part I

never will be taken in by them. I know my own defects, I hope."

Poor Prince Hyacinth! He really believed what he said, and hadn't an idea that the people who had praised his nose were laughing at him, just as the Fairy's maid was laughing at her; for the Prince had seen her laugh slyly when she could do so without the Fairy's noticing her.

However, he said nothing, and presently, when his hunger began to be appeased, the Fairy said:

"My dear Prince, might I beg you to move a little more that way, for your nose casts such a shadow that I really cannot see what I have on my plate. Ah! thanks. Now let us speak of your father. When I went to his Court he was only a little boy, but that is forty years ago, and I have been in this desolate place ever since. Tell me what goes on nowadays; are the ladies as fond of amusement as ever? In my time one saw them at parties, theaters, balls, and promenades every day. Dear me! _What_ a long nose you have! I cannot get used to it!"

"Really, madam," said the Prince, "I wish you would leave off mentioning my nose. It cannot matter to you what it is like. I am quite satisfied with it, and have no wish to have it shorter. One must take what is given one."

"Now you are angry with me, my poor Hyacinth," said the Fairy, "and I assure you that I didn't mean to vex you; on the contrary, I wished to do you a service. However, though I really cannot help your nose being a shock to me, I will try not to say anything about it. I will even try to think that you have an ordinary nose. To tell the truth, it would make three reasonable ones."

The Prince, who was no longer hungry, grew so impatient at the Fairy's continual remarks about his nose that at last he threw himself upon his horse and rode hastily away. But wherever he came in his journey he thought the people were mad, for they all talked of his nose, and yet he could not bring himself to admit that it was too long, he had been so used all his life to hear it called handsome.

The old Fairy, who wished to make him happy, at last hit upon a plan. She shut the Dear Little Princess up in a palace of crystal, and put this palace down where the Prince could not fail to find it. His joy at seeing the Princess again was extreme, and he set to work with all his might to try to break her prison, but in spite of all his efforts he failed utterly. In despair he thought at least that he would try to get near enough to speak to the Dear Little Princess, who, on her part, stretched out her hand that he might kiss it; but turn which way he might, he never could raise it to his lips, for his long nose always prevented it. For the first time he realized how long it really was, and exclaimed:

"Well, it must be admitted that my nose _is_ too long!"

In an instant the crystal prison flew into a thousand splinters, and the old Fairy, taking the Dear Little Princess by the hand, said to the Prince:

"Now, say if you are not very much obliged to me. Much good it was for me to talk to you about your nose! You would never have found out how extraordinary it was if it hadn't hindered you from doing what you wanted to. You see how self-love keeps us from knowing our own defects of mind and body. Our reason tries in vain to show them to us; we refuse to see them till we find them in our way."

Prince Hyacinth, whose nose was now just like anyone else's, did not fail to profit by the lesson he had received. He married the Dear Little Princess, and they lived happily ever after.

CINDERELLA

BY CHARLES PERRAULT

Once there was a gentleman who married, for his second wife, the proudest and most haughty woman that was ever seen. She had, by a former husband, two daughters of her own humor, who were, indeed, exactly like her in all things. He had likewise, by his first wife, a young daughter, but of unparalleled goodness and sweetness of temper, which she took from her mother, who was the best creature in the world.

No sooner were the ceremonies of the wedding over but the step-mother began to show herself in her true colors. She could not bear the good qualities of this pretty girl, and the less because they made her own daughters appear the more odious. She employed her in the meanest work of the house: the young girl scoured the dishes, tables, etc., and scrubbed madam's chamber, and those of misses, her daughters; she lay up in a sorry garret, upon a wretched straw bed, while her sisters lay in fine rooms, with floors all inlaid, upon beds of the very newest fashion, and where they had looking glasses so large that they might see themselves at their full length from head to foot.

The poor girl bore all patiently, and dared not tell her father, who would have rattled her off; for his wife governed him entirely. When she had done her work, she used to go into the chimney-corner, and sit down among cinders and ashes, which made her commonly be called _Cinderwench_; but the youngest, who was not so rude and uncivil as the eldest, called her Cinderella. However, Cinderella, notwithstanding her mean apparel, was a hundred times handsomer than her sisters, though they were always dressed very richly.

