A Child's Story Garden

by Unknown

It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with the Great Stone Face before their eyes, because all of its features were noble, so that just to look at it made one wish to be better.

This, then, was what Ernest and his mother sat looking at long after the sun had sunk behind those great piles of stones.

"Mother," said Ernest, "if I were to see a man with such a face I know I should love him."

"If an old prophecy comes true," answered his mother, "we may see a man some time or other with exactly such a face as that."

"Oh, tell me about it, mother. Will it really come true?" eagerly inquired Ernest.

Then his mother told him a story which her mother had told to her when she was a child. No one knew who had heard it first. The Indians had known it years before, and they said it had been murmured by the mountain streams and whispered by the wind among the treetops. And the story was this: At some future day—no one knew when—a child would be born in the valley who would grow up to be the noblest and greatest man of his time, and his face would look exactly like the Great Stone Face which had gazed kindly down on the valley for so many years. Many of the people in the valley said this was only a foolish tale, never to come to pass, but a few still watched and waited, hoping for the great man to come, but as yet he had not appeared.

When Ernest heard the story he clapped his hands, and said eagerly: "Oh, mother, dear mother, I do hope I shall live to see him."

The mother smiled, and, putting her hand on the boy's head, said: "Perhaps you may."

Ernest never forgot the story his mother told him. It was always in his mind whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He spent his boyhood days in the humble little cottage, helping his mother with the simple household duties, and, as he grew older, working in the fields to earn their daily bread.

Ernest was a quiet boy, but happy. There was no school in the little village, but a great teacher was there. After the day's toil was over Ernest would sit for hours watching the Great Stone Face, and to him it became the teacher of all that was good and noble. Many times, as the sunset rays tinted the side of the great mountain and lighted up all the features of the wonderful face, Ernest would imagine that it smiled on him, and perhaps it did. Who knows?