A SCANDINAVIAN MYTH.
A great battle had been fought on earth, and Odin's feast was now waiting in Valhalla to welcome Hakon, a brave Norwegian King, with many other heroes who had been engaged in the war. Around the hall went the war-god Tyr, polishing the shield-hung walls, and rehanging the coats of mail. Great buckets of mead stood about, milked from the she-goat Heidrun, which always browsed on the life-tree Igdrasil. Freya, Goddess of Love, had woven wreaths for the approaching guests, while Heimdal, the warder, standing at the gate, waited with his huge trumpet to announce their arrival. At the head of the feast sat Odin, with Friga his Queen, while around him were the gods and goddesses. The other seats were filled by an immense host of warriors, among whom were Hakon's eight brothers, who were overjoyed at his coming. Suddenly, at a loud blast from Heimdal, the doors flew open, and in came the Battle-Maidens, bearing the heroes on their shields. The place of honor was given to Hakon, and when the rest were seated, the feast began. You may know this was a merry scene. Beautiful maidens poured out the mead, while the roasted boar Sachrimnir tasted very good after so much hard fighting on earth. At last, Hakon remarked how happy they all were in Valhalla, and Bragi (God of Song) answered that they had been so ever since the punishment of Loki and his children. As Hakon knew nothing of the matter, Odin promised that Tyr should tell the story after Bragi had related the stealing of Iduna (Immortality), which showed how well Loki deserved to be punished. All being quiet, Bragi began, while his wife, Iduna, leaned over him:
"Once while Odin, Hœnir, and Loki were travelling, they saw some oxen feeding, and being very hungry, killed one, but could not roast the flesh, no matter how hot a fire they made. Soon they heard a strange noise, and looking up, saw an enormous eagle perched on a tree close by.
"'If you will give me a share,' said the eagle, 'the flesh shall be roasted fast enough.'
"On their agreeing to this, down flew the bird, and snatched a great piece of the meat. Loki, enraged, seized a pole, and struck the eagle over the back, thinking to kill him.
"It was no bird, however, but the fierce giant Thiassi in his eagle disguise. Loki soon found this out, for while one end of the pole stuck fast to the feathers, his hands were glued to the other. Away flew the eagle-disguised giant, trailing Loki over mountains and forests, until, almost bruised to death, he called for mercy. But Thiassi would not let him go until he promised to bring Iduna and her apples to his castle. Then Thiassi released him, and back Loki went to Asgard in a sad plight. These apples that Thiassi desired so much were very rare; but Iduna had a casket full, of which the gods ate to keep young. Finding the goddess, Loki told her he had just seen better apples than hers in a forest near by. Deceived by his word, she took her casket and went out to the wood with him; but no sooner had they entered than down swooped Thiassi, and catching up Iduna, flew off with her to Giant-land. The gods were terrified by her loss; the apples gone, they were becoming gray-haired and wrinkled, while the flowers withered and diseases appeared. They at once held a council, and at length found out that Loki had done the mischief. Threatening him with instant death if he failed, they ordered him to bring back Iduna and her apples. Loki borrowed Freya's falcon plumage, and hastening to Giant-land, found that Thiassi was away fishing, while Iduna sat alone in the castle. Quickly changing her into a nut, he flew back as fast as the wind with her between his claws.
"Just then home came Thiassi, who at once seized his eagle wings, and gave chase. He sped like lightning, and soon gained on them, but the gods, who were watching, laid huge bonfires on the walls. As soon as Loki had flown over safely with the nut, they fired the piles. Now Thiassi, being in full flight, could not stop in time, so his wings were burned, and he fell among the gods, who immediately killed him. Thus youth returned to Asgard, and the gods were saved."
[STUDYING WASPS.]
BY JIMMY BROWN.
We had a lecture at our place the other day, because our people wanted to get even with the people of the next town, who had had a returned missionary with a whole lot of idols the week before. The lecture was all about wasps and beetles and such, and the lecturer had a magic lantern and a microscope, and everything that was adapted to improve and vitrify the infant mind, as our minister said when he introduced him. I believe the lecturer was a wicked, bad man, who came to our place on purpose to get me into trouble. Else why did he urge the boys to study wasps, and tell us how to collect wasps' nests without getting stung? The grown-up people thought it was all right, however, and Mr. Travers said to me, "Listen to what the gentleman says, Jimmy, and improve your mind with wasps."
