This seemed to please everybody and all the scholars repeated the words:
“Tell us of yourself, oh, Chiron.”
“The Centaurs,” began Chiron after a little while, “were born long before men came into the world. It was a rough place then and needed somebody stronger than men to live in it. So the Gods made us with the strength and swiftness of the animals and yet with some of the thoughts and feelings of men. And we lived in caves and ran through the valleys, and leaped across the rushing streams and climbed the mountains. And we learned many things about the world and made it easier for men when they came. I think we were sent to do what animals couldn’t do and that now you are come and grown strong to conquer even the animals, our work is done and we must soon die.”
Just then a little bell rang. At first Sid thought school must be out, but the bell sounded very familiar to him. In fact it was the cuckoo clock in the front parlor striking nine.
“Bless me, Sid,” said his mother; “you ought to have been in bed an hour ago.”
Lill’s Travels in Santa Claus Land.
BY ELLIS TOWNE.
EFFIE had been playing with her dolls one cold December morning, and Lill had been reading, until both were tired. But it stormed too hard to go out, and, as Mrs. Pelerine had said they need not do anything for two hours, their little jaws might have been dislocated by yawning before they would as much as pick up a pin. Presently Lill said, “Effie, shall I tell you a story.”