The Blissylvania Post-Office

by Marion Ames Taggart

"Oh, need I be Sir Percival any more? It's so hard to talk that way. I can't tell you unless I can be myself," implored Amy.

"Oh, pshaw! you can't pretend worth a cent," said Jack in disgust; but Miss Isabel said, "Why, of course; we don't want to do anything for fun when it is no longer fun. Tell on, Amy."

"You know that little hill over there beyond the spring," began Amy, much relieved. "They've been taking out some rock on the side, and I was looking there when I found this lump of something that looked like mud, and when I took it up I found it was hard, and it had all these shells in it. They look like scallop shells, but they can't be, because they are in the woods. What are they, Miss Isabel?"

"The shells can tell us," said Miss Isabel, putting the lump of clay to her ear and pretending to listen. "I'll tell you what they say. It is this shell that is speaking; it says: Many ages ago, before Adam was made, there was a great lake where these woods now are, and this shell lived in the water, and was the house of a little mollusk, like shells nowadays. And once there came a great commotion in the waters and something like an earthquake in the land, and when it was over the lake was gone, and in its place was a valley, and the hill was thrown up, and beautiful great plants of such kinds as grow now only in the tropics began to flourish, for it was very warm. And the shell says it found itself thrown up into clay-like mud, and pretty soon the mollusk died, for it could not live out of the water. And then it grew very cold, and great glaciers went crashing and cracking, and sliding to the sea over this very spot where we now sit. And then the land in the northern latitudes sank, and made the climate warmer again, and the glaciers began to melt, and as they melted they dropped great quantities of stone and gravel and soil made of the stones their awful strength had ground up, and the hollow where the lake had been was filled up, and the little shell says it was imbedded in the soil made by the passing and breaking up of the glacier, and a great bowlder fell on top of it, dropped by the glacier, and which was taken out of the hill only the other day, and once more this little shell saw the sun. And it says it wonders to see such creatures as we are, for though more ages ago than we can imagine it saw great animals much larger than the elephant wandering here, it never before saw anything that could understand its wonderful history, for when it last saw light God had not made man."

"Oh, Miss Isabel, is it a fairy story?" "Oh, Miss Isabel, is it true?" cried Trix and Amy together.

Margery almost sobbed in excitement; she stretched out her hand for the fossil.

"I can't think so far back," she whispered. "Before God made man!"

But Jack said, "I know; that's geology, and it's splendid. I mean to study it when I get big."

"It is all true, dears," said Miss Isabel, "and no one can 'think so far back,' nor take in the wonders of the story. And it is geology, as Jack says; but no fairy story, Amy, is half so lovely and interesting as the story that nature tells."