Well, I thought I would do as I was told, especially as I knew of a tremendous big wasps' nest under the eaves of our barn. I got a ladder and a lantern the very night after the lecture, and prepared to study wasps. The lecturer said that the way to do was to wait till the wasps go to bed, and then to creep up to their nest with a piece of thin paper all covered with wet mucilage, and to clap it right over the door of the nest. Of course the wasps can't get out when they wake up in the morning, and you can take the nest and hang it up in your room; and after two or three days, when you open the nest and let the wasps out, and feed them with powdered sugar, they'll be so tame and grateful that they'll never think of stinging you, and you can study them all day long, and learn lots of useful lessons. Now is it probable that any real good man would put a boy up to any such nonsense as this? It's my belief that the lecturer was hired by somebody to come and entice all our boys to get themselves stung.
As I was saying, I got a ladder and a lantern, and a piece of paper covered with mucilage, and after dark I climbed up to the wasps' nest, and stopped up the door, and then brought the nest down in my hand. I was going to carry it up to my room, but just then mother called me; so I put the nest under the seat of our carriage, and went into the house, where I was put to bed for having taken the lantern out to the barn; and the next morning I forgot all about the nest.
I forgot it because I was invited to go on a picnic with Mr. Travers and my sister Sue and a whole lot of people, and any fellow would have forgot it if he had been in my place. Mr. Travers borrowed father's carriage, and he and Sue were to sit on the back seat, and Mr. Travers's aunt, who is pretty old and cross, was to sit on the front seat with Dr. Jones, the new minister, and I was to sit with the driver. We all started about nine o'clock, and a big basket of provisions was crowded into the carriage between everybody's feet.
We hadn't gone mornamile when Mr. Travers cries out: "My good gracious! Sue, I've run an awful pin into my leg. Why can't you girls be more careful about pins?" Sue replied that she hadn't any pins where they could run into anybody, and was going to say something more, when she screamed as if she was killed, and began to jump up and down and shake herself. Just then Dr. Jones jumped about two feet straight into the air, and said, "Oh my!" and Miss Travers took to screaming, "Fire! murder! help!" and slapping herself in a way that was quite awful. I began to think they were all going crazy, when all of a sudden I remembered the wasps' nest.
Somehow the wasps had got out of the nest, and were exploring all over the carriage. The driver stopped the horses to see what was the matter, and turned pale with fright when he saw Dr. Jones catch the basket of provisions and throw it out of the carriage, and then jump straight into it. Then Mr. Travers and his aunt and Sue all came flying out together, and were all mixed up with Dr. Jones and the provisions on the side of the road. They didn't stop long, however, for the wasps were looking for them; so they got up and rushed for the river, and went into it as if they were going to drown themselves—only it wasn't more than two feet deep.
George—he's the driver—was beginning to ask, "Is thishyer some swimmin' match that's goin' on?" when a wasp hit him on the neck, and another hit me on the cheek. We left that carriage in a hurry, and I never stopped till I got to my room and rolled myself up in the bedclothes. All the wasps followed me, so that Mr. Travers and Sue and the rest of them were left in peace, and might have gone to the picnic, only they felt as if they must come home for arnica, and, besides, the horses had run away, though they were caught afterward, and didn't break anything.
This was all because that lecturer advised me to study wasps. I followed his directions, and it wasn't my fault that the wasps began to study Mr. Travers and his aunt, and Sue and Dr. Jones, and me and George. But father, when he was told about it, said that my "conduct was such," and the only thing that saved me was that my legs were stung all over, and father said he didn't have the heart to do any more to them with a switch.
[AUNT RUTH'S TEMPTATION.]
BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE.
Chapter I.
If you don't know Aunt Ruth, I can scarcely expect you to understand just how lovely she is: the most unselfish, good-humored of women. She is not very tall, but there seems to me something queen-like in her manner. She is very pretty, but the charm of her face is its sweetness. When she smiles, her eyes grow very tender; when she is serious, a look comes into them of a peace I can not describe.
