers came up to the forest, and when they espied the fugitives in it, they hastened speedily after them. On and on hurried the pursuers, seeing continually before them a thick forest, a wide road, and the fugitives on it; now, now they thought to overtake them, when the fugitives and the thick forest suddenly vanished, and they found themselves at the selfsame place whence they had started in pursuit. They returned, therefore, again to Bony empty-handed.

“A horse, a horse! I’ll go myself! they won’t escape out of my hands!” yelled Bony, foaming at the mouth, and started in pursuit.

Again the princess said to Prince Unexpected: “Methinks they are pursuing us, and this time it is Bony, my father, himself, but the first church is the boundary of his dominion, and he cannot pursue us farther. Give me your golden cross.”

The prince took off his affectionate mother’s gift and gave it to the princess, and in a moment she was transformed into a church, he into the priest, and the horse into the bell; and that instant up came Bony.

“Monk!” Bony asked the priest, “hast thou not seen some travelers on horseback?”

“Only just now Prince Unexpected rode this way with the princess, Bony’s daughter. They came into the church, performed their devotions, gave money for a mass for your good health, and ordered me to present their respects to you if you should ride this way.”

Bony, too, returned empty-handed. But Prince Unexpected rode on with the princess, Bony’s daughter, in no further fear of pursuit.

They rode gently on, when they saw before them a beautiful town, into which the prince felt an irresistible longing to go.

“Prince,” said the princess, “don’t go; my heart forebodes misfortune there.”

“I’ll ride there for only a short time, and look round the town, and we’ll then proceed on our journey.”

“It’s easy enough to ride thither, but will it be as easy to return? Nevertheless, as you absolutely desire it, go, and I will remain here in the form of a white stone till you return; be circumspect, my beloved; the king, the queen, and the princess, their daughter, will come out to meet you, and with them will be a beautiful little boy—don’t kiss him, for, if you do, you will forget me at once, and will never set eyes on me more in the world—I shall die of despair. I will wait for you here on the road for three days, and if on the third day you don’t return, remember that I perish, and perish all through you.” The prince took leave and rode to the town, and the princess transformed herself into a white stone and remained on the road.

One day passed, a second passed, the third also passed, and nothing was seen of the prince. Poor princess! He had not obeyed her counsel; in the town, the king, the queen, and the princess their daughter had come out to meet him, and with them walked a little boy, a curly-headed chatterbox, with eyes as bright as stars. The child rushed straight into the prince’s arms, who was so captivated by the beauty of the lad that he forgot everything and kissed the child affectionately. That moment his memory was darkened, and he utterly forgot the princess, Bony’s daughter.

The princess lay as a white stone by the wayside, one day, two days, and when the third day passed and the prince did not return from the town, she transformed herself into a cornflower, and sprang in among the rye by the roadside. “Here I shall stay by the roadside; maybe some passer-by will pull me up or trample me into the ground,” said she, and tears like dewdrops glittered on the azure petals.

Just then an old man came along the road, espied the cornflower in the rye by the wayside, was captivated by its beauty, extracted it carefully from the ground, carried it into his dwelling, set it in a flowerpot, watered it, and began to tend it attentively. But—O marvel!—ever since the time that the cornflower was brought into his dwelling, all kinds of wonders began to happen in it. Scarcely was the old man awake, when everything in the house was already set in order, nowhere was the least atom of dust remaining. At noon he came home—dinner was all ready, the table set; he had but to sit down and eat as much as he wanted. The old man wondered and wondered, till at last terror took possession of him, and he betook himself for advice to an old witch of his acquaintance in the neighborhood.

“Do this,” the witch advised him: “get up before the first morning dawn, before the cocks crow to announce daylight, and notice diligently what begins to stir first in the house, and that which does stir, cover with this napkin: what will happen further, you will see.”

The old man did not close his eyes the whole night, and as soon as the first gleam appeared and things began to be visible in the house, he saw how the cornflower suddenly moved in the flowerpot, sprang out, and began to stir about the room; when simultaneously everything began to put itself in its place; the dust began to sweep itself clean away, and the fire kindled itself in the stove. The old man sprang cleverly out of his bed and placed the cloth on the flower as it endeavored to escape, when lo! the flower became a beautiful damsel—the princess, Bony’s daughter.

“What have you done?” cried the princess. “Why have you brought life back to me? My betrothed, Prince Unexpected, has forgotten me, and therefore life has become distasteful to me.”

“Your betrothed, Prince Unexpected, is going to be married today; the wedding feast is ready, and the guests are beginning to assemble.”

The princess wept, but after a while dried her tears, dressed herself in frieze, and went into the town like a village girl. She came to the royal kitchen, where there was great noise and bustle. She went up to the clerk of the kitchen with humble and attractive grace, and said in a sweet voice: “Dear sir, do me one favor: allow me to make a wedding cake for Prince Unexpected.”

Occupied with work, the first impulse of the clerk of the kitchen was to give the girl a rebuff; but when he looked at her, the words died on his lips and he answered kindly: “Ah, my beauty of beauties! do what you will; I will hand the prince your cake myself.”

The cake was soon baked, and all the invited guests, were sitting at table. The clerk of the kitchen himself placed a huge cake on a silver dish before the prince; but scarce had the prince made a cut in the side of it, when lo! an unheard-of marvel displayed itself in the presence of all. A gray tom-pigeon and a white hen-pigeon came out of the cake; the tom-pigeon walked along the table, and the hen-pigeon walked after him, cooing:

“Stay, stay, my pigeonet, oh stay!

Don’t from thy true love flee away;

My faithless lover I pursue,

Prince Unexpected like unto,

Who Bony’s daughter did betray.”

Scarcely had Prince Unexpected heard this cooing of the pigeon, when he regained his lost recollection, bounced from the table, rushed to the door, and behind the door the princess, Bony’s daughter, took him by the hand; they went together down the corridor, and before them stood a horse saddled and bridled.

Why delay? Prince Unexpected and the princess, Bony’s daughter, sprang on the horse, started on the road, and at last arrived happily in the realm of Prince Unexpected’s father. The king and the queen received them with joy and merriment, and did not wait long before they prepared them a magnificent wedding, the like of which eye never saw and ear never heard of.

THE GREEDY COBBLER

(Welsh Folk Tale—Ethics, teaching contentment)

Once upon a time a Welsh cobbler carrying a hazel wand was walking over London Bridge, and as he sauntered along he met an Englishman.

“Ah,” the latter exclaimed, pointing to the wand the man of Cambria used as a cane, “where did you get it?”

“Where did I get it?” the Welshman repeated, amazed that any one should ask such a question. “Off of a hazel bush, to be sure.”

But the stranger stared in big-eyed wonder and shook his head.

“There is only one hazel bush of that kind in all the world,” he declared, “and under it a vast treasure is hidden. Lead me to the spot, and I will share it with you.”

The Welshman smiled pleasantly, for he began to have visions of a luxurious, idle life. He hated to work, and was always grumbling because he had to hammer away at shoe lasts to make his living.

To be sure he would lead the Englishman to the spot, and once he had some gold in his possession, he’d do nothing but feast and ride in a coach and dance at the fair. So he said quite wearily, lest the stranger think he seemed too eager and change his mind, “It is a long way from here, in the Vale of Neath in my native Wales, and by my faith I have no desire to walk that distance.”

But the Englishman coaxed, which was just what the Welshman wanted him to do. So they turned away from London Bridge and journeyed northward across mountains and valleys, until they came to Cambria.

After several days they came to Craig-i-Ddinas, in the lovely Vale of Neath. The Welshman led the way to the hazel bush, beside which he had often played when a boy, and the Englishman said, “In due time we will begin work.”

When darkness was heavy enough to cover all trace of what they did, they dug up the bush, and the Englishman, who happened to be a wizard, pointed to a broad stone under the roots and said, “Below is the treasure. Do as I bid and you shall be rich.”

And the Welshman began to feel very important, thinking how people would honor him when he lived in a great house and wore a velvet coat.

Then the cock crowed for dawn, and they knew they must hurry away before any of the peasants saw them. The Welshman did not wish his village cousins to know he was there, for they would question why he had come; so they found a vacant tinker’s hut in which to rest until darkness made it safe for them to go to work again.

But the cobbler was too excited to sleep. The sight of the broad, flat stone at the root of the hazel bush brought back to his mind a story he had often heard, one that the village grandmothers used to tell when he was a boy. Again and again he thought of it, the story of the treasure of King Arthur.

Historians state that when the ruler of Camelot was killed in the battle of Mount Badon, he was buried at Glastonbury, but the Welsh country folk say that is not true. They declare Merlin carried him straight to the lovely Vale of Neath, where he sleeps on his arms, with his Round Table Knights beside him and all the wealth of his realm piled at his feet. There he and his warriors will rest until the ringing of a warning bell, when the Black and Golden Eagles go to war. Then they will rise up and destroy every enemy of Cambria, when Britain will be governed with justice and peace will reign as long as the world endures. Could it be that the broad stone at the foot of the hazel tree covered the entrance to Arthur’s cave? This the Welshman pondered until it was almost dark and time to go to work again.

Cautiously they left the hut and approached the spot, peering in every direction lest some one see and question them. Sturdily they pulled and tugged at the rock, and slowly, steadily moved it, until they found an opening like a door. Then the Englishman said in a low tone, “Behold King Arthur’s cave! Follow me and obey.”

The Welshman followed, and a wonderful sight met his eyes. Thousands of warriors slept in a circle on their arms, and in the midst of them, more splendid looking than any other, lay the King of Camelot, the mighty Arthur himself. His crown of gold was by his side, a pile of gold lay at his feet, and beyond the circle of his followers were a thousand steeds, all saddled and bridled as if ready for battle. Sometimes they champed as if eager for the war cry, sometimes they drooped their heads wearily.

Noticing a bell suspended just above the treasure heap, the cobbler pointed to it.

“Do not touch it,” the Englishman warned. “But if by accident you do, and the warriors waken and ask if it is day, say, ‘No, sleep thou on.’ Otherwise a terrible fate will overtake you.”

They helped themselves to the gold and left the cave, and each man went his way. The Welshman, having all the treasure he could carry, was no longer a poor cobbler who must spend his time bending over shoe lasts. He was richer than the mayor and could feast and ride in a coach, dance at the fair, and live like the lords of the land.

But riches made that cobbler greedy. He had far more gold than he needed, and the finest house in seven counties, but still he wanted more. He kept thinking of the gold piled high in Arthur’s cave; so one day he journeyed back to the Vale of Neath and waited for nightfall.

Then, creeping to the place of the hazel bush, he moved the rock and went into the cave.

Ah, it was a goodly sight, those thousand warriors slumbering there beside the treasure heap and a thousand saddled chargers beyond! He would take all the gold he could carry, and very soon he would come back for more. But in his greed to increase his wealth he bumped against the bell, which clanged loudly. The warriors started up, asking if it was day, but the man was so dazzled by the pile of shining treasure that he did not have the answer ready. They leaped to their feet, called him a robber, beat him, and drove him from the cave.

Then what a change! He went limping homeward, to discover that all his wealth had disappeared and where his great house had stood was a miserable hut. He was as poor as ever, and unless he could get more gold out of the cave must go back to cobbling and never again ride in a coach. But try as he would, he could not find the place where the hazel bush had grown. Many a journey he made into the Vale of Neath, but never did he catch a glimpse of the broad, flat stone. He had to spend his days bending over shoe lasts instead of riding in a coach, and was a cripple as long as he lived.

THE STORY OF A SALMON

By David Starr Jordan

(Science)

In the realm of the Northwest Wind, on the boundary line between the dark fir forests and the sunny plains, there stands a mountain—a great white cone two miles and a half in perpendicular height. On its lower mile the dense fir woods cover it with never changing green; on its next half mile a lighter green of grass and bushes gives place in winter to white; and on its uppermost mile the snows of the great ice age still linger in unspotted purity. The people of Washington Territory say that their mountain is the great “King-pin of the Universe,” which shows that even in its own country Mount Tacoma is not without honor.

Flowing down from the southwest slope of Mount Tacoma is a cold, clear river, fed by the melting snows of the mountain. Madly it hastens down over white cascades and beds of shining sands, through birch woods and belts of dark firs, to mingle its waters at last with those of the great Columbia. This river is the Cowlitz; and on its bottom, not many years ago, there lay half buried in the sand a number of little orange-colored globules, each about as large as a pea. These were not much in themselves, but great in their possibilities. In the waters above them little suckers and chubs and prickly sculpins strained their mouths to draw these globules from the sand, and vicious-looking crawfishes picked them up with their blundering hands and examined them with their telescopic eyes. But one, at least, of the globules escaped their curiosity, else this story would not be worth telling. The sun shone down on it through the clear water, and the ripples of the Cowlitz said over it their incantations, and in it at last awoke a living being. It was a fish,—a curious little fellow, not half an inch long, with great, staring eyes, which made almost half his length, and with a body so transparent that he could not cast a shadow. He was a little salmon, a very little salmon; but the water was good, and there were flies and worms and little living creatures in abundance for him to eat, and he soon became a larger salmon. Then there were many more little salmon with him, some larger and some smaller, and they all had a merry time. Those who had been born soonest and had grown largest used to chase the others around and bite heads and swallow them whole; for, said they, “even young salmon are good eating.” “Heads I win, tails you lose,” was their motto. Thus, what was once two small salmon became united into a single larger one, and the process of “addition, division, and silence” still went on.

By and by, when all the salmon were too large to be swallowed, they began to grow restless. They saw that the water rushing by seemed to be in a great hurry to get somewhere, and it was somehow suggested that its hurry was caused by something good to eat at the other end of its course. Then they all started down the stream, salmon fashion,—which fashion is to get into the current, head upstream, and thus to drift backward as the river sweeps along.

At last they came to where the Cowlitz and the Columbia join, and they were almost lost for a time; for they could find no shores, and the bottom and the top of the water were so far apart. Here they saw other and far larger salmon in the deepest part of the current, turning neither to the right nor to the left, but swimming right on upstream just as rapidly as they could. And these great salmon would not stop for them, and would not lie and float with the current. They had no time to talk, even in the simple sign language by which fishes express their ideas, and no time to eat. They had important work before them, and the time was short. So they went on up the river, keeping their great purposes to themselves; and our little salmon and his friends from the Cowlitz drifted down the stream.

By and by the water began to change. It grew denser, and no longer flowed rapidly along; and twice a day it used to turn about and flow the other way. Then the shores disappeared, and the water began to have a different and peculiar flavor,—a flavor which seemed to the salmon much richer and more inspiring than the glacier water of their native Cowlitz. There were many curious things to see—crabs with hard shells and savage faces, but so good when crushed and swallowed! Then there were luscious squid swimming about; and, to a salmon, squid are like ripe peaches and cream. There were great companies of delicate sardines and herring, green and silvery, and it was such fun to chase and capture them! Those who eat sardines packed in oil by greasy fingers, and herrings dried in the smoke, can have little idea how satisfying it is to have a meal of them, plump and sleek and silvery, fresh from the sea.

Thus the salmon chased the herrings about, and had a merry time. Then they were chased in turn by great sea lions,—swimming monsters with huge half-human faces, long thin whiskers, and blundering ways. The sea lions like to bite out the throat of a salmon, with its precious stomach full of luscious sardines, and then to leave the rest of the fish to shift for itself. And the seals and the herrings scattered the salmon about, till at last the hero of our story found himself quite alone, with none of his own kind near him. But that did not trouble him much, and he went on his own way, getting his dinner when he was hungry, which was all the time, and then eating a little between meals for his stomach’s sake.

So it went on for three long years; and at the end of this time our little fish had grown to be a great, fine salmon of twenty-two pounds’ weight, shining like a new tin pan, and with rows of the loveliest round black spots on his head and back and tail. One day, as he was swimming about, idly chasing a big sculpin with a head so thorny that he never was swallowed by anybody, all of a sudden the salmon noticed a change in the water around him.

Spring had come again, and the south-lying snowdrifts on the Cascade Mountains once more felt that the “earth was wheeling sunwards.” The cold snow waters ran down from the mountains and into the Columbia River, and made a freshet on the river. The high water went far out into the sea, and out in the sea our salmon felt it on his gills. He remembered how the cold water used to feel in the Cowlitz when he was a little fish. In a blundering, fishy fashion he thought about it; he wondered whether the little eddy looked as it used to look and whether caddis worms and young mosquitoes were really as sweet and tender as he used to think they were. Then he thought some other things; but as the salmon’s mind is located in the optic lobes of his brain, and ours is in a different place, we cannot be quite certain what his thoughts really were.