It happened that the King's son gave a ball, and invited all persons of fashion to it. Our young misses were also invited, for they cut a very grand figure among the quality. They were mightily delighted at this invitation, and wonderfully busy in choosing out such gowns, petticoats, and head-clothes as might become them. This was a new trouble to Cinderella; for it was she who ironed her sister's linen, and plaited their ruffles; they talked all day long of nothing but how they should be dressed.

"For my part," said the eldest, "I will wear my red velvet suit with French trimming."

"And I," said the youngest, "shall have my usual petticoat; but then, to make amends for that, I will put on my gold-flowered manteau, and my diamond stomacher, which is far from being the most ordinary one in the world."

They sent for the best tire-woman they could get to dress their hair and to adjust their double pinners.

Cinderella was likewise called up to them to be consulted in all these matters, for she had excellent notions, and advised them always for the best, nay, and offered her services to dress their heads, which they were very willing she should do. As she was doing this, they said to her:

"Cinderella, would you not be glad to go to the ball?"

"Alas!" said she, "you only jeer at me; it is not for such as I am to go thither."

"Thou art in the right of it," replied they; "it would make the people laugh to see a Cinderwench at a ball."

Anyone but Cinderella would have dressed their heads awry, but she was very good, and did them perfectly well. They were almost two days without eating, so much they were transported with joy. They broke above a dozen of laces in trying to be laced up close, that they might have a fine slender shape, and they were continually at their looking-glasses. At last the happy day came; they went to Court, and Cinderella followed them with her eyes as long as she could, and when she had lost sight of them, she fell a-crying.

Her godmother, who saw her all in tears, asked her what was the matter.

"I wish I could--I wish I could--" she was not able to speak the rest, being interrupted by her tears and sobbing.

This godmother of hers, who was a fairy, said to her, "Thou wishest thou couldst go to the ball; is it not so?"

"Y--es," cried Cinderella, with a great sigh.

"Well," said her godmother, "be but a good girl, and I will contrive that thou shalt go." Then she took her into her chamber, and said to her, "Run into the garden, and bring me a pumpkin."

Cinderella went immediately to gather the finest she could get, and brought it to her godmother, not being able to imagine how this pumpkin could make her go to the ball. Her godmother scooped out all the inside of it, having left nothing but the rind; which done, she struck it with her wand, and the pumpkin was instantly turned into a fine coach, gilded all over with gold.

She then went to look into the mouse-trap, where she found six mice, all alive, and ordered Cinderella to lift up a little the trap-door, when, giving each mouse, as it went out, a little tap with her wand, the mouse was that moment turned into a fine horse, which altogether made a very fine set of six horses of a beautiful mouse-colored dapple-gray. Being at a loss for a coachman,

"I will go and see," says Cinderella, "if there should be a rat in the rat-trap--we may make a coachman of him."

"Thou art in the right," replied her godmother; "go and look."

Cinderella brought the trap to her and in it there were three huge rats. The fairy made choice of one of the three which had the largest beard, and, having touched him with her wand, he was turned into a fat, jolly coachman, who had the smartest whiskers eyes ever beheld. After that, she said to her:

"Go again into the garden, and you will find six lizards behind the watering-pot, bring them to me."

She had no sooner done so than her godmother turned them into six footmen, who skipped up immediately behind the coach, with their liveries all bedaubed with gold and silver, and clung as close behind each other as if they had done nothing else their whole lives. The Fairy then said to Cinderella:

"Well, you see here an equipage fit to go to the ball with; are you not pleased with it?"

"Oh! yes," cried she; "but must I go thither as I am, in these nasty rags?"

Her godmother only just touched her with her wand, and, at the same instant, her clothes were turned into cloth of gold and silver, all beset with jewels. This done, she gave her a pair of glass slippers, the prettiest in the whole world. Being thus decked out, she got up into her coach; but her godmother, above all things, commanded her not to stay till after midnight, telling her, at the same time, that if she stayed one moment longer, the coach would be a pumpkin again, her horses mice, her coachman a rat, her footmen lizards, and her clothes become just as they were before.

She promised her godmother she would not fail of leaving the ball before midnight; and then away she drove, scarce able to contain herself for joy. The King's son, who was told that a great princess, whom nobody knew, was come, ran out to receive her; he gave her his hand as she alighted out of the coach, and led her into the hall, among all the company. There was immediately a profound silence, they left off dancing and the violins ceased to play, so attentive was everyone to contemplate the singular beauties of the unknown new-comer. Nothing was then heard but a confused noise of:

"Ah! how handsome she is! Ah! how handsome she is!"