Aunt Ruth lives in a big old-fashioned house in the country, at which her many nieces and nephews are always welcome, and all the country people adore her. Though there is so much of what papa calls personality about her, yet she never seems to be thinking of herself, i and one day when the girls and I were clustering about her in her own sitting-room, I exclaimed: "Aunt Ruth, do you ever think about yourself for one moment? You seem just made for other people."
Now a sudden strange look came into Aunt Ruth's face. It was not pain exactly, but of some recollection that seemed to grieve her for a moment even as she smiled. I know Aunt Ruth thinks me rather the spoiled child of her little circle of nieces, and when she looked at me and smiled, and said, "Why, Kitty dear, we can make ourselves what we like, with help," I felt a little conscience-stricken. I supposed I was lazy and selfish; but how could Aunt Ruth know what it was to take care of three little brothers and sisters; get up early in the morning to study; stay in-doors, lovely June weather, sewing and patching and mending? Everything came easily to Aunt Ruth that was for other people. Perhaps she read my thoughts in my face. Her own brightened, and she said, pleasantly: "Girls, I wonder if you would like to hear a story—a chapter out of my own experience. I have often thought of telling it to you."
Aunt Ruth's story-telling is as famous as her gentle charity; and we were soon in comfortable attitudes, listening. The story had a peculiar charm, because it was about her early girlhood, and as she is only our aunt by marriage, we knew less of her young days than of the older life so happily associated with our own.
Now, to begin with (said Aunt Ruth), you know that my father was a country doctor. We lived in C——, a pretty town not far from Albany, and when I was nine years old my mother died. There were three children younger than I—one a mere baby—and we were all left to the care of my step-sister Winifred. You know her now, girls; and can you fancy what she was at fourteen, when she assumed the charge of our sad little household? A sweet, motherly little body, with so many loving, gentle ways that it seemed strange she was only our step-sister. But we never thought of her as such. Gradually she stepped into the mother place left vacant, and by the time I was nearly fourteen, and Winny in her nineteenth year, it had come to seem natural that she should direct and govern, pet and humor, us all, as if she was really our mother. But admirable as was Winny's household management, her care for us all, her orderly ways, and tenderness for our wants, there was one mistake in her system: she completely spoiled me, and from being inclined to indolence, I grew selfish and exacting. It seemed to me in those days perfectly right that Winny should have the work and I the play; that if a new material was bought for Winny's dress, and I liked it, it should be made up for me; that I should go away for change of air now and then, while Winny staid at home; that I should go out to tea as often as I was invited, and Winny have to hesitate over every invitation. In fact, it never seemed to occur to me to question my right in all sorts of things of which my selfishness deprived her. Winny loved me so devotedly, that if she saw my faults she tried to cover them up. Mrs. Judson, the minister's wife—your grandmother, Fanny—used to come over to our house a great deal, and I remember hearing her scold Winny for spoiling me. "Never mind, Mrs. Judson," Winny would say, with her sweet little laugh, "Ruth will be a big girl one of these days, and then she'll take her share of disciplining."
One fall, soon after my fourteenth birthday, I remember that papa began to talk about Winny's looking pale and thin. She certainly did not look well, but she maintained that she felt quite herself. It was a warm autumn, and Winny said that the cold weather would do her good. Papa, like the rest of us, I think, always took what Winny said without analyzing it; and so, when Mrs. Judson came over to see if Winny could go down to her mother's for a few days' change of air, I recall his saying, "Oh, it's all right, Mrs. Judson; I've given her some quinine, and she says she is very well."
It was two or three days after this that, at tea-time, papa came in with a letter in his hand, which he read aloud. It was from a cousin of ours in New York, a Mrs. Ludlow, and she wrote to invite either Winny or me to spend a fortnight with her. There was to be a wedding anniversary party; several young people were to be in the house, and she said she knew it would be a pleasant gathering. Now I am ashamed to say that it never for an instant occurred to me that I should not be the one to go. Papa read the letter, and then looked at Winny, who was sitting at the tea table, I recollect, with a small brother on either side of her. I can see the home picture now: our comfortable tea table; the pretty, cheerful room; the window at Winny's back, showing our bit of lawn and cedar-trees; the cozy gleams of fire-light; and Winny's face, just a trifle paler and thinner than its wont, but the dark eyes as lovingly watchful of us all as ever.