What our salmon did, we know. He did what every grown salmon in the ocean does when he feels the glacier water once more upon his gills. He became a changed being. He spurned the blandishment of soft-shelled crabs. The pleasures of the table and of the chase, heretofore his only delights, lost their charms for him. He turned his course straight toward the direction whence the cold water came, and for the rest of his life never tasted a mouthful of food. He moved on toward the river mouth, at first playfully, as though he were not really certain whether he meant anything after all. Afterward, when he struck the full current of the Columbia, he plunged straight forward with an unflinching determination that had in it something of the heroic. When he had passed the rough water at the bar, he was not alone. His old neighbors of the Cowlitz, and many more from the Clackamas and the Spokane and Des Chutes and Kootanie,—a great army of salmon,—were with him. In front were thousands pressing on, and behind them were thousands more, all moved by a common impulse which urged them up the Columbia.

They were all swimming bravely along where the current was deepest, when suddenly the foremost felt something tickling like a cobweb about their noses and under their chins. They changed their course a little to brush it off and it touched their fins as well. Then they tried to slip down with the current, and thus leave it behind. But, no! the thing, whatever it was, although its touch was soft, refused to let go, and held them like a fetter. The more they struggled, the tighter became its grasp, and the whole foremost rank of the salmon felt it together; for it was a great gill net, a quarter of a mile long, stretched squarely across the mouth of the river.

By and by men came in boats, and hauled up the gill net and the helpless salmon that had become entangled in it. They threw the fishes into a pile in the bottom of the boat, and the others saw them no more. We that live outside the water know better what befalls them, and we can tell the story which the salmon could not.

All along the banks of the Columbia River, from its mouth to nearly thirty miles away, there is a succession of large buildings, looking like great barns or warehouses, built on piles in the river, high enough to be out of the reach of floods. There are thirty of these buildings, and they are called “canneries.” Each cannery has about forty boats, and with each boat are two men and a long gill net. These nets fill the whole river as with a nest of cobwebs from April to July, and to each cannery nearly a thousand great salmon are brought every day. These salmon are thrown in a pile on the floor; and Wing Hop, the big Chinaman, takes them one after another on the table, and with a great knife dexterously cuts off the head, the tail, and the fins; then with a sudden thrust he removes the intestines and the eggs. The body goes into a tank of water; and the head is dropped into a box on a flatboat, and goes down the river to be made into salmon oil. Next the body is brought to another table; and Quong Sang, with a machine like a feed cutter, cuts it into pieces each just as long as a one-pound can. Then Ah Sam, with a butcher knife, cuts these pieces into strips just as wide as the can. Next Wan Lee, the “China boy,” brings down a hundred cans from the loft where the tinners are making them, and into each can puts a spoonful of salt. It takes just six salmon to fill a hundred cans. Then twenty Chinamen put the pieces of meat into the cans, fitting in little strips to make them exactly full. Ten more solder up the cans, and ten more put the cans into boiling water till the meat is thoroughly cooked, and five more punch a little hole in the head of each can to let out the air. Then they solder them up again, and little girls paste on them bright-colored labels showing merry little cupids riding the happy salmon up to the cannery door, with Mount Tacoma and Cape Disappointment in the background; and a legend underneath says that this is “Booth’s” or “Badollet’s Best,” or “Hume’s,” or “Clark’s,” or “Kinney’s Superfine Salt Water Salmon.” Then the cans are placed in cases, forty-eight in a case, and five hundred thousand cases are put up every year. Great ships come to Astoria, and are loaded with them; and they carry them away to London and San Francisco and Liverpool and New York and Sydney and Valparaiso; and the man at the corner grocery sells them at twenty cents a can.

All this time our salmon is going up the river, eluding one net as by a miracle, and soon having need of more miracles to escape the rest; passing by Astoria on a fortunate day,—which was Sunday, the day on which no man may fish if he expects to sell what he catches,—till finally he came to where nets were few, and, at last, to where they ceased altogether. But there he found that scarcely any of his companions were with him; for the nets cease when there are no more salmon to be caught in them. So he went on, day and night, where the water was deepest, stopping not to feed or loiter on the way, till at last he came to a wild gorge, where the great river became an angry torrent, rushing wildly over a huge staircase of rocks. But our hero did not falter; and summoning all his forces, he plunged into the Cascades. The current caught him and dashed him against the rocks. A whole row of silvery scales came off and glistened in the water like sparks of fire, and a place on his side became black and red, which for a salmon is the same as being black and blue for other people. His comrades tried to go up with him; and one lost his eye, one his tail, and one had his lower jaw pushed back into his head like the joint of a telescope. Again he tried to surmount the Cascades; and at last he succeeded, and an Indian on the rocks above was waiting to receive him. But the Indian with his spear was less skillful than he was wont to be, and our hero escaped, losing only a part of one of his fins; and with him came one other, and henceforth these two pursued their journey together.

Now a gradual change took place in the looks of our salmon. In the sea he was plump and round and silvery, with delicate teeth in a symmetrical mouth. Now his silvery color disappeared, his skin grew slimy, and the scales sank into it: his back grew black, and his sides turned red,—not a healthy red, but a sort of hectic flush. He grew poor; and his back, formerly as straight as need be, now developed an unpleasant hump at the shoulders. His eyes—like those of all enthusiasts who forsake eating and sleeping for some loftier aim—became dark and sunken. His symmetrical jaws grew longer and longer, and projected from his mouth, giving him a savage and wolfish appearance, quite at variance with his real disposition. For all the desires and ambitions of his nature had become centered into one. We may not know what this one was, but we know that it was a strong one; for it had led him on and on,—past the nets and horrors of Astoria; past the dangerous Cascades, past the spears of Indians; through the terrible flume of the Dalles, where the mighty river is compressed between huge rocks into a channel narrower than a village street; on past the meadows of Umatilla and the wheat fields of Walla Walla; on to where the great Snake River and the Columbia join; on up the Snake River and its eastern branch, till at last he reached the foot of the Bitter Root Mountains in the Territory of Idaho, nearly a thousand miles from the ocean which he had left in April. With him still was the other salmon which had come with him through the Cascades, handsomer and smaller than he, and, like him, growing poor and ragged and tired.

At last, one October afternoon, our finny travelers came together to a little clear brook, with a bottom of fine gravel, over which the water was but a few inches deep. Our fish painfully worked his way to it; for his tail was all frayed out, his muscles were sore, and his skin covered with unsightly blotches. But his sunken eyes saw a ripple in the stream, and under it a bed of little pebbles and sand. So there in the sand he scooped out with his tail a smooth round place, and his companion came and filled it with orange-colored eggs. Then our salmon came back again; and softly covering the eggs, the work of their lives was done, and, in the old salmon fashion, they drifted tail foremost down the stream.

They drifted on together for a night and a day, but they never came to the sea. For the salmon has but one life to live, and it ascends the river but once. The rest lies with its children. And when the April sunshine fell on the globules in the gravel, these were awakened into life. With the early autumn rains, the little fishes were large enough to begin their wanderings. They dropped down the current in the old salmon fashion. And thus they came into the great river and drifted away to the sea.

THE PIGEONS OF VENICE

(History)

In one of the upland valleys of Italy, shut away from the rest of the world by the high, white peaks men call the Dolomites, there lived, about five hundred years ago, a little boy named Leonardo. He dwelt in a tiny hut with his black-eyed peasant mother, fed the pigeons and milked the goats each day, and in the evening, the pleasant summer evening that spread rainbow-colored draperies over the Dolomite peaks, he lay in the shadows under the plum tree, thinking about his brother Vittorio, who was a soldier down in the great city of Venice.

“I wish brother would come home,” he said to his mother one morning as they ate their breakfast of macaroni and mountain bread, “because he always tells such wonderful things about the city. Some day I mean to go there and be a soldier, too.”

His dark eyes gleamed as he spoke, and he sat very straight in his heavy oaken chair, as of course a soldier ought to do.

Everybody knows that wishes do not always come true, but sometimes they do, and when that happens the whole world seems brighter and lovelier than it seemed before. The next afternoon, as Leonardo was turning the goats into their inclosure, he gave a shout so joyous that even Armando the weaver, in his shop at the other end of the village, heard and ran to see what it meant. He soon found out, for he saw Leonardo hurrying toward a man who was moving along the highway. Vittorio, the soldier brother, was coming home, coming back to the mountain village with many a tale of the splendid city beside the Adriatic, and perhaps with a goody that would taste very sweet after the coarse fare of weeks and months.

Far into the night the brothers sat and talked together, talked of palaces and gliding gondolas, of great lords and ladies, of soldiers moving in splendid uniforms about the Piazza of St. Mark. They talked of Carnival time too, of the merry pranks the people played on each other, of the procession on the water and the presents given to the Doge.

“And sometimes,” Vittorio exclaimed proudly, “they are very splendid. Sometimes they are of gold and silver, and of silk stuffs brought from the Indies.”

Leonardo sat silent for a minute. He knew little of present giving, for in the mountains where he lived there was no money to spend on such things. But always when he made his mother a garland of flowers on her birthday, she seemed so happy about it that he thought it must be very lovely to bestow gifts. So he said softly, “I should like to send a present to the Doge. It would seem like doing something for Venice. But I have nothing to give.”

“Wait until you are a man and can be a soldier,” the big brother answered. “Then you will be doing much.”

The next morning he was up at daybreak. Vittorio had only two days’ leave, which meant that he must start back at noon, and his mother had promised that Leonardo might go with him to the edge of the village if he finished his tasks in time. So he milked the goats before there was a bit of stirring about the hut, and led the geese from their pen to crop the green grass on the hillside. Then he cut some grass and threw it to the old horse that was their most prized possession, and by the time his brother came from the hut he called to him, “I have only to feed the pigeons yet.”

Vittorio smiled and stood watching as the boy whistled to the birds.

The gentle creatures flew up at Leonardo’s call, and as he scattered crumbs to them, he thought again of the great carnival at Venice and the gifts that would be made to the Doge. He wished that he too might join that throng of givers, but he possessed nothing but his pigeons, and a bird would seem a very poor present to offer a ruler. But he happened to think that the schoolmaster had once told him that it is not the cost or the beauty of an offering that makes it precious, but the good will of the giver, and that a beggar’s portion may be a lovelier gift than that of a prince. The schoolmaster was very wise. He could both read and write, which only a few could do in that day, so anything that he said must be true; and the memory of the words brought an idea to Leonardo that made the boy’s eyes dance.

“Vittorio,” he exclaimed suddenly, “I have thought of something.”

Vittorio wondered what excited his brother so.

“Well?” he asked as he walked near.

“Will you take a pair of pigeons back to the city with you?”

“A pair of pigeons,” the soldier repeated. “Why?”

“I want to send a present to the Doge, and I have nothing else,” he answered. “But the birds are so gentle I am sure he will like them. They are fine carriers, too.”

Vittorio smiled. Being in the army of the Doge, he was pleased that his brother showed such loyalty to the master he served. It meant that he would probably grow up to be a good soldier, and in those days nothing was considered finer than that. So he answered pleasantly: “Of course I will, Leonardo, if you are sure you can give up your pets. I will ask my captain, who knows the Doge well, to take them to him and say that they are the gift of a mountain boy.”

Leonardo’s eyes sparkled with delight. It seemed a glorious thing that he too might give with the rich and great; so he selected the handsomest pair in the covey, birds of a soft gray, with shadings of blue and purple along their delicate wings, and he and Vittorio made a rude cage in which to carry them to the city.

Then they walked together to the edge of the village, and Leonardo watched his brother go along the road that wound down to the low country. He waved good-by until Vittorio passed from sight, then went back to the hut, happy in the thought that he was doing something for Venice.

Many months passed. It was September when Vittorio went away, and now the blossom time had come and hills were bright with touches of summer. All through that long period Leonardo wondered much about the pigeons, but no word came from his brother; for letters went only by courier in those days, and poor folk could not pay for the carrying. But he was sure the birds had reached the Doge, for Vittorio had promised and a soldier never broke his word.

Then one day in the autumn, when the brightness on the mountains had faded to bronze and gray, and squirrels were stocking their houses as nuts dropped in the woods, Vittorio came back. He looked older and graver than the year before, and some worrying thing seemed on his mind.

“It is just to say good-by,” he said, as the gray-haired mother stroked his hands and Leonardo looked at him with loving eyes. “The war has begun, and we soldiers of Venice must sail away to Candia for the fighting.”

Leonardo’s eyes grew wide, and tears came into them as he exclaimed, “If only I were old enough to go with you and help serve our glorious city of St. Mark!”

The big man laid his hand lovingly on the dark head.

“Never mind, brother,” he said. “You have already done much. I gave your birds to my captain, who took them to the Doge, and the Doge is proud of them because they are splendid carriers. So Dandolo, our general, will take them along with the army to bring back news of the war. And now good-by. When the fighting is over, I will come again.”

He mounted his horse and rode away, and two pairs of dewy eyes looked after him as he went.

The days that followed seemed very long to the two who waited in the highlands. They knew that the army had gone, and that away on the eastern island perhaps the fighting had begun. But what of the fate of the Venetian hosts, and what of the son and brother who had sailed under the standard of the Lion? As to that they could only hope and wonder.

Slowly, slowly dragged the days, but no word came back.

One morning, while Leonardo and his mother prayed and waited in the mountain cabin, down in Venice in the splendid Palace of the Doges, the Council of Ten sat and pondered. They talked much about the absent army, wondering if victory or defeat had been its share, and while they wondered there came a fluttering of soft gray wings.

“Pigeons!” some one called. “See, they are carriers!”

The dignified assemblage broke up in excitement, for they knew the tiny birds were messengers, and the men hurried to read the missives fastened to their crimson feet.

“They come from Dandolo,” said one of the nobles, “bringing news of the war.”

“From Candia!” another exclaimed. “It cannot be that they have flown so far!”

But it was true, for upon reading they learned that the Venetian army had been victorious and the soldiers would soon sail home in triumph. The tiny birds had flown all the long leagues across the sea to carry the glad news to the waiting people.

Up in the hut in the Italian highlands Leonardo and his mother still watched and wondered, when one evening a few days later Armando, the village weaver, came by on his way home from the city. He was greatly excited and called to them as he stopped at the door.

“Rejoice,” he said, “for the war is over!”

“How do you know?” the mother asked. “Are the soldiers back?”

“No. But the pigeons brought the word, and every one is glad.”

“Pigeons!” exclaimed Leonardo. “My pigeons! Then after all I did something for Venice.”

And he spoke the truth. So much did the message mean to the anxious people, that the lawmakers said they would always keep the birds, they and their young and their children’s young. And although hundreds of years have passed since then, still the gray-winged creatures fly about St. Mark’s Square, and the people love and feed them. For they know they are descended from the pair sent to the Doge by a mountain boy, Leonardo’s pigeons, that long ago flew across the wide seas, bringing word of the victory of the Venetian hosts.

THE COMING OF THE WONDER TREE

Retold from an Arabian Legend

(Geography—Nature Study)

Abi Ben Ahmed was a chief of Araby, and there was no sweeter child in the land than his little daughter Zuleika. She was fair to look upon, with eyes slender as an almond and soft as a gazelle’s, and the goodness of her heart was known to every one in the tribe. Lowly slave and mighty sheik alike loved her, and when she was with her father he forgot all his trouble.

One evening when the sun was dropping low over the desert, Zuleika sat in front of the tent waiting for a chance to have her supper. Her father was eating just then, for by the laws of Arabian politeness women and children must wait for meals until their lords and masters have finished. She was hungry, yet she did not mind the delay, because she knew nothing else, and when you think all the world does things as you do, your way does not seem hard. So she watched the color flame across the western sky, hummed snatches of song, and made pictures in the sand with her fingers.

Suddenly, away to the south, a yellow cloud seemed to rise out of the desert. It moved nearer, and as Zuleika watched it her dark eyes began to sparkle. She knew what it meant and it made her glad.

“Father,” she called, “some one is riding this way.”

Abi Ben Ahmed left his supper and came from the tent to see. The Arab is fond of his food and very loth to leave it, but when strangers almost never come by it is worth going without a meal to see them.