The King himself, old as he was, could not help watching her, and telling the Queen softly that it was a long time since he had seen so beautiful and lovely a creature.

All the ladies were busied in considering her clothes and head-dress, that they might have some made next day after the same pattern, provided they could meet with such fine materials and as able hands to make them.

The King's son conducted her to the most honorable seat, and afterward took her out to dance with him; she danced so very gracefully that they all more and more admired her. A fine collation was served up, whereof the young Prince ate not a morsel, so intently was he busied in gazing on her.

She went and sat down by her sisters, showing them a thousand civilities, giving them part of the oranges and citrons which the Prince had presented her with, which very much surprised them, for they did not know her. While Cinderella was thus amusing her sisters, she heard the clock strike eleven and three-quarters, whereupon she immediately made a courtesy to the company and hastened away as fast as she could.

Arrived at home, she ran to seek out her godmother, and, after having thanked her, she said she could not but heartily wish she might go next day to the ball, because the King's son had desired her.

As she was eagerly telling her godmother whatever had passed at the ball, her two sisters knocked at the door, which Cinderella ran and opened.

"How long you have stayed!" cried she, gaping, rubbing her eyes and stretching herself as if she had been just waked out of her sleep; she had not, however, any manner of inclination to sleep since they went from home.

"If thou hadst been at the ball," says one of her sisters, "thou wouldst not have been tired with it. There came thither the finest princess, the most beautiful ever seen with mortal eyes; she showed us a thousand civilities, and gave us oranges and citrons."

Cinderella seemed very indifferent in the matter. She did ask them the name of that princess; but they told her they did not know it, and that the King's son was very uneasy on her account and would give all the world to know who she was. At this Cinderella, smiling, replied:

"She must, then, be very beautiful indeed; how happy you have been! Could not I see her? Ah! dear Miss Charlotte, do lend me your yellow suit of clothes which you wear every day."

"Ay, to be sure!" cried Miss Charlotte; "lend my clothes to such a dirty Cinderwench as thou art! I should be a fool."

Cinderella, indeed, expected well such an answer, and was very glad of the refusal; for she would have been sadly put to it if her sister had lent her what she asked for jestingly.

The next day the two sisters were at the ball, and so was Cinderella, but dressed more magnificently than before. The King's son was always by her, and never ceased his compliments and kind speeches to her. All this was so far from being tiresome that she quite forgot what her godmother had recommended to her; so that she, at last, counted the clock striking twelve when she took it to be no more than eleven. She then rose up and fled, as nimble as a deer. The Prince followed, but could not overtake her. She left behind one of her glass slippers, which the Prince took up most carefully. She got home, but quite out of breath, and in her nasty old clothes, having nothing left her of all her finery but one of the little slippers, fellow to that she dropped.

The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a princess go out. To this they replied that they had seen nobody go out but a young girl, very meanly dressed, and who had more the air of a poor country wench than a gentlewoman.

When the two sisters returned from the ball Cinderella asked them whether they had had a good time, and if the fine lady had been there.

[Illustration]

They told her: "Yes, but she hurried away immediately when it struck twelve, and with so much haste that she dropped one of her little glass slippers, the prettiest in the world, which the King's son picked up; he did nothing but look at her all the time at the ball, and most certainly he is very much in love with the beautiful person who owned the glass slipper."

What they said was very true; for a few days after the King's son caused it to be proclaimed, by sound of trumpet, that he would marry her whose foot this slipper would just fit. They whom he employed began to try it upon the princesses, then the duchesses and all the Court, but in vain; it was brought to the two sisters, who did all they possibly could to thrust their foot into the slipper, but they could not effect it. Cinderella, who saw all this, and knew her slipper, said to them, laughing:

"Let me see if it will not fit me."

Her sisters burst out a-laughing, and began to banter her. The gentleman who was sent to try the slipper looked earnestly at Cinderella, and, finding her very handsome, said:

"It is but just that she should try, and I have orders to let everyone make trial."

