Scarcely had she thus spoken before a heaviness seized her limbs. Her breast was covered with bark, her hair grew into green leaves, and her arms into branches. Her feet, a moment before so swift, became rooted to the ground. And Daphne was no longer a Nymph, but a green laurel tree.
When Apollo beheld this change he cried out and embraced the tree, and kissed its leaves.
“Beautiful Daphne,” he said, “since thou cannot be my bride, yet shalt thou be my tree. Henceforth my hair, my lyre, and my quiver shall be adorned with laurel. Thy wreaths shall be given to conquering chiefs, to winners of fame and joy; and as my head has never been shorn of its locks, so shalt thou wear thy green leaves, winter and summer—forever!”
Apollo ceased speaking and the laurel bent its new-made boughs in assent, and its stem seemed to shake and its leaves gently to murmur.
BIRD DAY
THE OLD WOMAN WHO BECAME A WOODPECKER
BY PHOEBE CARY (ADAPTED)
Afar in the Northland, where the winter days are so short and the nights so long, and where they harness the reindeer to sledges, and where the children look like bear's cubs in their funny, furry clothes, there, long ago, wandered a good Saint on the snowy roads.