“Yes,” he agreed, as his piercing eyes scanned the southern horizon, “some one is traveling across the desert.”

Zuleika danced with delight. Only once or twice since she could remember had any one come to the camp, for it was in the very heart of El Nedjed, and there was little traveling in those far-off days. Long before, when she was a tiny girl, a traveler had come that way, and while he lingered at camp, told of the blue Persian Gulf beyond the Oman shore, and of the music of its plashing waves. No word has such a magical sound to the Arab as “water,” and to hear of lakes and rivers of it is like some exquisite fairy tale.

“It is a desert of water more beautiful than the land,” he said in the soft, sweet tongue of the East. “Houris dwell there, and often when the moon is shining they come out and sport upon the sands.”

The tale fascinated her at the time, and had always stayed in her memory. That is why she was happy to see a stranger approaching. She thought he might tell her of the lovely realm beyond.

As the cloud rolled nearer they saw a rider on a milk-white steed. Abi Ben Ahmed called to his men to come and welcome the stranger, for an Arab who lets even one slave stay away when a guest arrives, is lacking in courtesy. So they advanced, stalwart, dark-skinned men, whose turbaned heads were bowed almost to the ground as they gave the low salaam of the East, while the chief spoke words of welcome to his camp.

Very swarthy was the rider, and of proud demeanor that proclaimed him a person of much consequence, and as he returned Ben Abi’s salute he spoke with dignity befitting his bearing.

“I bring greeting from the sheik Ben Nedi,” he announced. “He rides this way tomorrow.”

The chief replied, “Mighty is Ben Nedi, and a man of high esteem among his people. He shall have welcome and all that Arab hospitality can offer.”

Then, leading the way, Ben Ahmed took the stranger to the tent, where camel’s milk and dried goat’s flesh were set before him.

Zuleika, on the sand without, could hear their words, but the joyous light was no longer in her eyes. Her face was drawn in wrinkles, and her lip quivered as if she were about to cry. She knew that the man expected on the morrow was not only a powerful chieftain, but a teacher and prophet as well, and that according to the Arab custom every person in camp, even to the lowliest slave, would lay gifts before him. For it is believed by the desert people that to do so brings a blessing. But Zuleika, although she was a chieftain’s daughter, had nothing to offer, for the wealth of Arab rulers is in their flocks and lands, and the poorest child of the West has more treasures than had this little princess of the desert.

“If I had my baby camel I could give that,” she thought as she listened to the murmurs in the women’s tent and knew that all was excitement there over the coming of the stranger.

But the camel she had loved and petted had died a few weeks before, and she had nothing else.

“Do not grieve,” her mother said when she saw tears in the big almond eyes and asked the reason they were there. “The law of giving does not apply to children, and the sheik Ben Nedi, who is as wise as he is powerful, knows that sometimes empty hands give most of all. The blessing comes of having the great desire, not through the treasure that is offered.”

But Zuleika did grieve, and the world seemed very dark. And after she went to bed she thought about it until she grew so restless she could not lie quietly. So she crept outside and sat on the ground.

It was midnight, and Abi Ben Ahmed and the stranger slept in the tent. The slaves, both men and women, were sleeping too, and nothing broke the stillness of the desert night save an occasional breeze that shifted the loose sand, or a stirring among the animals just beyond. She sat there for a minute, then stole out across the waste. Past the camel keep she went, hurrying through the silver of the moonlight until she came to a rock that rose out of the desert like a grizzled head facing westward. It was her favorite spot, for her mother had told her that a lovely houri (fairy) once made her haunt there, and she hoped she might come back and do wonderful things for her as she was said to have done in the long ago. So she climbed up and looked across the desert.

Away to the west, glowing more brightly than any other in the sky, was the star that according to Arab teaching shines always over Mecca, the city of the Prophet. The sight of it made her grieve more than ever over the thought of her empty hands, and she began to cry.

Then, with a sound of wonderful music, a white creature rose out of the sands. Her beauty was more radiant than any of which Zuleika had ever dreamed, and jewels of many colors glistened in her hair. Her smile was wonderfully sweet, and the girl knew it must be the good fairy returned to her old haunt.

“Why do you weep?” she asked.

Zuleika answered with a low salaam, “The prophet comes tomorrow, and I have nothing to offer him because the baby camel I would have given is dead.”

“But you have a gift more precious than the others,” the fairy spoke.

The little girl was amazed.

“I!” she exclaimed. “Why, I have nothing!”

“Ah, but you have,” came the low reply. “The desire in the heart. That is the only thing worth giving, and that you have. But you shall have still another. Come here in the morning at sunrise, and you will find it on the sands.”

The radiant creature glided away in the light, that dimmed as she went, and in a moment Zuleika could see only the desert and her father’s camp beyond the rock.

Creeping down, she went back to the tent to bed. But the beauty of the shining creature was in her eyes and brain, and she could not sleep. Eagerly she waited for the coming of morning, and as soon as she heard a stirring beyond the tents, and knew that Hassan, the camel keeper, was looking after the animals, she bounded out of bed and down to the place of rock. Her mother saw her go, but thought nothing about it, for it was the time of gray dawn when every Arab looks in prayer toward Mecca, and she was probably going to the fairy rock for her devotions. But Zuleika thought of something besides her prayers.

When she came to the spot she stared around, wondering if it could be the place she had visited in the night. Then only a glittering waste stretched far as the eye could reach. Now there was a tree, straight and branchless almost to the crown, where from beneath wide-spreading leaves hung bunches of pulpy fruit. Nothing like it had been seen on the desert before.

Wild with delight, she rushed back to camp and told of the wonder.

“A tree on the desert!” her father exclaimed. “It cannot be.”

Nor could she make him believe so strange a thing had happened until she led him to the spot. But there it stood, with head held high like an Arab sheik, and when he tasted of the fruit he found it good.

In the late afternoon of the following day the caravan of the sheik Ben Nedi came to the camp of Abi Ben Ahmed. The women within the tents received him with singing, and the men with low salaams. Then the gifts were brought: the finest camels of the herd, turban cloth enough for all the men of his train, and silk, a portion of her mother’s marriage dower worth the price of many camels. It had been brought by ship across the sea and by caravan over the desert, and was rainbow-hued and fine, such as is woven only in the Vale of Cashmere. The great man received them with gratitude, and spoke words of praise for the tribe of Ben Ahmed. “Surely nothing more splendid can be set before a sheik,” he said.

But the chief smiled and answered, “Not so, O mighty prophet! Zuleika’s gift, the finest of all, is yonder on the desert.”

Then he led the way to the place of rock and pointed to the wonder tree that had sprung up in the night. Ben Nedi found the fruit cooling and sweet, and as he listened to the story, he stood with dewy eyes.

“The gift of a child’s tears!” he exclaimed. “Yes, that is most precious of all. The Arab will bless the day it came to be.”

And the prophecy was fulfilled. It still grows in the depths of the desert, the wonder tree of the East that men call the date palm, and the Arab blesses it whenever he rides that way. He knows that for a thousand years and more it has been the salvation of the solitary wanderer across the wastes, and that as long as it lifts its stately head above the sands he will have food from its fruit, clothing from its fiber, and shelter from the noonday heat.

THE GIFT OF THE GNOMES

The Swiss Legend of the Alp Horn

(Geography—Ethics)

In the days of long ago a chamois hunter, caught in a storm on the mountains, took refuge in a deserted hut. The floor was so wet and cold that to stay there was almost as bad as being out in the rain and hail, and so he climbed into the loft and lay down on a pile of straw.

Just how long he slept he did not know, but after a while he was awakened by the tinkle of bells and the lowing of many cattle. That seemed very strange, for it was almost winter, and Swiss herdsmen drive their flocks to the valley early in the autumn. Yet as he looked out through the tiny window he saw herds on every alp, herds hundreds strong, cropping luxuriant grass that grew out of the snow.

Then he heard a noise below in the hut, and peeping down through a knot hole, saw three strange-looking little men. They were warming themselves beside a fire that blazed on the hearth, and by their long green cloaks and red caps he knew that they were gnomes of the Alps.

They were bustling about and seemed to be making cheese. One of them stirred the milk in a big silver kettle, one scurried in and out of the hut bringing fresh milk to add to that which was already cooking, and one fed the fire with moss and dry branches, which piled up out of the earth.

After a while one of the gnomes poured something into the kettle, the second one brought out three golden bowls, and the third blew a blast on a horn that was seven times as large as himself.

Then the hunter heard the sound of cattle lowing nearer and nearer, as if they were drawn by the music of the horn, and a moment later a voice called out, “Come down from the loft, Moni, and taste of the good things in the bowls.”

This amazed him, for he was sure they had not seen him, and how could they know his name? But he crept down from his straw pile, as he was bid, and into the room.

“Choose whichever you please,” the little man said, “and besides the drink in the bowl you will receive a gift that goes with the liquid of your choice.”

The golden bowls stood side by side on the floor, and each one contained a different-colored liquid. One was red, like the wine of Geneva, one yellow as the honey of Zurich, and the third was white like goat’s milk. Moni looked from one to the other, deciding which to take. He was hungry from his long tramp over the crags in the storm and needed milk far more than honey or wine, so he chose that bowl and drank greedily.

Then the little gnomes began to dance.

“Ah,” the cheese maker shouted, “you have won the Alp horn!”

“Yes,” another exclaimed, “and it is a precious gift. You can make other horns like it, and teach the people how to call their herds, which will not stray away and be lost as happens now. Thus the herdsmen will become very prosperous.”

“But remember, if you wish to be happy, you must give up chamois hunting, and never again kill a harmless wild creature.”

The gnomes disappeared, and with them went the cattle, the kettle, and the shining bowls. But the horn lay where the little man had dropped it, and as the hunter looked at it he found it was pure silver. Catching it up, he ran down the mountain side to the hut where his sweetheart lived. He told her the story and showed her the Alp horn, and she was very happy; for she never had wanted him to be a chamois hunter, as the life was full of danger, and she loved the poor little animals that he killed. Now he would tend flocks as she did, and they would be happy in the life of herding.

At first the hunter thought he could not change his ways, for he loved to roam over the mountains and bound from crag to crag in pursuit of the fleet-footed creatures, but the promise of the gnomes and the pleas of Heidi persuaded him, and he gathered a herd and tended it all summer.

He made an Alp horn like the one he had received in the hut and gave it to the maiden, and sometimes as they tended their cattle on different sides of the valley, they would call across to each other, and they were happy and contented—until, one evening, he forgot the warning of the gnomes and shot a chamois.

Then he raised his horn to call good night to his sweetheart. But she did not answer. He blew blast after blast, but only the echoes came back, instead of the sound of the voice he knew and loved. Darkness fell and stars flashed like diamonds above the snowy Jungfrau, and still he called and sought her, but found no trace. The next morning, as he moved with his herd, a boy told him of a strange happening.

“Last night at sunset time I was watching my goats,” he said, “and saw a girl standing on the mountain side above her cattle. She smiled as the wine color of the Alpine glow crept down toward Chamounix, and throwing back her head, sang one of our herd songs. Suddenly she disappeared, but she could not have fallen, and just then an arrow whizzed through the air and fell on the spot where she had been standing.”

He took the arrow out of his peasant blouse and showed it to the hunter, who recognized it as his own, the one he had shot at the chamois.

Then Moni remembered the words of the gnomes, and knew that because he had forgotten their warning he had lost Heidi. He burned his arrows and sorrowfully went back to herding, never again to shoot a wild creature of the hills. By day he followed the cattle, and by night made Alp horns, always thinking of his sweetheart. But he never saw her again. Some of the herdsmen say that she fled in grief because he broke his word to her, and some declare that the gnomes carried her away to an ice palace in a crevasse. But nobody knows. They know only that from that time forth he tended flocks and made Alp horns, until every herdsman in the mountains had one, and because they could keep the cattle from straying and getting lost, they became more prosperous than they had ever dreamed of being.

Since then every peak and valley in Switzerland has resounded to the notes of the Alp horn. Throughout the summer time they are heard around the lakes of Zug and Geneva, and the cattle follow them as the children of Hamelin town followed the music of the piper. They echo along the Jungfrau as the shepherds behind Interlaken call their flocks together, and their weird sweet blasts mingle with the songs of herd girls as they yodel to each other across the ravines. Travelers from every land smile at the sound of them, for one of the charms of going to Switzerland is in hearing the Alp horns; but very few of these strangers know that the mountain people say the reason the sound is so magical to the cattle is because in the beginning the horn came from the gnomes.

THE DUTY THAT WASN’T PAID

(Biography—Music—Ethics)

More than a hundred years ago a man and his two children were journeying from their home in Salzburg to Vienna. They traveled by the Danube boat, and Marianne, the sister, stood by the rail tossing pebbles into the water and watching the turbulent river swallow them up. Her dress was worn almost threadbare, but her face was so sweet and her eyes were so large and bright that she looked pretty for all her shabbiness.

Just behind her on the deck her father and brother were talking. “If we make some money in the city you’ll buy sister a new dress, won’t you, Father?” little Wolfgang asked.

Marianne whirled and started toward him. She knew that was sure to make her father sad, and she called, “Don’t coax, Wolfgang. My dress will do very well until we can afford to buy another, and a new one will seem all the nicer because of my having worn this one so long.”

Her brother turned his big, earnest eyes upon her, and answered, “But, Marianne, I know you want one. I heard you wish for it by the evening star, and last night you put it in your prayer.”

Father Mozart turned from them with a sad look on his face, and walked up and down the deck, wishing very much he could do what Wolfgang asked. But he was just a poor orchestra conductor with an income so small he had to stretch it hard to provide food and shelter for his family. Marianne must wear the shabby frock until better times began, which he hoped would be soon. They were to give some concerts in the Austrian capital, and maybe in that rich, music-loving city would earn enough to make them more comfortable than they had been before. But until then they must not spend a penny save what was needed for food and shelter, because the customs fee on the harp they carried must be paid, and that would reduce their little fund to a very small amount.

Wolfgang, too, thought about it as the boat crept in and out between the hills, and wondered much if there was no way in which Marianne might have the dress before they played in Vienna. His old teacher in Salzburg had often told him that there is a way out of every difficulty if one is clever enough to think of it, and there must be out of this. But although he tried and tried he could not find one. His own suit was bright and new, for his birthday was just past and it had been his uncle’s gift. But Marianne was a very shabby little girl, and he knew she was unhappy even though she was brave and sweet about it.

They were gliding past the ruins of the castle that once, men said, had been the prison of Richard the First, England’s Lion-Hearted King, when his enemies took him captive on his return from the holy wars. Wolfgang thought of the many brave things that soldier ruler had done during the Crusades, for often in the twilight time at Salzburg, as they waited for the father to come from his work, the mother told his tale, and of how the faithful servant Blondel found him at last by singing a song he knew the master loved.

“He was very brave and wise, too,” the boy thought as he looked at the crumbling pile. “He would have found a way for Marianne to have a new dress if she had been his sister.”

Was it the prayer being answered, or just the fulfillment of the wish made by the evening star? For while he thought, an idea came into his head. It was a good idea, it seemed to him, so good that it made him smile. If it worked out, and he believed it would, Marianne might have the dress she wanted so much, because then his father would have more money to spend.

Just to the south they could see the great spire of St. Stephens, a tall, gray finger against the sky, which told that Vienna was not far away. As it grew nearer and nearer, looming up bigger and plainer before them, Wolfgang thought more and more of his idea, until when they reached the mooring his eyes were dancing and his cheeks were aflame. His father believed the thought of seeing the great capital had excited him, but that was not it at all. He had a secret plan and could hardly wait until he knew whether or not it would work out.

The journey was ended and the people were going ashore. “Please loosen the cover, Father,” he said as Leopold Mozart carried the harp toward the customs gate.

“Ah, you are proud of it!” the man answered with a smile.

Wolfgang did not reply, thinking what a poor guesser his father was. He watched him as he set the instrument down and undid the wrapping, bringing the polished frame and glistening strings into full view. Then he went over and took his place beside the harp as the customs officer drew near, and Marianne came and stood beside him. She had forgotten all about her shabby dress in her eagerness to find out how much duty they would have to pay.

“What have you to declare?” the man asked.

“Only a harp,” Leopold Mozart answered, as he laid his hand on their one treasure.

“It is a beautiful instrument and valuable,” the official said as he looked at it, and named as the price of the duty an amount so big as to cut their little hoard almost in half.