"Well, lassie," papa said, looking at her fondly, "you'll have to go, I think. Just what you need. Dear me!"—and he looked again at the letter—"so it's Mary Ludlow's twentieth wedding-day. They have a fine house down there. You'll see something of New York society."
Winny's face glowed. "Oh, thank you, papa," she exclaimed; "I shall be so glad," and then her eyes fell upon me. I know just how I must have looked—vexed, disappointed, and chagrined; indeed, the tears were nearly in my eyes.
"It will be a good chance for Ruth to learn housekeeping," papa went on. "Let us see if you can do as well as the lassie," he added. He had a fashion of calling Winny that, because of her Scotch ancestry. He laughed, and went away without noticing either my down-hearted look, or the change that had come into Winny's face. Singular though it may seem, it never occurred to me that it was Winny's right to go, and my duty to help her. I had grown accustomed to receiving all and giving nothing. Winny said nothing more about the visit just then. We passed our usual hour in the parlor before the children's bed-time rather quietly. It was Winny's custom to go up every night to the nursery, see the children undressed, hear their prayers, and perhaps talk to them a little before they went to sleep. Sometimes—when I felt like it, that is—I assisted at this little tender office, but I usually did so when I had some of my own concerns to discuss with Winny.
To-night I followed her up to the nursery, and sat down in the window, looking very haughty and self-restrained, while Winny put Joe to bed, talked Annie into a peaceful frame of mind, and made sleep less repulsive to Dick, whose theory was that beds were wicked tortures invented by grown people expressly to aggravate boys. While Winny went from one tiny bed to another, I sat thinking what a fine thing it would be to tell the girls at school I was going to the Ludlows'. I should certainly have a new dress, and perhaps my hat retrimmed. There was to be a party, so I must take my white muslin and kid slippers. Gradually my mind was not only absorbed by these delights, but by the feeling that Winifred would actually be robbing me of my own were she to accept Cousin Mary's invitation.
The children were at last in bed. Dick, in spite of his theories, was snoring loudly; Joe was declaring from the depths of the clothes that he never, never meant to be good again, because the cook had taken away his marbles; Annie was asleep in her little cot, a picture of pretty dimpled babyhood; and Winny was looking, if a little tired, at least glad that in spite of naughtiness, not one had gone to bed without kissing and hugging her fondly. Even Joe supplemented his terrible resolve with, "I'll just be good sometimes for you, Winny, but I'll always be bad all the rest of the time." His voice reached a kind of a wail. It was a sepulchral voice for a little boy. "I'll be bad—very bad—and perhaps I'll be hung—"
WINNY AND RUTH—Drawn by E. A. Abbey.
Winny was down on her knees at Joe's side.
"Yes, I will," he persisted, in a louder but more melancholy key. "I will go off where there are wild beasts, pottermusses, and lizards—I will."
"Winny," I exclaimed, sharply, "how can you put up with that naughty boy? Joe," I continued, looking at him severely, "let Winny alone, and go to sleep this minute. I want to talk to her."
"Oh, you do, miss, do you?" Joseph returned, with round eyes fixed on me over the sheet. "I'll never be good for you, Miss Greedy, I can tell you that."
But in a few moments Joe's curly head had drooped, and he was fast asleep. Winny turned to me the gentle sisterly look I knew so well.
"Ruth dear," she said, sitting down, "I've been thinking it over, and it seems to me"—Winny's eyebrows drew together, she clasped her hands closely—"you had better go to Cousin Mary's. I don't think I can: leave home just now"—Winny was a little flurried—"so we will get you ready nicely, and you shall go."
I was ready enough then to hug Winny, and tell her she was a darling, but during the days that followed I forgot the sacrifice she had made. She easily made papa see that it was I who should go. "Joe is not well," she pleaded, "and he never does anything for Ruth; he must be taken care of." One such excuse after another was made, greatly to my delight, and the only drawback to my satisfaction was Mrs. Judson's disapproving air. She came over more than usual, and several times remarked upon the injustice of this arrangement. "Why, Winny is quite a young lady," she said once to me, "and really ought to see something." But it was always Winny who silenced her, and prevented papa's discussing the question further.