October’s touch paints all the maple leaves With brilliant crimson, and his golden kiss Lies on the clustered hazels; scarlet glows The sturdy oak, and copper-hued the beech. A russet gloss lingers in the elm; The pensile birch is yellowing apace, And many-tinted show the woodlands all, With autumn’s dying slendours. —Selected.
THE STORY OF THE OPAL
Ann de Morgan
The opal is the stone associated with the month of October.
The sun was shining brightly one day, and a little Sunbeam slid down his long golden ladder, and crept unperceived under the leaves of a large tree. All the Sunbeams are in reality tiny Sun-fairies, who run down to earth on golden ladders, which look to mortals like rays of the Sun. When they see a cloud coming they climb their ladders in an instant and draw them up after them into the Sun. The Sun is ruled by a mighty fairy, who every morning tells his tiny servants, the beams, where they are to shine, and every evening counts them on their return, to see he has the right number. It is not known, but the Sun and Moon are enemies, and that is why they never shine at the same time. The fairy of the Moon is a woman, and all her beams are tiny women, who come down on the loveliest little ladders, like threads of silver. No one knows why the Sun and Moon quarrelled. Once they were very good friends. But now they are bitter enemies, and the Sunbeams and Moonbeams may not play together.
One day a little Sunbeam crept into a tree, and sat down near a Bullfinch’s nest, and watched the Bullfinch and its mate.
“Why should I not have a mate also?” he said to himself. He was the prettiest little fellow you could imagine. His hair was bright gold, and he sat still, leaning one arm on his tiny ladder, and listening to the chatter of the birds.
“But I shall try to keep awake to-night to see her,” said a young Bullfinch.