Father Mozart’s face grew very serious, and the merriment went out of Marianne’s eyes. But Wolfgang did not worry at all. He still had that idea in his mind, and believed it would work out.

Leopold Mozart reached into his pocket for the little sack containing his savings, but it was not necessary to open it, for just as he was about to do so Wolfgang started to play. The customs officer turned with a start and listened, and the people gathered there forgot all about duty charges as they crowded around the little musician. His tiny hands swept the strings as if his fingers had some magic power, and the melody they made was sweeter than any ever heard on that old wharf. For five minutes, ten, he kept at it, and there was not a whisper or a murmur, only a sort of breathless surprise that one so young could play so wonderfully.

“What!” one exclaimed as he finished, “a lad of his age to perform like that!”

“Yes,” the father answered with a smile, “he does well at the harp.”

“Amazing,” the officer murmured, “’tis amazing! I’ve heard many a good harpist in my day, but never anything sweeter than that. Play some more, boy,” he said.

Wolfgang smiled. The idea was working out, and he was very glad. Already he had visions of a happy sister in a handsome new gown, and turning again to the instrument, he played even more beautifully than before, for the gladness that crept into his heart was creeping also into the music.

For some minutes he picked the strings, while the people listened as if held in a spell, until the father said, “We must go now, for it is getting late, and we have yet to find lodgings in the city.” And he handed the money to the officer.

But the man shook his head. “No,” he said, and his eyes were very tender as he spoke. “A boy who can give as much pleasure as that deserves something. Keep the money and buy a present for him.”

As Wolfgang heard the words he gave a bound. “Father,” he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes, “buy the dress for Marianne. You can do it now, since you have saved the customs money.”

The officer looked at him in amazement. “He is a wonderful lad, truly,” he exclaimed, “and as kind as he is wonderful!”

“Yes,” came the low reply. “He has wanted nothing so much as a new dress for his sister, and now he is happy because he thinks she will get it.”

And she did get it, too, a beautiful one of soft, bright red, all trimmed with shining buttons. Wolfgang danced with delight when he saw it, and there was no happier child in all that great capital.

They gave many concerts there, some before the royal family; and Maria Theresa, the empress, became greatly attached to both brother and sister, gave them handsome clothes and beautiful gifts, and forgot all about affairs of state while Wolfgang played. She called him the “little sorcerer,” and agreed with the customs officer that he was a wonderful child.

Then, after some weeks, they went back to the home in Salzburg, where the boy kept on at his music, doing such marvelous things that his fame traveled far. He grew to be the great master, Mozart, at whose glorious music the world still wonders, and he was a generous and sweet-souled man, just as he was a big-hearted and thoughtful child. Many lovely acts are told of him, but none that shows his kindness and tenderness in a more delightful way than when as a boy on the Vienna wharf he charmed the customs officer and all others who heard, and Marianne had the dress for which she had wished by the evening star with the duty money that wasn’t paid.

WILHELMINA’S WOODEN SHOES

(Biography—Art Teaching)

It was summer time, and a boy named Rembrandt van Rijn was lying on top of the ramparts that walled in the city of Leyden, his eyes fixed on the yellow highroad that stretched away toward The Hague. It was good to be there in the shadow of the mill sails, for the trees beyond were beautifully green, and he loved to watch the market folk coming and going, loved to see strangers journeying from far away and to dream of the time when he, too, would fare forth to see the world. Instead of being a miller like his father and living always beside the Leyden ramparts, he would go to Amsterdam, where ships sailed in from the Indies, and perhaps he would board one of those wonderful craft and journey over leagues of ocean to distant realms of the East. The thought brought a smile to his face and a deeper blue to his eyes, and he whistled a strain from an old Dutch song of rejoicing.

Suddenly he started up in surprise, for a familiar figure was coming along the Rhine road. It looked like his Uncle Peter, but that seemed impossible, for it was Saturday morning, and his uncle was an industrious merchant who was never known to leave his shop on business days. Then as the man hurried through the great gate that opened into the city, Rembrandt saw that it was his Uncle Peter; and his surprise changed to alarm, for he believed his uncle’s coming would mean trouble for him.

The day before, in the Latin school, he had drawn pictures on his cousin Wilhelmina’s wooden shoes and had been caught. She was quite willing to have them decorated, and laughed merrily at sight of the ducks and chickens and spotted pigs marching from heel to toe; but Mynheer Speelburg, the teacher, had a very different idea. He considered that it was defacing property, and wasting one’s time as well. Although Wilhelmina declared it was all her fault, Rembrandt was severely scolded, and the master sent a note home to his uncle. Now the uncle was probably coming to tell the boy’s father about it, and the thought sent all the brightness out of the day.

The merchant did not notice Rembrandt until he had passed the ramparts and a cawing crow caused him to turn and see the boy on top of the wall. Then he looked up and smiled, which did not seem like anger, and yet—what else could have taken him from the shop on Saturday morning?

“I’ve come to have a talk with your mother,” he said as he stopped a moment.

Rembrandt climbed down to go with him, hoping that something besides the shoes had brought him, but the man shook his head.

“No, stay where you are,” he said. “I want to see your mother alone.”

Again the uneasy feeling surged over the lad. After all, it must be those wooden shoes, and he felt very uncomfortable; and a little later, when both mother and uncle came from the house and hurried to the mill, he wished very much that he never had seen pigs and fowls—most of all that he had not drawn them on his cousin’s shoes. Then his father called to him, and although he wanted to creep away and hide, he went on the run.

“Here’s the young rascal,” the uncle said as the boy went in at the broad, low door. Rembrandt noticed that he held one of Wilhelmina’s shoes, and his heart sank. But a moment later he was as much amazed as he had been alarmed, for his mother spoke pleasantly and asked, “Would you really like to be a painter?”

“A painter?” he answered quickly. “More than anything else in the world.”

Then his father smiled, too, which seemed strange indeed, for he had declared that his son never should become an artist. Often Rembrandt had dreamed of being one, and when he spoke to his mother about it the idea seemed to please her. But the sturdy Dutch miller shook his head and announced that his boy must become a syndic, one of the wise lawgivers of Holland, or else a miller like himself. So, instead of being allowed to spend his days drawing the pictures that were constantly running through his fancy, Rembrandt had been sent to the Latin school to do sums and conjugations. It seemed impossible that the miller could have changed his mind; but he had changed it, for he said, “Very well. We will see about it.”

Then, while the mill sails whirred above them, and the voices of passing market folk came in through the open window, the merchant uncle told what seemed to Rembrandt a wonderful story.

“This morning, as I was opening the shop,” he began, “Speelburg, the schoolmaster, came to talk about the pictures on Wilhelmina’s shoes. He urged me not to be too hard on the lad because he had thought much about it during the night and had come to believe that perhaps Rembrandt cannot help drawing. He is a wise man, this Speelburg, and told me much of how the young masters Giotto, Cimabue, and Raphael had made pictures on stones, sand, and anything that would hold a drawing, and that their parents could no more prevent it than they could keep water from running downhill. He thinks our Rembrandt may be like them, and so he offered to tend the shop for me if I would come and ask you, his father, to let him study with Master Swannenburg.”

Those words were music to Rembrandt’s ears, for Swannenburg was the master painter of Leyden.

An hour later, miller and merchant went through the old White Gate into the city, and Rembrandt trudged along beside them, carrying a roll of paper. As they hurried along the highway his eyes gleamed, for it seemed to him like a dream come true, and the stern Dutch schoolmaster began to appear in the guise of a fairy godfather. He did not see the market folk they passed on the way, did not hear the murmur of the Rhine sweeping seaward just beyond them, for the thought that he might become a painter had crowded out all other things.

Very soon they reached the workshop of the artist, and knew what the great man thought of the sketches, for as he looked them over he murmured, “H’m, h’m! Pretty good! The old woman’s head is too small for her body, and a pig never had legs as crooked as that; but he will learn, and if he is willing to work I’ll gladly take him as a pupil.”

So Rembrandt went into the studio of the painter, for his father had come to believe that he was intended for neither a syndic nor a miller. He was so eager to learn that he worked with all his might, and his progress amazed his teacher, who, although he knew he had talent, had not dreamed he could advance so rapidly. Before two years were gone his pictures were better than those of Swannenburg himself, who said sadly one day, “I am no longer the master painter of Leyden.”

But that artist had a great, good heart, and he was so glad to see the boy’s progress that he helped him all he could.

Now it happened, about the time the work of the miller’s son was causing Leyden folk to open their eyes, that Jan Lievens, who was a successful painter in Amsterdam, came home to visit his parents, who were neighbors of Rembrandt’s family. He was greatly excited over the work of his young friend and exclaimed, “You must go back to Amsterdam with me, for the best masters of Holland are there, and you must study with them.”

The idea seemed good to the miller, who was very proud of the progress of his son; so to Amsterdam young Rembrandt went, where he progressed as amazingly as he had done in the studio of Swannenburg. The great harbor city fascinated him, and he loved to roam along its splendid streets watching the people hurrying to and fro or idling in groups on the corners, laughing and chatting in their merry Dutch way; loved to go to the docks where ships came in from the Indies, and to see the sunrise and sunset painting marvelous-hued pictures on the waves of the wild North Sea. Then he would go back to the studio and work, picturing the men and women he saw on his rambles, the mill by the old White Gate, and the market folk he used to watch from the Leyden ramparts. His paintings delighted the great of Amsterdam just as the pigs and chickens he drew on Wilhelmina’s shoes had delighted the boys and girls in the Latin school, and he became rich and famous. He lived in a palace fine enough for a prince, and could have bought whole cargoes of those ships that sailed in from the Indies; and his wealth seemed all the more glorious because he had earned it with the labor of his hand and brain. He married a great and gracious lady, and as his children drove through the streets in their fine carriage the people would say, “See, the son and daughter of Rembrandt van Rijn, the wonderful painter.”

But all his good fortune and all the honors heaped upon him did not make him selfish and overbearing. He never forgot or ceased to love his native Leyden. He lived in the harbor city because it fascinated him and was a better place for an artist than his childhood town, but he never tired of going back to the old home or lost interest in the pigs and cows and the market folk on the Rhine road. Sometimes on these visits he would lie on the ramparts just as he had done when a boy, and strangers journeying to and from The Hague had no idea that the grave-eyed man dreaming there in the shadow of the mill sails was the famous painter of Amsterdam.

Then, one day he died, and they laid him to rest in the harbor city where for so many years he had lived and worked. The people of Leyden asked to have him taken back there, and those who know how he loved it wish it had been done; for it would be pleasant to think of him sleeping in the shadow of the mill sails, and perhaps if he could have been asked he would have wanted it, too.

Years passed, but instead of dimming the glory of Rembrandt’s name they brightened it. After his death his works became priceless, and the world still prizes them just as Amsterdam prized them two hundred years ago. To own a canvas by this king of Dutch painters is to be rich and envied, for it requires a great deal of money to buy one of his paintings. Even the crude drawings of his boyhood are now treasured by princes, and one of the most prized possessions of a great museum in Holland is a pair of wooden shoes. They are brown and clumsy and covered with marks, half of which have been worn away by the staining finger of Time; but a fortune could not buy them, because ever so long ago they were worn by little Wilhelmina van Rijn to the Latin school of Leyden, and were decorated by the hand of a mill boy, and who would not be proud to own them? That mill boy became the immortal Flemish painter, Rembrandt, whose work will be treasured as long as the world loves beautiful things.

THE LADY OF STAVOREN

Retold from a Dutch Legend

(Geography—Ethics)

There was once, in Holland, a great and beautiful city called Stavoren. It stood beside the sea, and many of the inhabitants were proud and rich. They had houses stately enough for royal palaces. They had gold and silver plate and diamonds without number, and great oaken chests filled with money. Their vessels sailed to the farthest parts of the ocean and brought back treasures from every land, and as the wealth of the people increased their selfishness increased, until they thought of nothing but their good fortune and had no pity for the poor.

Richest of all the rich folk in the city was a stately, beautiful woman. There was no home in Stavoren as princely as hers, there were no jewels as gorgeous or silks and velvets as lustrous as those she possessed, and when she drove through the streets in her gold-blazoned carriage her splendor dazzled the eyes of all who saw. But she was as selfish as she was rich and powerful, and always she pondered in her mind the question, “How can I become richer still?”

One day she summoned the captain of her largest vessel and said, “Make ready to sail at once.”

“Yes, madame,” the officer replied, “but where shall I go and upon what mission?”

“Where you go you must decide for yourself, for I care nothing about that. But you must bring back the most precious cargo in all the world.”

The man looked at her in surprise.

“That shall I gladly do, madame,” he said, “if you will but tell me what you wish. Is it to be gold and silver, diamonds and jewels, or rare laces, tapestries, and velvets?”

The rich woman tossed her head and replied haughtily, “There is but one thing in the world more precious than all others, and what it is you must find out. I have given my orders. Go now and fulfill them.”

The captain was greatly troubled, for he feared the anger of his mistress. She was so powerful that she could have him thrown into prison or even put to death if she chose, and as he walked down the street from the house he thought, “What is the most precious thing in all the world?”

Sometimes he thought it was one thing and sometimes another, but when he reached the shipyard he had not decided. He called to the officers and sailors standing there, told them of the woman’s strange order, and said sadly, “But, alas! I know not what it may be. If any among you can tell, let him speak.”

Every one thought a minute, then came a chorus of suggestions. One officer suggested gold, another silver, and another precious stones, but the captain was not sure which was right. He must not decide too quickly, for to make a mistake would be a terrible thing.

Silently listening the sailors stood, for according to the law of the city they must not open their lips until the officers had had their say. Then one of the group, a slender, blue-eyed fellow, who seemed no more than a boy, said, “No, my captain! The most precious thing in the world is neither gold and silver, pearls and diamonds, nor costly laces and velvets. It is wheat, for without it we could have no bread, and without bread we cannot live.”

Some of the officers laughed at this idea, for common sailors were not supposed to know much. But the captain quieted them, saying, “He is right. We will sail away and bring back a cargo of wheat.”

So they sailed out of the harbor, and across the Baltic to Dantzic. There they bought a great cargo of wheat, the largest that had ever been started out to sea, and the captain, delighted with the purchase, turned the ship’s prow back toward Stavoren town.

He could hardly wait to get to his mistress and tell her what a wise and wonderful choice he had made. She frowned when she saw him, displeased that he had returned so soon.

“You must have flown like a pigeon,” she said. “Have you brought me the cargo I ordered?”

“Yes, madame,” he replied, bowing low before her. “I have the finest cargo of wheat that ever went out of a port.”

The woman screamed in anger. “Wheat!” she yelled. “A cargo of wheat! I told you to bring me the most precious thing in the world, and do you mean to say that you have brought a common, cheap thing like wheat?”

The captain was terribly frightened, but he did not regret his selection. He believed in the value of his cargo, and tried to lead the woman to see that he had made a wise purchase.

“Pardon, madame,” he spoke. “Wheat is not cheap and common. It is in truth the most precious thing in the world, for without it we could have no bread, and without bread we could not live.”

But he could not convince his mistress. She tossed her head and wrung her hands in anger and exclaimed, “Wheat! Wheat! Go to the port and throw your precious cargo of wheat into the sea.”

The captain was horrified.

“Madame!” he exclaimed, “surely you do not command me to do that! Wheat is precious. If you will not have it yourself, give it to the poor and hungry, of whom there are many in Stavoren.”

But she drove him from the house, saying, “Do as I bid you. In a few minutes I shall come myself to see if you have carried out my order.”

Sadly the man went down the street, wondering how one so rich and beautiful could be so hard and unkind. But he had no thought of executing the order. Instead, he told all the poor he met, and dispatched messengers to tell others, that his mistress had refused to accept the cargo of wheat and perhaps, if they came to the port and asked her, she would give it to them.

A little later the great lady of Stavoren drove in her gold-emblazoned carriage to the shipyard, where a group of men, women, and children had joined the sailors and stood looking at the splendid vessel piled high with the best wheat that ever came out of Dantzic. But when she saw them her anger increased.

“Have you carried out my orders?” she said to the captain, as he came in answer to her summons and stood beside the carriage.

“No, madame, not yet,” he replied.

“Then,” the woman commanded, “do it at once. Throw the cargo of wheat into the sea. I want to see, myself.”

But the captain shook his head. “See these poor people,” he said, pointing to the hollow-eyed men, women, and children who were standing there. “Give them the wheat, for they are hungry.”

