Sir Isaac Newton had on his table a pile of papers upon which were written calculations that had taken him twenty years to make. One evening, he left the room for a few minutes, and when he came back he found that his little dog "Diamond" had overturned a candle and set fire to the precious papers, of which nothing was left but a heap of ashes. It was then that he cried, "Oh, Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest what mischief thou hast done!"
It is said that George Washington, when a boy, destroyed his father's favorite cherry-tree, and, being asked about it, replied: "I cannot tell a lie; I did it with my little hatchet."
Oliver Cromwell, when dispersing Parliament, saw the Speaker's mace upon the table, and, pointing to it, said, "Take away that bauble!"
Just after Lord Nelson's great naval victory off Cape Trafalgar, as he was dying from a wound received in the battle, he kept repeating the words, "Thank Heaven, I have done my duty!"
Prince William, son of Henry II. of England, was drowned on his way home from France. The king was so affected by his loss that "he never smiled again."
[Fannie P. sends a complete and correct version. Willie H. Paul and Bertha Paul straightened out all of the story except the part about Lord Nelson. The versions sent by E.J. Smith, Charlie W. Jerome, Lulu Way, and John N.L. Pierson, were correct, as far as they went, but they explained only the parts that referred to King Alfred himself.]
Here is a little story sent to ST. NICHOLAS as a companion to "The Story that Wouldn't be Told," in the November number:
THE STORY NOBODY KNEW.
Once there was a little story that nobody knew, and nobody could tell it, because nobody knew it, and yet this little story wanted dearly to be told. It used to wait about where people were telling stories, and when a story was ended and the merry laugh went round, it would say to itself, "Now they will certainly tell me," but they never did. So at last this little story got quite low-spirited and wandered off by itself out of the house, and through the garden into the orchard, and there in the orchard, under an apple-tree, there was a little girl lying fast asleep among the buttercups and daisies. The little story looked all around to see that no one else was there, and then it cuddled down beside the sleeping child and whispered itself into her ear. It was so exciting, so charming, that the little girl awoke, and thought she had dreamed it all, and ran to tell her mother the beautiful dream. When she saw her mother, she cried out, "Mother! mother!" and was just about to tell the little story, when suddenly she forgot it all, and now the little story can never be told, but it still comes to good children in their dreams.