But the haughty woman silenced him and commanded, “Throw it into the sea!”

Then the captain seemed afraid no longer. He stood straight and fearless before her and declared, “Never, madame!”

But she shouted word to the officers, who dared not disobey, and amid the cries and pleas of the poor, the cargo that would have meant bread for thousands, was thrown into the sea.

The woman watched the waters swallow it up and smiled heartlessly. Then she called to the people, “Did you see it go into the waves?”

“Yes, madame,” they answered sadly.

“Yes, madame,” repeated the captain, “and a day will come when you will regret what you have done. A day will come when you will be hungry, and no one will pity and help you.”

The mistress looked at him in amazement. Then she laughed loudly. “I, go hungry,” she exclaimed, “I, the richest of all the rich of Stavoren! It is impossible!”

Then she took a diamond ring, held it up for the people to see, and tossed it into the ocean. “When that ring returns into my hand,” she said, “I shall believe what the captain has said.” And she drove away in her splendid carriage, and boasted to the citizens of what she had done.

The next day one of her servants came running to her in wild excitement. “Madame,” she cried, “the cook has found this in the stomach of a fish he is preparing for dinner.” And she held up the diamond ring the woman had tossed into the sea the day before.

The great lady of Stavoren opened her eyes wide and wider. She was amazed and frightened, for she remembered the captain’s words. “Can it be,” she thought, “that they are to come true?”

It proved to be just as she feared, for that same afternoon she received word of the destruction of all her ships, of the loss of all her houses and lands, of the pillaging of her chests of gold. She was no longer the richest woman in Stavoren, but was as poor as any beggar. She went from house to house, begging for food as pitifully as the people at the port had begged her for wheat, but no one helped her, and at last she died from cold and hunger.

The other rich folk of Stavoren still lived on in the old selfish way. They drove through the streets in sumptuous carriages. They wore costly clothing and jewels, they danced and feasted and sailed their vessels out across the seas, forgetful of every one but themselves. There were still many poor in the city, but they neither thought nor cared about them. They believed themselves to be so great and powerful that nothing could harm them, and they refused to listen to advice.

After a while the port of Stavoren became blocked by a great sandbank. It rose just at the spot where the lady’s cargo had been thrown into the sea, and was covered with wheat. Ships could no longer go in and out. Commerce was ruined, and because there were no vessels to unload, the poor lost the only way they had of making a living. They begged the rich people to help them dig the bar away, but they refused. They had enough to eat and plenty of gold, so what cared they for the distress of the laborers?

Then something else happened. One night as they feasted, a man came running into the banquet hall. “I have found two fish in my well,” he said. “The dike is broken. Protect the city! Protect the houses of the poor that are close to the sea wall and will be swept away.”

But one of the great folk said haughtily, “Let the beggars take care of themselves. The sea cannot harm us. We must finish the banquet.” They turned away from him and went on with their revelry, but only for a short time. A few hours later the entire dike gave away, and the ocean rolled in and covered the houses,—not only the huts of the poor which were in the low quarter of the city, but even the palaces of the rich who had declared they could not be harmed. The great perished as well as the humble, and the waves of the Zuider Zee rolled where the banquet laughter had sounded.

It rolls there still. The sailors say that sometimes when the weather is fine and the sea is smooth as glass, they see spires and domes and stately columns far down under the water. They declare, too, that often strange, weird music like the sound of distant bells falls upon their ears, and then they look and listen and nod to each other, for they think of the palaces and chimes of Stavoren, once the fairest city of the Netherlands, submerged hundreds of years ago while the poor cried for help and the mighty danced.

THE LUCK BOAT OF LAKE GENEVA

A Swiss Legend

(Geography)

The Alpine herdsmen say that in the marvelous long ago an enchanted boat was seen gliding up and down the blue waters of Lake Geneva. Neither oars nor sails were needed to speed it over the waves, for it was drawn by singing swans and carried a fairy crew. A radiant creature in a robe whiter than goat’s milk stood on the prow, her gleaming hair rippling down over the hem of her garment. She bore a golden basket of rare fruits and flowers, and although she scattered the contents with lavish hand upon the sprites at her feet, it was never empty. Sometimes the vessel touched the shore, and then the soil around that spot produced as never soil produced before or since, and if any peasant was so fortunate as to catch a glimpse of the boat, he and his children became rich beyond want and were blessed and happy to the end of their days.

For hundreds of years the magic ship sailed the lake, and as it touched the shore frequently and numbers of peasants saw it, there was wonderful prosperity in Old Helvetia.

But a great misfortune befell the country and the glad, abundant days became but a memory. A steamboat was brought to Geneva, and it plowed, a screaming, snorting monster, across the waters. The noise terrified the gentle swans, and with one wild cry they flew away. Never again did the peasants catch a glimpse of the white-robed fairy and the shining sprites. Never again did the music of the snowy pilots gladden their ears.

The Luck Boat disappeared, and with it went prosperity from the land of Geneva. But marvelous things like that are never forgotten. Those who had seen the fairy craft in their youth told the story to their sons and daughters, who passed it on to their children and their children’s children, and although the mountain folk of today have never beheld it, they know just how it looked. They have pictured it so often in their minds, that their artists have pictured it on paper, and so it has become the custom for the peasants around Lake Geneva to send “Luck cards” to their friends on New Year’s Day. These are gay, colored postals containing a likeness of the Luck Boat, and to those of whom a peasant is fondest he sends as many as he can afford, because to receive them is supposed to bring good fortune, just as a glimpse of the swan-drawn vessel was said to do in the marvelous long ago.

WHY THE JAPANESE LOVE THE STORK

A Japanese Legend

(Geography)

Ages ago, in the Japanese city of Nagasaki, there lived a young and handsome noble named Vasobiove. Life seemed very beautiful to him. He loved the blossoms that are so sweet and abundant in his native Saikaido, loved the racing and the wrestling matches, the sunset on the purple Gulf of Sinabara, the evening festivals with the dances of the geisha girls, and his only sorrow was the thought that he could not live forever.

“Alas, to have to leave this beautiful world!” he often sighed.

At which his old father would say, “Fear not, my son. By the time you are threescore years and ten you will think differently.”

But the young noble would shake his head and reply, “Nay, nay, I want to live always, always.”

One day an aged pilgrim came into Nagasaki and rested on a stone outside Vasobiove’s garden. The owner was walking under the tulip trees, and seeing the sad-looking man in the sun and dust of the road, called and bade him come into the shade of his park.

Leaning heavily upon his staff, the wanderer came and sat down beside the fountain, and the young noble asked him many a question of lands and men he had seen.

“Is it throughout the world as here in Japan,” he questioned, “that people must die even while they yearn to live?”

The aged pilgrim nodded.

“Yea,” he answered, “in all the lands through which I have journeyed. But men have told me that there is a region where death never comes.”

The young noble leaned forward eagerly. “Where is it,” he questioned, “ah, where? Tell me, for I mean to go to that land.”

The pilgrim shook his head, saying, “That you cannot do, my son. It is in the Happy Islands of Everlasting Life, but although mortals have seen them in the distance, never has one succeeded in entering there.”

“But I must, I will reach that land!” Vasobiove exclaimed.

His father, who was old and wise, begged him not to go.

“You will perish on the way,” he said sorrowfully. “But even if you reach and enter the islands, you will not be happy. That which is best for us is given to us, and after a long life, death is good.”

But Vasobiove shook his head and objected, “No, no! I go to the Everlasting Islands.” And the next day he set out from Nagasaki in a boat.

Straight southward he journeyed and eastward. Storms raged and tropic heat beat fiercely on his head, but he pressed onward, and at last, in spite of wave and tempest, reached the green shore of Horaisan. It was the land no mortal had ever entered, the Happy Islands of Everlasting Life.

Vasobiove’s cup of joy was full. There was no sorrow there, no birth or death, no tempest and black weather or flight of time—nothing but dancing, music, splendid men and beautiful women, with enchanted flowers of unfading beauty in the groves and gardens, and always iridescent reaches of the sea beyond. There were wrestling matches, such as were not dreamed of in Nagasaki, long days filled with feasting, and long nights of dance and song.

Vasobiove smiled the smile of the contented.

“At last!” he said. “It is good to know that I shall live forever.”

Two hundred years he spent in the eternal mirth of Horaisan, and then, somehow, he longed for other things. The music he had loved grew wearisome, the never ending dance became hateful to his eyes.

He wanted to return to Nagasaki, but there was no way. The boat that had carried him to the islands had long since fallen into decay, and it was impossible to get another. He must stay forever and ever in the land of dance and song, and the thought became hideous.

Then he heard a weird cry. Looking behind him, he saw a giant stork settling on the bank of a lake to catch some of the rainbow fish within.

A happy thought came to him. No, he would not dwell eternally in Horaisan. He would go back to Nagasaki.

Catching the bird, he tamed it, and one morning while the islanders reveled and the sea was as many colored as the enchanted blossoms in the gardens, he flew away, borne by the giant stork back to the sweet land of Saikaido, back to the shining Gulf of Sinabara, and his native Nagasaki. He would live as his fathers had lived, he would die when his time came, and never again would he pine for a land where all was revelry and beauty and song.

Ever since that time the Japanese have loved the stork. They picture it upon their royal banners and upon the walls of their houses, and give it the freedom of their gardens. Whenever a youth becomes dissatisfied and yearns for a land where delights are never ending, they tell him the story of the man who went to the Everlasting Islands, show a picture of the stork that carried him back to Nagasaki, and say,

“Even as it was with Vasobiove, so would it be with you.”

WHY GRIZZLY BEAR GOES ON ALL FOURS

A Shasta Legend. Adapted from Bancroft

(Indian Folk Tale—Geography—Ethics)

Ages ago, before there were any mountains or valleys or rivers flowing seaward, Great Spirit lived up in the sky, higher than the most distant star. All about him were snow heaps and white cloud billows, so thick he could not see through them, and he wondered what lay beyond.

“I will make a hole and see,” he said.

So, taking a sharp rock, he bored an opening through the cloud floor and looked below. A strange sight met his eyes. There lay the world, but a very different world from the one we know. It was flat like a table, with no hills or valleys, or rivers, or growing things, and Great Spirit said, “I will build a teepee there, and then I shall make it better.”

The snow heaps lying around him made him think of a good way of building a wigwam; so he pushed some down through the floor window, working day and night through many, many moons, until he had the pyramid white men call Mount Shasta. He built a fire and lived in the teepee, and then he walked abroad.

It was a fine land for a home, but lonely and too flat. He wanted mountains and valleys; so he created them. Then he wanted living and growing things about him; so he said, “I will make men and animals too.”

He dug holes in the ground with his fingers, some large, some small, and when he breathed into them, trees of many sizes and kinds rose out of the earth. Then he stripped leaves from the branches and scattered them about, and they became men. He caused snow from the mountain sides to melt and flow in streams, and now, instead of the flat, brown vastness, there were uplands and lowlands, green fields and snowy peaks, and rivers running seaward, and other leaves stripped from the branches and torn into bits became fishes that swim.

“Now I shall make beasts of every kind,” he said, and as he spoke he smote down a mighty tree. He broke it into pieces, some large, some small, which he turned into animals of various sizes and varying strength. Grizzly Bear he created from the heaviest part of the trunk, and the bear stood before him, on his hind legs, straight and powerful like a young hunter, stronger than any other creature of the earth.

It pleased Great Spirit to have living creatures around him, and he did not go back to the cloud world, but stayed in the teepee. The Indians knew he was inside, because often they saw the smoke from his flaming coals curl far above the peaks.

Many, many moons he dwelt there and grew so lonely that he sent for Little Daughter. She came and lived with him, made his moccasins and tended his fire, and was happy.

One day there was a mighty storm. The wind raged fiercely, sending the smoke back through the smoke hole into Great Spirit’s face. He did not like that, and bade Little Daughter go up to command the wind to stop.

She did as she was told, and put her head out through the hole to call to the wind. But never having beheld the world before, she grew very curious at the strange sights that met her eyes, and leaned out far, far, to see all she could.

Suddenly she fell, and the wind carried her to the land of the Grizzly Bear. Little Daughter did not want to stay there and begged to be taken back to the teepee of her father.

“Let her stay here and work for me,” Mother Grizzly growled, and Young Grizzly agreed, saying, “Yes, let her work.”

So they would neither go with her nor let her try to find the way herself.

Great Spirit knew Little Daughter was in the land of the Grizzly Bear, and he went to take her home. When she told him how she had begged to go back, but was forced to stay and work, he was very angry.

“I shall punish you,” he said to the bears. “Never again shall you walk upright like a man; always you must go on all fours.”

Taking Little Daughter, he went back to the snow teepee, and they lived there for ages and ages, always keeping the fire burning, and always the Indians saw the smoke come out through the smoke hole.

At last the white men came, and as Great Spirit did not like the palefaces, he went away and the fire died out. But the teepee they call Mount Shasta is still there, although smoke no longer curls above it, and Grizzly Bear still goes on all fours, never standing upright except when he is fighting.

THE LUCK BOY OF TOY VALLEY

(Geography—Ethics—Manual Training)

In a chalet high up among the Austrian mountains, blue-eyed Franz was very unhappy because his mother and brother Johan were going to Vienna and he had to stay at home with his old grandfather. He bit his lips to keep back the tears as he watched the packing of the box that was to carry their clothing. Then his mother tried to comfort him.

“Never mind, lad,” she said. “I’ll send you a present from Vienna, and we’ll call it a ‘luck gift’ and hope it will bring good luck. If it does you’ll be a luck boy.”

He smiled even if he did feel sad. He had often heard of luck children, for among the Tyrolean peasants there were many stories of those who had been led by fairies to have such wonderful good fortune that ever afterward they were spoken of as the elf-aided, or “Glücks Kinder,” and it was so delightful to think about being one of them that he forgot his sorrow. Of course it would be very fine to travel down to Vienna and go into the service of a rich noble there, as his mother and brother were to do, but it would be still better to be a “Glücks Kind,” and such things sometimes did happen. So he did not feel sad any more, but whistled and sang and helped with the packing.

Early next morning the post chaise rattled up to the door, and Johan and the mother drove away. Franz watched them go down the winding white road, calling after them in sweet Tyrolean words of endearment until they were out of sight. Then he went back into the hut and began to sandpaper some blocks that his grandfather needed for his work. The old man was a maker of picture frames, all carved and decorated with likenesses of mountain flowers, and these, when sent to Innsbruck and Vienna, brought the money that gave him his living. The figures were too fine and difficult for Franz to carve, but he could lend a hand at fetching blocks and sandpapering. He worked with a vim, for Tyrolean boys think it a disgrace to shirk, but all the while his thoughts were on the luck gift.

“I wonder what it will be?” he said to his grandfather. They took turns at guessing, until it was time to feed the goats and house the chickens for the night.

A week later the man who had driven Johan and his mother away came by on his return from Vienna, and Franz fairly flew out to get his gift.

“It is something very big,” he called to the old frame maker as he took a bulging bag. “See, it is stuffed full!” And he expected to find something very wonderful.

But when he opened it, he thought it wasn’t wonderful at all. There was a blue velvet jacket, trimmed with gold braid and fastened with glittering buttons, such as Tyrolean boys wore in those days, and in one of the pockets he found a shining knife.

“Well, of all things!” he exclaimed as he held them up for his grandfather to see. “It’s a splendid jacket, and the knife is a beauty, but I don’t see where the luck part comes in.”

But Hals Berner was old and wise, and a knowing smile played over his wrinkled face as he spoke. “It won’t be the first time luck has hidden in a knife,” he said, as he bent over his carving.

Franz did not know what he meant. He had always had a knife, for being of a carver’s family he was taught to whittle when he was a very little fellow, and he had become remarkably skillful for one of his years. But no wonderful good fortune had come to him, and he was very sure that although each of the presents was nice, neither would bring luck, and he sent that word to Johan. But the brother wrote back from the city, “It will surely turn out to be a luck gift, Franz. Just wait and see.” And still the boy wondered.

Winter came and icy winds blew down from the peaks. There was no word from Vienna now, for the valley was shut in by a glittering wall, and travel over the snow-drifted passes was impossible. There were other boys in the village, but each had his work indoors, and there was little time to play, so Franz had no chance for games. He helped his grandfather part of the day and sometimes whittled for his own amusement. It was a lonely life there in the hut, with just the old frame maker, who was often too busy to talk, so Franz was glad to do something to keep him busy. Now he made rings and tops and then just fantastic sticks or blocks.

One day, as he whittled, his grandfather said, “Why don’t you make an animal, Franz?”

The boy looked up in surprise. “I don’t think I can,” he answered.

“Not unless you try,” came the reply. “But if you do that you may surprise yourself.”

Franz hated to have any one think he was afraid to make an attempt, so he exclaimed, “I wonder if I could make a sheep?”

“Begin and see,” the old man advised.

The boy went to work. At first it was discouraging. After many minutes of whittling there was little to suggest what he had in mind. But then, with an occasional turn of the knife by the frame maker, and now and then a bit of advice, the boy began to see that a sheep would grow out of the block, and when it did he felt like a hero who has won a battle.

“It wasn’t a bit hard, was it, lad?” Hals Berner asked when it was finished.

And Franz agreed that it was not.

That was the beginning, and every day thereafter Franz worked at his whittling, and animal after animal grew under his knife. He was so busy he did not have time to be lonely, and had quite forgotten how sad he had felt over having to stay at home. It was such fun to see the figures come out of the wood and feel that he had made them. Of course they were crude, and not half so handsome as those his grandfather could have made; but any one could tell what they were, and that was worth a great deal.

By spring he had a whole menagerie, and when his mother came home she found he had been a busy boy, and a happy one as well.

“All made with the luck knife,” Johan said as he looked over the work.

“So grandfather says,” Franz answered. “It’s a splendid knife, but I don’t see yet where the luck comes in.”

And again the knowing smile went over the old man’s face.

One day soon afterward his mother had word from the man who had been her employer in Vienna that his little son was not well, and he was sending him to regain his health in the mountain air. A week later the child arrived with his nurse, and the first thing that attracted his attention was Franz’s menagerie.

“Oh! oh!” he exclaimed, “dogs, cats, sheep, goats, lions, elephants, and all made of wood! I want them.”

“He means that he wants to buy them,” his nurse explained. “Will you sell them, Franz?”

For a minute the boy hesitated. That menagerie had meant many months of whittling, and he loved every animal in it, and if Johan hadn’t interrupted, probably he would have refused.

“Why, Franz,” the brother exclaimed, “it begins to look like a luck knife after all.”

That put a thought into his mind that caused him to answer, “Yes, take them. I can make some more.”

So, when the child went back to Vienna he took a wooden menagerie from the Tyrolean mountains. Other Viennese children, seeing it, wanted to possess one, and orders began to pour in to Franz, far more than he could fill. Then other villagers took up the work, until all over the valley people were making animals and toys.

The work grew to be a big industry, and toys from the Grödner Thal were sent all over Germany, and even to the lands beyond. One generation after another went on with the work, and although it is two hundred years since Franz began it, the craft continues there to this day. At Christmas time shops in every land are filled with toys from the Tyrolean mountains, and although they do not know the story, thousands of children have been happier because of a peasant boy’s whittling.

So out of the bag sent back from Vienna there came in truth a luck gift, and it wasn’t the fine jacket either, but the knife with which Franz whittled his first sheep. The boy had found out that luck doesn’t mean something sent by fairies, but the doing a thing so well that it brings a rich reward, and although he lived to be a very old man, he never got over being grateful that his mother made him stay behind when she and Johan went to the city.

The little valley among the Austrian Alps is still called Grödner Thal on the maps, but because of the animals and toys that have come out of it, it is almost as well known by another name. If you are good guessers you can surely tell what it is, especially if you know that the peasants still speak of the lad who made the first menagerie there as the Luck Boy of Toy Valley.

THE EMPEROR’S VISION

Adapted from the Swedish of Selma Lagerlöf

From Lagerlöf’s Christ Legends. Copyright, 1908, by Henry Holt & Co.

(Medieval Legend—Ethics)

When Augustus was Emperor of Rome and Herod was King of Jerusalem, a great and holy night sank down over the earth. It was the darkest night that any one had seen, and one could not find the way on the most familiar road. How could it be otherwise, since all the stars stayed at home in their houses and the fair moon hid her face?

The silence was as profound as the darkness. The rivers stood still in their courses, the wind did not stir, and even the aspen leaves had ceased to quiver. Everything was as motionless as if turned to stone, and the grass was afraid to grow, lest it disturb the holy night.

There was no cruelty or wickedness. Wild beasts did not seek their prey, but lay in the forest depths and wondered; serpents did not sting or dogs bark, and no false key could have picked a lock, no knife could have drawn a drop of blood.

In Rome, the mighty city, a group of people came from the Emperor’s palace at the Palatine and took the path across the Forum which led to the Capitol. During the day the senators had asked the Emperor if he had any objection to their erecting a temple in his honor on Rome’s sacred hill, but he had given no answer. He did not know if it would be agreeable to the gods for him to own a temple next to theirs, and he wanted to ascertain their will in the matter by offering a sacrifice. Therefore he and his trusted friends were on their way to the Capitol.

Augustus let them carry his litter, for he was old and the stairs leading to the Capitol were long. He held in his hands the cage of doves for the sacrifice. No priests or soldiers accompanied him, only his nearest friends. Torch bearers walked in front of him to light the ways through the black darkness, and behind him followed slaves who carried the tripod, knives, and charcoal for the sacred fire. He chatted gayly with his followers, and all were so interested in the conversation that they did not notice the stillness over the earth. Only when they reached the highest point on Capitol Hill did they realize that something unusual was taking place.

There they saw a most remarkable thing. An old woman, so bent and twisted that at first they thought it must be a distorted olive tree, was standing on the very edge of the cliff, and they knew her to be the sibyl who had lived as many years as the sand grains by the sea.

“Why does she come from her cave tonight?” they whispered. “What does she foretell for the Emperor and the Empire?”

She stood there as if she had gone up on the hillside that she might see what was happening far away, and the night was so dark, so dark!

Then Augustus and his retinue remarked how profound was the stillness. They could not hear even Tiber’s hollow murmur, and they feared some disaster was impending. But no one cared to show that he was afraid. They told Augustus it was a good omen, and counseled him to hurry with the sacrifice.

The sibyl seemed not to notice the Emperor’s train moving up to the Capitol. In fact, she did not see them. She was in a distant land making her way over something higher than grass tufts. She was walking among great flocks of sleeping sheep.

Then she saw a shepherd’s fire. It burned in the middle of the field, and she groped her way to it. The shepherds lay asleep in its glow, and beside them were the long, spiked sticks with which they defended their flocks from wild beasts. Jackals with glittering eyes and bushy tails stole up toward the blaze, but the men did not hurl the sticks at them. The dogs continued to sleep, the sheep did not flee, and the beasts of prey lay down to rest beside human beings.

Only this the sibyl saw. She did not know that a sacrificial fire was being kindled behind her. She did not see the Roman Emperor take a dove from the cage to use as an offering. She was in the far hills of Galilee, among slumbering shepherds and sheep.

Then, wonderful sight, a company of angels singing gloriously flew back and forth above the wide plain. They moved in long, swaying lines like migratory birds. Some held lutes in their hands, some zithers and harps, and their songs rang out as merry as child laughter, as carefree as lark trills. The shepherds wakened, marveling at what they heard and saw, then rose up to go to the mountain city to tell of the miracle.

Behind the sibyl, on the summit of Capitol Hill, still stood the train of Augustus. But he did not make the sacrifice. Although he exerted his full strength to hold the dove’s frail body, it flung itself free and disappeared into the night.

And the shepherds, what of them?

They groped their way forward on a narrow, winding path. Suddenly, in the light up there on the mountain, a great heavenly body kindled, and the city beneath it glittered like silver in the starlight.

All the fluttering angel throngs hastened thither, shouting for joy, and the shepherds hurried so that they almost ran. Upon reaching the city, they found the angels had assembled over a stable near the gate. It was a wretched structure with a roof of straw, and a naked cliff for a wall. But over it hung the star, and thither flocked more and more angels. Some seated themselves on the roof or alighted on the steep mountain wall back of the house, others poised themselves in air on outspread pinions, while high up, high up, the sky was illuminated by creatures with wings as white as pearl.

The instant the star kindled over the mountain city all nature awoke. Trees swayed, the Tiber began to murmur, stars twinkled, and the moon stood out of the sky and lighted the world. Out of the clouds a dove circled down and alighted on the shoulders of Augustus.

The Emperor was proud and happy, and his friends and slaves fell at his feet.

“Hail, Cæsar!” they cried. “Thou art the god who shall be worshiped on Capitol Hill!”

This cry of homage was so loud that the sibyl heard it and roused from her vision. She turned from her place at the edge of the cliff and came down among the people, so twisted, so shriveled, so terrifying in her tangled hair and marks of age, that they fell back in awe. With one hand she clutched the hand of the Emperor, with the other she pointed toward the east.

“Look!” she commanded.

The vaulted heavens opened before his eyes, and his glance traveled slowly to the distant Orient. He saw a lowly stable behind a steep rock wall and shepherds kneeling in an open doorway. He saw a young mother with a child upon her knees, resting on a bundle of straw.

The sibyl’s big, knotty fingers pointed toward the Babe.

“Hail, Cæsar!” she cried in a burst of scornful laughter. “There is the God who shall be worshiped on Capitol Hill!”

Augustus shrank back from her as from a maniac. But upon the sibyl fell the mighty spirit of prophecy. Her dim eyes began to burn, her hands were stretched toward heaven, her voice rang out with such resonance and power that it must have been heard throughout the world. And she uttered words which she seemed to be reading among the stars.

“Upon Capitol Hill shall the Redeemer of the world be worshiped—Christ, but not frail mortals.”

When she had said this she strode past the terror-stricken men and disappeared down the mountain.

On the following day Augustus forbade the people to raise a temple to him on Capitol Hill. In place of it he built a sanctuary to the new-born God-Child, and called it Heaven’s Altar—Ara Cœli.

THE SHEPHERD WHO TURNED BACK

Retold from a Syrian Legend

(Ethics)

This is a story they tell in Palestine when the Christmas stars shine out and Syrian children sit, cross-legged and big-eyed, in front of the old grandfather, listening to his tales by the light of the charcoal fire, while the moon flings its veil across the jagged Hebron Hills and the far, high peaks out Moab way are white as wool.

On the wonderful night when the star in the east proclaimed glad tidings to the Magi, and these three wise ones started away from their pleasant homes on a long and perilous journey, marvelous things are said to have happened in every quarter of the earth. Away in imperial Rome, the Emperor Augustus, straight and proud in his litter, was borne up the long stairway leading to Capitol Hill to invoke his gods on the spot where the people were to erect a temple to him. But suddenly the darkness broke away and he beheld a manger in a distant land and a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and as the voices of his subjects shouted, “Hail, Cæsar, thou art the god who shall be worshiped on Capitol Hill!” instead of feeling great and exalted like a sovereign he felt very small and humble, for he knew that One just born was mightier than Cæsar, and would rule not only Rome, but all the earth.

And on that same night, where the mountains break southward from Bethlehem to form the high plateau of Bêt Sahûr, there were shepherds guarding their white-fleeced charges—six in all, five of whom slept by the gate of the sheepfold while one walked up and down, starting whenever he heard a stirring among the flocks and going in the direction of the sound to make sure that all was well.

Sometimes he added wood to the fire, for the night was cold and a wind from the white peaks eastward brought numbness to his hands, and sometimes he stood and looked over the scene he knew so well—the pools of Solomon, shimmering darkly under the moon, and the broad vales of Boaz, bare and lifeless now, but yellow with ripened grain and gay with reapers’ songs in harvest time. As a child he had played there with his brothers, as a boy he had roamed up and down the ravines, and now, alone in the darkness, it gladdened him to live again those days in memory.

Midnight drew near, yet he had no desire to sleep. The world was very silent, very still, for the wind had died away, and the Ilwa, in its rocky bed below, seemed to rest instead of surging Jordan-ward. Into the hoot of the owls came a note of unwonted tenderness, and even the cries of the jackals, that always made the night watch hideous and sent terror to the hearts of the herders, softened to a sound like a song. The man felt the calm and it soothed him, and although he had followed the flocks all day long and the hills were steep and jagged, he knew no weariness, but a strange sense of peace and delight, and as he looked at his companions wrapped in their rough skin coats and dreaming beside the embers, he wondered if they felt in sleep a sensation as exquisite as the one he experienced awaking.

“How bright the heavens are tonight!” he thought as he looked up to where a golden haze began to gleam around the crescent of the moon. Billions of stars glittered in the purple spaces, and directly over the center of the fold was a cluster large and brilliant that he had not seen before.

It grew warmer, too, and instead of the sting of winter that had kept the men close by the fire after darkness fell, a balm came into the air, a softness like that of May. Never had he dreamed there could be such a winter night, and almost he felt tempted to rouse his companions that they too might enjoy it.

But suddenly he stiffened and stood watching, cold with fear. A glory came, and across the sky, which flamed as if on fire, floated a white-winged heavenly host singing the glad tidings of the Messiah come. The flocks started up and ran wildly about the fold. The sleeping shepherds wakened and crouched on the ground, half dazed with fear.

The bright ones flew about the heavens. They moved in shining columns down from the heights and fluttered above the fold, whiter than the sheep, then glided across to the rugged cliffs, and sat there as if on couches of down. And ever as they marched or floated or poised on glittering pinions ready for another flight, they blended their voices in a triumphal chorus as if all the hosts of heaven had descended to make melody among the Judean hills.

“What is it?” one of the shepherds asked in a voice that shook.

Then, like an answering message, came a jubilant anthem, “Fear not, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.”

As if a soothing hand had touched their fleeces, the sheep settled to rest again; the fear left the hearts of the shepherds, and in a radiance which dimmed and paled as they went, the shining ones floated upward out of sight, singing, “Glory to God in the Highest, Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men.”

For several minutes the keepers of the flocks stood silent, too bewildered either to think or to speak. Then, by the peace among the sheep and the perfect calm of the night, they realized a marvelous thing had happened, and one of the herders lifted his voice.

“Didst hear?” he spoke in tones of reverence. “They say the Christ is born.”

“Aye,” a companion answered, “in the city of David, which is Bethlehem. Let us go and seek him.” And his comrades, speaking agreement, said they would journey there together.

Now, when subjects go into the presence of a loved sovereign, they bear with them tokens of loyalty and affection. Those who are rich give priceless gifts, and those who are poor offer the best out of their scanty possessions and the fullness of their hearts. And so these herders of Bêt Sahûr, having nothing but their flocks, each chose the lamb he prized most, and cradling it tenderly in his firm, warm arms, left the sheepfold and started for the town.

Down over the cliffs they hurried, along perilous slopes and across chasms that seemed like great black mouths agape; yet they did not fear, for a light from above showed the path as plain as noontide and there was no danger of falling. From one rock to another they proceeded, from ledge to ledge they made their way, and soon were well down into the ravine, from the bottom of which the road led to the town. Directly above, so close that had they looked up they could have counted some of them, the sheep lay white and shining under the stars; but the thoughts of the shepherds were on Bethlehem, which, straight ahead, still showed a few flickering tapers, and not on the flocks behind.

Ben Ezra, he who had stood on the night watch, was the most stalwart of the six, and he it was who led the descent to the valley.

“Ah,” he exclaimed when at last their feet struck the white firmness of the road, “from here on the way is smooth and easy. Let us hasten, brethren, and soon we shall be there.”

And as he spoke he smoothed the fleece of the warm, white bundle he carried, which bleated softly at his caress.

Just then was heard the cry of a lamb.

The shepherds stopped and listened, for having spent their lives among the flocks, they knew the helplessness of the sheep, and although rugged, fierce-looking men, their hearts were tender toward the weak and appealing. The bleat of a ram or ewe never failed to call them from their meals by day or their rest by night; and now other thoughts left their minds, and they remembered only their charges alone on the hill. Then, thinking of the glory in the sky and the word of the heavenly host that the Christ was born in Bethlehem, one of them said, “Come. Methinks all is well. Did we not feel on the hills that God would take care of the sheep? Let us on to Bethlehem and seek the King.”

But another of the number, he who stood sentinel while his comrades slept, shook his head and demurred.

“Nay,” he said. “Take my lamb and say ’tis the gift of Ben Ezra, but I must go back. It is my night on the watch, and a good shepherd is not deaf to the cry of a sheep.”

He gave his tiny white burden into the keeping of one of his companions and turning, hurried back to the cliffs, while the others went ahead to Bethlehem. He knew it would take much longer to make the climb than it had taken for the descent, and a fear seized him that perhaps jackals had broken upon the flock and he might reach the fold too late to save the sheep. But as he moved forward the mounting of the first cliff seemed no task at all. Hands invisible seemed to lift him up the mountain way, and he reached the sheepfold easily and quickly.

A great relief came. The flocks lay silent, stirring only when a lamb or ewe moved a white leg and turned as it slept, but there was no sign or sound of danger, not even the howl of a jackal away on the mountain side or the moving shadow of a panther creeping stealthily upon the fold. Then he knew that in truth God was watching over the sheep, and that the lamb had probably cried out in wonder, even as he and his brethren might have done.

Secure in the thought that the flock was safe, he started down the mountain toward Bethlehem, musing upon the strange things that had come to pass that night. His comrades were far ahead, and he knew he could not overtake them. Perhaps already they had reached the town and found the place of the Child, while he yet had a long way to go. But his feet sped over the spaces and he swung lightly along, the shaggy skin of his shepherd’s cloak flapping as he went. He was not sorry he had gone back, even though it meant he must journey alone, for there was a peace in his heart that could not have been there had he gone ahead hearing the cry of a lamb.

At last he reached Bethlehem and asked one of the soldiers who guarded the gate, “Where is it that the Christ is born?”

“The Christ?” the man repeated like one dazed. “He is not in Bethlehem. Better get you back to the hills, which is the place of shepherds.”

Ben Ezra stood firm.

“He must be here,” he insisted, “for so sang the angels at Bêt Sahûr, saying, ‘In the city of David,’ which is Bethlehem.”

Whereupon some of the guardsmen smiled and pointed to their heads, and some laughed jeeringly.

There was one, however, a tall, gentle-faced archer, who smiled and spoke kindly, “They say a man child has come to the stable beyond the khan, where Joseph ben David the Nazarene and his wife have taken shelter. You might try there.”

The shepherd nodded and thanked him, his dark eyes moistly tender and in his face a light that silenced the mockers.

“Thither will I go,” he exclaimed, and hurried on his way, bowing his head reverently as he came in sight of the place.

Now it happened when Ben Ezra reached the stable where Joseph ben David was abiding because of the multitude in the khan, that he found the Child lying in a manger, and the other shepherds who had gone before knelt beside Him, looking into His gentle eyes and marveling. Around them on the ground, softly bleating as if they too understood the marvel and rejoiced in it, were the lambs the men had brought as offerings to the Babe; and some of the townsfolk too were there, murmuring in awed tones and looking on the scene in wide-eyed wonder. No one noticed the herder who entered late, or saw him fall on his knees beside the manger. But as his sturdy head drooped low, the Child lifted His tiny hand as if in blessing and smiled down on Ben Ezra’s upturned face; and then the keepers of the sheep knew that thus God had chosen to reward him who had not been deaf to the cry of a lamb.

For many a year after that time, the Syrian herders say, Ben Ezra tended his sheep on the hills. Through summer and winter he abode in the pasture place, his only respite from toil being the rare visits he made to the village where his wife and wee ones dwelt; but he never was weary, and his flocks never went astray. To his children and his children’s children he told the story of how he went back to the hills that night and how he was rewarded, bidding them to be ever mindful of the fact that he who is tender to the sheep serves well a higher Master. And as years rolled into decades and centuries passed away, all the herders of Judea came to know the story and to shape their lives by it, so that to this day the Syrian shepherds have remained men of tender heart and simple faith. And when strangers visit the land and wonder at the gentleness of the keepers of the flocks, some old grandfather or brown-eyed boy is ever ready to explain what it is that has kept them sweet and serene, and tells the story of Ben Ezra, the shepherd who on the wonderful night went back to the hills, and so came late to Bethlehem.

THE PET RAVEN

A Legend of the Rhine

(Geography—Ethics)

One autumn morning a thousand years ago, a boy and a girl stood in a forest path beside the Rhine. His great eyes, brown and full of feeling, looked wistfully into the face of the golden-haired maiden, while his clumsy hands stroked tenderly the glossy feathers of a young raven.

“Father says it is a poor gift to offer a princess,” he said as he held the bird toward her, “but I have nothing else. Will you please take it?”

Blue-eyed Willeswind smiled. She was the petted child of a baron and accustomed to receiving gifts, but something about this boy’s earnestness touched her in an unusual way. He was only a forester’s son, with but little to break the monotony of his life of toil, and it seemed wonderful that he should be willing to part with his only treasure.

“I cannot take your only pet, Rupert,” she said kindly, “but it is good of you to offer it.”

Disappointment crept into the boy’s dark eyes.

“Oh, please,” he pleaded. “I want you to have it, because you bound up my foot with healing herbs when I tore it on the brambles in the wood. Please take it.”

The girl answered with a smile that made her face very lovely, “Of course I shall take it, and I will keep it always because you gave it to me.” Reaching over, she took the fluttering creature from the big dark hands, and stroked it gently as it quivered at the strange touch. Then she made her way back to the castle over a carpet of fallen leaves, while Rupert the forester’s son hurried to the hunting lodge, happy in the thought that he had made a gift to her who had been kind to him.

“She will keep it and feed it and be glad I did not forget,” he thought as he fed the falcons that evening, while up in the castle court Willeswind was busy with her pet.

“See how glossy its feathers are!” she said as her brother Othmar came near. “Rupert gave it to me, and I promised to keep it always.”

The young squire laughed. “A raven is sure to be a bother,” he said. “Better let it fly into the woods.”

Willeswind shook her golden head. “No, no,” she exclaimed, “I like it. Your horses and hounds and falcons are far more bother than one raven, yet you would not think of being without them.”

Othmar mounted his horse and rode out to his archery practice, thinking how soon his sister would tire of the bird. But she did not tire of it. It was different from any pet she had ever owned, and she cared for it and trained it.

Seven years passed, and the brother had grown from a squire to a knight, and upon the death of his father the baron, became lord of the castle. Willeswind too had changed from the slender maid who stood under the November trees with Rupert the forester’s son. She was now the stateliest of all the great ladies on the Rhine. But her hair was still the color of sun-kissed straw, and her eyes the same sympathetic ones, as blue as wood gentians. Rupert was tall and stalwart, one of the sturdiest vassals of Castle Stolzenfels, and although Willeswind seldom saw him, she remembered him kindly because he had given her the pet raven which she still kept and loved. She spent many hours teaching it tricks, and the bird was so clever that it learned rapidly. Sometimes it flew into the forest and came back with flowers and leaves for its mistress. Sometimes it winged its way across the river and brought sprigs of the sweet wild berries growing there.

Everything was bright about the castle, for the young master and mistress were kind to those who served them, and there were no happier vassals along the Rhine than theirs.

One day in springtime, when the elder flowers were creamiest and swallows were teaching their nestlings to fly, a stranger came riding along the river. Past the postern gate his armored steed dashed, and straight he sat in his saddle as he called to Lord Othmar.

“I bring a challenge from the great lord who is my master,” he spoke defiantly as the young knight moved forth to meet him. With flashing eyes he tossed his gauntlet to the ground.

A murmur went among the vassals who stood by. To throw down a gauntlet was to invite war, and all waited for the master to act. But the silence was only for a minute. Then came a shouting and clashing of arms, for with defiance in his face Othmar picked up the glove and flung it back at the rider. That meant war, which in those days was believed to be a glorious thing.

The strange knight rode away along the Rhine shore as rapidly as he had come, while in the great courtyard of Castle Stolzenfels began the marshaling of vassals and preparation for fighting. The women burnished arms and gave all the aid they could, while the Lady Willeswind moved here and there, making suggestions where they were needed. All night long the sound of clanging armor was heard, and the next morning, when the men of Castle Stolzenfels went out of the castle gate to meet the enemy, Rupert the forester’s son marched at the head of the vassals.

Willeswind stood at the tower window and watched them go along the winding river road, thinking sadly of the days and nights of danger into which they went. Perhaps they would not return. Perhaps, too, some robber band might pillage the castle while they were away, for all the able-bodied men had gone to battle, and in those days many brigand hordes ravaged the Rhine valley, which the handful of old men at Stolzenfels would not be able to hold back. But she was brave, and although danger threatened, she faced it as a baron’s daughter should.

Autumn came, with swallows and martins flying southward, and still the battling raged away in the northland, sometimes with victory for Othmar and his men, sometimes with defeat, but always with dread for the anxious hearts of those who waited at home.

One night the wind raged like a mad thing, whipping the Rhine into foam. As the castle mistress sat in the great hall among the women, a servant entered, saying that a pilgrim stood at the outer gate, begging shelter from the night and storm.

“He is white and bent,” the man explained. “Shall I let him come inside?”

Willeswind’s heart was big and tender. “Yes, let him come,” she said.

A moment later he followed the servant through the hall to the sleeping quarters, a hobbling figure leaning heavily on a staff. Willeswind pitied him as he went by, but thought his face seemed hard and cruel.

A few days later she sat alone with her maid, in that same great hall, looking happier than she had looked for many weeks. “A courier came by with word from Othmar,” she said. “He sends greetings, says the worst of the fighting is over, and soon they will be home. I feel quite safe again.”

Suddenly the door was violently thrust open. The maid screamed and Willeswind turned pale, for a man in heavy armor strode into the room. She knew he was one of the dreaded robber barons who terrorized the Rhine valley, and knew too, as she looked into his savage face, that it was the same man who, in the guise of a pilgrim, had sought shelter there a few nights before.

“I have come to take you with me,” he said in a voice of thunder, “for I mean you to be my wife.”

Willeswind shuddered. She knew how wicked and cruel he was, and that it was her great wealth he craved, for Stolzenfels was one of the richest estates on the river. “That can never be, sir,” she answered haughtily. “So go back whence you came.”

He looked at her with an evil smile. “You give me a blithe refusal now,” he exclaimed, “but in three days I will come again and it will be sad for you if I get not a different answer.”

The robber chief strode out, and Willeswind and the trembling maid looked at each other in terror.

“My lady,” the woman spoke, as soon as the outer gate clanged and they knew the man was beyond hearing, “you must get away from here.”

“Yes,” answered the mistress, “I must leave Stolzenfels and seek refuge at some other castle.”

So that same afternoon a little cavalcade wended its way through the woods, over the carpet of leaves that late autumn had whipped from the trees. It was Willeswind and her attendants, bound for the home of another baron, where she would be protected until the return of Othmar and his men. Beside her rode Hulda the maid, and on her shoulder sat the pet raven.

But they did not go far. Suddenly from behind some thickly growing brush a band of horsemen appeared. One rider, taller and heavier than the others, called out orders to his men.

“To my castle!” he shouted.

Willeswind knew well they were the tones of the robber baron, and that she was now a prisoner in his power.

Sad indeed was her heart as the men turned her horse’s head away from her road to safety, and tears came into her blue eyes as she caught a glimpse of the Stolzenfels towers.

“Oh, my home,” she murmured, “when shall I see you again?”

On they went through the forest, along that part of the river whose gray cliffs she had known since childhood, then into unfamiliar country as they neared the castle of the robber chief.

“If only they will let us stay together,” she murmured to Hulda as they drew rein at the gate.

They rode in through the courtyard, and then, dismounting, the baron led the two women up a winding stairway to the tower.

“Here you may stay,” he said savagely, “and decide what to do.”

Then, striding out, he bolted the heavy door.

They looked around. The windows were covered with an iron grating, and there was no possible way of escape.

“We cannot get away,” said Hulda, “so let us make the best of it and find something to eat, for I am hungry.”

But there was no food about the place, and they realized then that he meant to starve Willeswind into obeying him.

But suddenly a bright thought came to her, and she smiled.

“He cannot do it, though, for I have my raven.” And stroking its glossy wings she said, “Berries, pet, berries.”

Her hours of training had been well spent. For as if it understood, the bird spread its shining wings and flew out between the grating. After a while it returned with a sprig of crimson berries, the fragrant, juicy Rhine buds, and laid them in its mistress’ lap.

Many trips it made during the days that followed, and the woodland fruit kept the women from starvation, for it contained both nourishment and water.

So, instead of growing weak and wan, they kept their strength, and the baron could not understand how, with neither food nor water, Willeswind remained strong and well, and as defiant as ever. But to Willeswind and Hulda it was no mystery, and they were full of gratitude to the raven.

One morning Hulda stood by the window, looking out over the woods at the sunlight on the river. Suddenly she gave an excited cry. “Some horsemen are riding up the Rhine road!” she exclaimed. “They are coming this way.”

Willeswind flew to the casement and watched as they drew near. Straight along the forest path they advanced, so close that the watchers could see their faces.

“Oh!” cried the lady of Stolzenfels. “It is Othmar and his men. The war is over and they are coming home.”

She called loudly, waving her handkerchief between the grating, and Othmar saw and heard. “We are up here, prisoners in the tower!” she shouted, as he galloped nearer. And a minute later the Stolzenfels men were battering at the castle gate.

“For your mistress, comrades!” called Rupert the forester’s son, as he led the charge.

The robber baron knew the Stolzenfels force was too strong for him to hold out against, for with right on their side they had even greater strength. He surrendered, and the captives were freed.

The Stolzenfels towers never looked as fair to their owners, as when on the return they beheld them through the trees. It was a joyful homecoming to both lord and vassal, and to the raven, for he flew in and out of its windows as if overcome with gladness. Othmar watched its joyous flight with a smile.

“We will always keep the bird,” he said, “for it saved you from the baron’s power.”

And they did keep it until it died. Then, in memory of its service, they placed its stone image on the castle gate and carved its likeness on the Stolzenfels shield.

Centuries passed. The robber bands that had been the terror of the Rhine valley became a part of the past, and Castle Stolzenfels fell into decay, for hundreds of years being one of the noblest ruins on the river. Then the German emperor restored it. He rebuilt the crumbling towers and bastions where bats made their nests, furnished it after the fashion of long ago, and today it is a favorite summer home of the imperial family. And still on the outer gate a stone raven stands, and to all who know the Rhine stories it speaks eloquently of that olden time when knights were bold, and of a gratitude offering made by the forester’s son to the daughter of the castle.

JUSSIEU AND THE HELIOTROPE

(Science—Nature Study)

In the year of Our Lord 1735, Joseph de Jussieu, the famous botanist, came into the presence of Louis the Fifteenth and besought him to give his royal sanction to a mission that was considered very wonderful in those days.

“I would go to South America to study the plant life there,” he said, “and mayhap I may discover something that will bring glory to France.”

The king looked with favor upon the venture, and a little later the botanist and his attendants sailed out of the port of Havre, toward the distant land of the Andes.

Many months they were on the way, now tossing on the high seas at the mercy of wind and wave, now threading a perilous path through the selvas. At last they ascended the snow-capped Cordilleras, examining every tree and plant they found.

“We will take back seeds of every rare specimen,” Jussieu said, “and great will be the rejoicing in France.”

One day, as the botanist and his men made their way from a deep ravine up a sunny slope, they smelled something wonderfully fragrant.

“Such a powerful odor must come from a gigantic, gorgeous flower,” the naturalist said. And they searched eagerly, each man anxious to discover the prize. But the only gorgeous flower they found was a clump of flaming peonies, which, although regally beautiful, were devoid of fragrance.

Then one of the men stumbled upon a plant bearing clusters of tiny purple blossoms. The odor was very heavy around it, and he knew he had found the perfume giver.

“Ah!” he exclaimed in disappointment, “it is not half so stately as our fleur-de-lis.”

Jussieu came and examined it with great interest, and although it was a small, unpretentious flower, thought it a precious find. He noticed that the most perfect blossoms were on the sunny side of the plant, and that they seemed to reach the sun. He named it “heliotrope,” from Greek words meaning “to turn toward the sun,” and when he returned to France took with him some of the seeds, which were planted in the royal garden.

The princesses, who were always looking for something novel, became greatly excited about the purple blossoms from the Andes. They called it the flower of love, and no bouquet was deemed fit to offer a court lady that did not contain at least a sprig of it. Being greatly in demand, it was very costly. People speculated in it, and for a time fortunes were won and lost, as during the tulip craze in Holland.

Then, after a while, when all the florists grew quantities of heliotrope, it became so common that it went out of favor as the court flower. But it was just as popular as ever, because it had lost none of its grace and fragrance. It grew in the gardens of the people, and there was no peasant too poor to own a plant.

So the dainty heliotrope that is still the favorite of the gardens is a traveled and storied flower. It grew on the slope of the Andes. It crossed the broad seas and was planted in a royal garden. It gladdened the peasants and townsfolk of Lorraine and Brittany and Provence, and still it scatters its fragrance and reaches out its petals toward the sun.

THE FALL OF LONDON BRIDGE

(History)

Almost everybody, whether he be ten or seventy-five, has played the good old game of London Bridge, but not everybody knows that once upon a time the bridge really did fall down.

It was nine hundred years ago—before William the Conqueror was born, and the United States had not even been thought of. Up in the cold, white northland lived a race of fearless vikings, and down in pleasant England reigned a weak, unable king. His name was Ethelred, and because he was always behind time with his plans and his work, people called him the Unready, and in the day in which he lived it was a very serious thing for a king to be unready.

Ever since the Danes had discovered what a fair land England was, they had wanted to take it. They came with their armies in King Alfred’s time. They returned again during the reign of his sons, and when young Ethelred ascended the throne and word went forth of how unable and unready he was, their boats brought a mighty army and surrounded the island. Danish soldiers camped on the broad English moorlands, Danish songs echoed through the woods of Kent and Surrey and sounded in the streets of London town. The invaders were in full possession of the city. They held the royal castle, and their generals slept in King Ethelred’s beds, while he had to take a bunk wherever he could find one. They were bold, brave, and strong. They had leaders who knew not the meaning of fear and were always ready, and it seemed that this time they would take the kingdom.

Yet they didn’t take it after all, for there were other brave, bold men who came to Ethelred’s aid.

Twenty ships sailed down from the seas of Norway, twenty goodly vessels bearing blue and crimson sails, for the boy king Olaf, who dwelt in the far north country, had heard of the plight of Ethelred the Unready and said to his men, “Let us go and fight for him as we fight for our own land.”

At these words the soldiers cheered and bent to the oars, and thus they went to England.

In from the sea they came and up the broad green Thames toward London town. The people along the river despaired at sight of their standard, for they thought another army was coming to attack them. But the sorrow turned to rejoicing when King Ethelred met them just below the city, and Olaf said, in loud, clear tones, “I have brought my soldiers to fight for thee.”

Then there rang out such a blast of welcome as never English war horns sounded before or since.

Olaf lost no time. The men of the north country fought for the love of fighting, and he was eager to hurl his army against the Danes.

“First we will take the fort they have built to command the Thames,” he exclaimed. “Then we will drive them from the city.”

King Ethelred shook his head.

“It will not be easy to do that,” he said. “Thrice already my army has tried it, but the Danish soldiers are thick on London Bridge. We cannot get near enough to attack the fort, because whenever the ships start up the river arrows and spears and stones come down upon them and they are driven back.”

King Olaf stood thinking and did not answer. Finally he said, “Then we must tear down the bridge.”

Ethelred looked at him as if he thought him crazy. “Tear down the bridge!” he repeated in amazement. “That is impossible. London Bridge is strong, and neither of us has an army of giants.”

Young Olaf looked at him and smiled, thinking how little this man knew of warfare.

“Do as I bid you,” he said, “and you shall see it fall.”

Ethelred had little faith in the viking’s words, but he was in so terrible a plight that he was willing to do anything that might pull him out of it. Who wouldn’t be, with a Danish general sleeping in his bed?

King Olaf gave some orders to his men. Then he said to Ethelred, “Bring your ships alongside mine, and we will get them ready.”

He ordered the men to make broad, flat roofs for every vessel, for he knew they could not tear down London Bridge unless protected from the spears and arrows of the Danes. The enemy had seized so much of King Ethelred’s lumber that he hadn’t half enough to make the roofs, so they tore down houses that the command might be carried out.

Finally everything was ready, and the fleet of England and the fleet of Norway moved side by side up the Thames. The Danish soldiers laughed as they saw the queer-looking vessels coming toward them, thinking what fun it would be to drive back the boats of Ethelred the Unready, as they had done several times before. But the Danes didn’t know as much as they thought they knew, and although their spears and arrows flew fast, the lumbering warships came on.

Then the soldiers on the bridge shot their bows and threw their javelins as they had not done before. They hurled great rocks down upon the vessels, damaging some of them so much that they had to turn back. But they did not harm or frighten Olaf the viking. He called to his men and cheered them on, and nearer, nearer these good ships came, until they were close to the piles of London Bridge.

Then they stopped a moment, still under the rain of stones and spears and arrows, and the Danish soldiers wondered what it meant. They could not see the thick, strong cables that were wound around the heavy supports of the bridge. They could not see the soldiers of Olaf lash the other ends fast to the vessels. But a moment later they understood all they had not seen. The ships turned with a sudden spurt. The Danish soldiers felt a mighty tug and pull. The roofed warships darted down the river, and then was heard the fall of London Bridge.

How joyfully the men of England shouted, for now they could push ahead and attack the fort. They took it too, and drove the enemy out of the city. Danish warriors no longer slept under satin covers in the castle of King Ethelred. Danish songs no longer resounded through the woods of Kent and Surrey and across the broad, sea-lapped moorlands. The soldiers routed the Danes and drove them out of the country, and Olaf the boy viking sailed back to his far, white northland, rejoicing in the thought that he had saved his kingdom to Ethelred, which he could not have done but for the fall of London Bridge.

HOW THEY CAME TO HAVE KITE DAY IN CHINA

Retold from a Chinese Folk Tale

(Physical Education)

In the lovely province of Kwang Tung, a sage named Ng Chew lived in the far-off time. He not only was versed in the lore of past and present, but knew future events as well, and used his knowledge and his power to benefit mankind.

One night in a vision he saw that a pestilence was about to sweep over the valley in which he lived, and his first thought was that he must save his people. He went from house to house telling the news and bidding every one flee with him to the mountains, and a few hours after he started on his mission the homes in the lowlands were deserted.

Up on the heights the people were safe in the crisp, clean air. But after many days had passed they wanted to return to their homes. They thought of the growth in the rice fields and of the approaching harvest time. “We have been here long enough,” they declared. “By this time the danger is over and we ought to go back.” But the wise Ng Chew knew it was not safe to return, and urged them to stay. There were a few who would not listen to his words. They started back to the lowlands, and Ng Chew wondered how he could keep the others on the mountain. Then a happy thought crossed his mind. He set everybody to making and flying kites, and soon had them so interested that they were glad to stay.

Days afterward, when he knew the danger was past, he led them back to the valley. Then they realized what a blessed thing he had done in keeping them on the mountain, for all who had refused to stay there with him had died of the pestilence.

The people’s hearts were filled with gratitude toward the man who had saved them.

“We will honor Ng Chew as long as he lives,” they said. “When his birthday comes we will all fly kites.”

This they did. Each year, on the birthday of Ng Chew, they left the rice fields and spent the day flying kites.

The word spread beyond the little valley and from province to province, until all over the land kite flying marked the birthday of the sage of Kwang Tung. The wise man died and centuries passed, but still the Chinese keep Kite Day, honoring him who in the long ago led his people to safety in the mountains.

THE STORY OF A STONE

By David Starr Jordan

(Science)

Once on a time, a great many years ago, so many, many years that one grows very tired in trying to think how long ago it was; in those old days when the great Northwest consisted of a few ragged and treeless hills, full of copper and quartz, bordered by a dreary waste of sand flats, over which the Gulf of Mexico rolled its warm and turbid waters as far north as Escanaba and Eau Claire; in the days when Marquette Harbor opened out towards Baffin’s Bay, and the Northern Ocean washed the crest of Mount Washington and wrote its name upon the Pictured Rocks; when the tide of the Pacific, hemmed in by no snow-capped Sierras, came rushing through the Golden Gate between the Ozarks and the north peninsula of Michigan, and swept over Plymouth Rock and surged up against Bunker Hill; in the days when it would have been fun to study geography, for there were no capitals, nor any products, and all the towns were seaports—in fact, an immensely long time ago there lived somewhere in the northeastern part of the state of Wisconsin, not far from the city of Oconto, a little jellyfish. It was a curious little fellow, about the shape of half an apple, and the size of a pin’s head; and it floated around in the water, and ate little things, and opened and shut its umbrella pretty much as the jellyfishes do now on a sunny day off Nahant Beach when the tide is coming in. It had a great many little feelers that hung down all around like so many little snakes; so it was named Medusa, after a queer woman who lived a long while ago, when all sorts of stories were true. She wore snakes instead of hair, and used to turn people into stone images if they dared to make faces at her. So this little Medusa floated around, and opened and shut her umbrella for a good while,—a month or two, perhaps; we don’t know how long. Then one morning, down among the seaweeds, she laid a whole lot of tiny eggs, transparent as crab-apple jelly, and smaller than the dewdrop on the end of a pine leaf. That was the last thing she did; then she died, and our story henceforth concerns only one of those little eggs.

One day the sun shone down into the water—the same sun that shines over the Oconto sawmills now—and touched these eggs with life; and a little fellow whom we will call Favosites, because that was his name, woke up inside the egg, and came out into the world. He was only a little piece of floating jelly, shaped like a cartridge pointed at both ends, or like a grain of barley, although very much smaller. He had a great number of little paddles on his sides. These kept flapping all the time, so that he was constantly in motion. And at night all these little paddles shone with a rich green light, to show him the way through the water. It would have done you good to see them some night when all the little fellows had their lamps burning at once, and every wave as it rose and fell was all aglow with Nature’s fireworks, which do not burn the fingers and leave no smell of sulphur.

So the little Favosites kept scudding along in the water, dodging from one side to the other to avoid the ugly creatures that tried to eat him. There were crabs and clams of a fashion neither you nor I shall ever see alive. There were huge animals with great eyes, savage jaws like the beak of a snapping turtle and surrounded by long feelers. They sat in the end of a long, round shell, shaped like a length of stove pipe, and glowered like an owl in a hollow log; and there were smaller ones that looked like lobsters in a dinner horn. But none of these caught the little fellow, else I should not have had this story to tell.

At last, having paddled about long enough, Favosites thought of settling in life. So he looked around till he found a flat bit of shell that just suited him. Then he sat down upon it and grew fast, like old Holger Danske in the Danish myth, or Frederick Barbarossa in the German one. He did not go to sleep, however, but proceeded to make himself a home. He had no head, but between his shoulders he made an opening which would serve him for mouth and stomach. Then he put a whole row of feelers out, and commenced catching little worms and floating eggs and bits of jelly and bits of lime,—everything he could get,—and cramming them into his mouth. He had a great many curious ways, but the funniest of them all was what he did with the bits of lime. He kept taking them in, and tried to wall himself up inside with them, as a person would “stone a well,” or as though a man should swallow pebbles and stow them away in his feet and all around under the skin, till he had filled himself all full with them, as the man filled Jim Smiley’s frog.

Little Favosites became lonesome all alone in the bottom of that old ocean among so many outlandish neighbors. So one night, when he was fast asleep and dreaming as only a coral animal can dream, there sprouted out from his side, somewhere near where his sixth rib might have been if he had had any ribs, another little Favosites; and this one very soon began to eat worms and to wall himself up as if for dear life. Then from these two another and another little bud came out, and other little Favosites were formed. They all kept growing up higher and cramming themselves fuller and fuller of stone, till at last there were so many and they were so crowded together that there was not room for them to grow round, and so they had to become six-sided like the cells of a honeycomb. Once in a while some one in the company would feel jealous because the others got more of the worms, or would feel uneasy at sitting still so long and swallowing lime. Such a one would secede from the little union without even saying “good-by,” and would put on the airs of the grandmother Medusa, and would sail around in the water, opening and shutting its umbrella, at last laying more eggs, which for all we know may have hatched out into more Favosites.

So the old Favosites died, or ran away, or were walled up by the younger ones, and new ones filled their places, and the colony thrived for a long while, until it had accumulated a large stock of lime.

But one day there came a freshet in the Menominee River, or in some other river, and piles of dirt and sand and mud were brought down, and all the little Favosites’ mouths were filled with it. This they did not like, and so they died; but we know that the rock house they were building was not spoiled, for we have it here. But it was tumbled about a good deal in the dirt, and the rolling pebbles knocked the corners off, and the mud worked into the cracks, and its beautiful color was destroyed. There it lay in the mud for ages, till the earth gave a great, long heave that raised Wisconsin out of the ocean, and the mud around our little Favosites packed and dried into hard rock and closed it in. So it became part of the dry land, and lay embedded in the rocks for centuries and centuries, while the old-fashioned ferns grew above it, and whispered to it strange stories of what was going on above ground in the land where things were living.

Then the time of the first fishes came, and the other animals looked in wonder at them, as the Indians looked on Columbus. Some of them were like the little gar-pike of our river here, only much larger,—big as a stove pipe, and with a crust as hard as a turtle’s. Then there were sharks, of strange forms, and some of them had teeth like bowie knives, with tempers to match. And the time of the old fishes came and went, and many more times came and went, but still Favosites lay in the ground at Oconto.

Then came the long, hot, wet summer, when the mists hung over the earth so thick that you might have had to cut your way through them with a knife; and great ferns and rushes, big as an oak and tall as a steeple, grew in the swamps of Indiana and Illinois. Their green plumes were so long and so densely interwoven that the Man in the Moon might have fancied that the earth was feathering out. Then all about, huge reptiles, with jaws like the gates of doom and teeth like cross-cut saws, and little reptiles with wings like bats, crawled, and swam, and flew.

But the ferns died, and the reptiles died, and the rush trees fell in the swamps, and the Illinois and the Sangamon and the Wabash and all the other rivers covered them up. They stewed away under layers of clay and sand, till at last they turned into coal and wept bitter tears of petroleum. But all this while Favosites lay in the rocks in Wisconsin.

Then the mists cleared away, and the sun shone, and the grass began to grow, and strange animals came from somewhere or nowhere to feed upon it. There were queer little striped horses, with three or four hoofs on each foot, and no bigger than a Newfoundland dog, but as smart as ever you saw. There were great hairy elephants, with teeth like sticks of wood. There were hogs with noses so long that they could sit on their hind legs and root. And there were many still stranger creatures which no man ever saw alive. But still Favosites lay in the ground and waited.

And the long, long summer passed by, and the autumn, and the Indian summer. At last the winter came, and it snowed and snowed, and it was so cold that the snow did not go off till the Fourth of July. Then it snowed and snowed till the snow did not go off at all. And then it became so cold that it snowed all the time, till the snow covered the animals, and then the trees, and then the mountains. Then it would thaw a little, and streams of water would run over the snow. Then it would freeze again, and the snow would pack into solid ice. So it went on snowing and thawing and freezing, till nothing but snowbanks could be seen in Wisconsin, and most of Indiana was fit only for a skating rink. And the animals and plants which could get away, all went south to live, and the others died and were frozen into the snow.

So it went on for a great many years. I dare not tell you how long, for you might not believe me. Then the spring came, the south winds blew, and the snow began to thaw. Then the ice came sliding down from the mountains and hills and from the north toward the south. It went on, tearing up rocks, little and big, from the size of a chip to the size of a house, crushing forests as you would crush an eggshell, and wiping out rivers as you would wipe out a chalk mark. So it came pushing, grinding, thundering along,—not very fast, you understand, but with tremendous force, like a plow drawn by a million oxen, for a thousand feet of ice is very heavy. And the ice plow scraped over Oconto, and little Favosites was torn from the place where he had lain so long; but by good fortune he happened to fall into a crevice of the ice where he was not much crowded, else he would have been ground to powder and I should not have had this story to tell. And the ice melted as it slid along, and it made great torrents of water, which, as they swept onward, covered the land with clay and pebbles. At last the ice came to a great swamp overgrown with tamarack and balsam. It melted here; and all the rocks and stones and dirt it had carried—little Favosites and all—were dumped into one great heap.

It was a very long time after, and man had been created, and America had been discovered, and the War of the Revolution and the Civil War had all been fought to the end, and a great many things had happened, when one day a farmer living near Grand Chute, in Outagamie County, Wisconsin, was plowing up his clover field to sow to winter wheat. He picked up in the furrow a curious little bit of “petrified honeycomb,” a good deal worn and dirty, but still showing plainly the honey cells and the bee bread. Then he put it into his pocket and carried it home, and gave it to his boy Charley to take to the teacher and hear what he would say about it. And this is what he said.

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