He obliged Cinderella to sit down, and, putting the slipper to her foot, he found it went on very easily, and fitted her as if it had been made of wax. The astonishment her two sisters were in was excessively great, but still abundantly greater when Cinderella pulled out of her pocket the other slipper, and put it on her foot. Thereupon, in came her godmother, who, having touched with her wand Cinderella's clothes, made them richer and more magnificent than any of those she had before.

And now her two sisters found her to be that fine, beautiful lady whom they had seen at the ball. They threw themselves at her feet to beg pardon for all the ill-treatment they had made her undergo. Cinderella took them up, and, as she embraced them, cried:

"I forgive you with all my heart, and I want you to love me always."

She was conducted to the young Prince, dressed as she was; he thought her more charming than ever, and, a few days after, married her. Cinderella, who was no less good than beautiful, gave her two sisters lodgings in the palace, and that very same day matched them with two great lords of the Court.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

ADAPTED FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM

The King and Queen of a faraway country once had a little daughter, who was more beautiful than any child that had ever before been seen. Her father and mother were so delighted that they proclaimed a public holiday on her christening, and invited to act as godmothers the seven good fairies who lived in the kingdom. Unfortunately, they forgot to ask one ugly old fairy, who had remained shut up in her tower so many years that people really had forgotten about her.

When the night of the christening arrived the castle was beautiful to behold. Lights shone even to the highest tower; beautiful music sounded from behind masses of fragrant flowers; splendidly dressed knights and ladies were there to honor the little Princess; and the seven good fairies smilingly gave her their gifts.

So excited and happy were all that no one noticed an old creature who had slipped in and stood in the shadow looking on. This was the fairy who had not been invited; and, in anger at the slight, she was waiting her chance to make trouble.

"For my gift," said the first fairy, "I grant that the Princess shall be the most beautiful person in the world."

"I give her the mind of an angel," said the second.

"She shall be grace itself," said the third.

"She shall dance like a goddess," said the fourth.

"Her voice shall equal the nightingale's," said the fifth.

"The art of playing on all musical instruments shall be hers," said the sixth.

Now the wicked old enchantress thought that all seven good fairies had spoken, so she stepped forth, her face distorted with hatred and envy, and said: "So I am not thought good enough to be a guest here: you despise me because I am old and ugly. I shall make a gift, and it shall be a curse. When your fine young lady becomes sixteen she shall fall asleep, and nothing you can do will be able to waken her."

Then with a horrid laugh the hag disappeared.

Horror seized the guests, and the party, which had been so gay, became solemn indeed.

Then the seventh good fairy sprang up and said in silvery tones: "My gift is yet to be laid before the Princess. I am young, and I can not undo the evil that has befallen. But be not unhappy, for I grant that on the day when the curse falls, every living thing in the castle shall also fall asleep. Moreover, I grant that whenever there is a Prince who is brave enough to be worthy of this lovely Princess, he shall find a way to break the spell."

As the little girl grew older the words of the good fairies came true. Not only was she beautiful and gifted, but she was so kind and thoughtful that everyone loved her dearly.

At first they were very careful to tell her nothing of the wicked fairy's curse, and then there were so many other things to think about that people forgot all about the old fairy and her gift.

The sixteenth birthday arrived, and there was a very special celebration to please the Princess. The castle was decorated more beautifully, if possible, than on the night of the christening, and everyone was dancing or laughing and as happy as could be. Suddenly the old fairy stepped out from a shadow, as she had done years before, and looking at the beautiful girl said, "Sleep." Immediately not one sound or stir was in that gorgeous castle.

Now, you must forget for a bit all about the Sleeping Beauty, and hear about a noble Prince who was born many years later in a kingdom not far from this one. Not only was this Prince handsome and brave, but he was so kind and good that people called him "Prince Winsome."

All his life he had heard terrible stories about an enchanted castle, whose towers could be seen on a clear day far off above a dense forest. It was said that the trees grew so close together in this forest that when a knight attempted to force his way through, he always became entangled in the branches and perished. Many young men were said to have met this fate; so little by little people stopped trying to reach the castle.

But the little Prince was courageous. "When I am sixteen, I shall start out for the magic forest and rescue the beautiful maiden, whom, I am sure, I shall find in the castle," he said.

[Illustration: JAKOB AND WILHELM GRIMM]

True to his word, on his sixteenth birthday our Prince set off eagerly on his adventure. His courtiers urged him not to go, and his subjects pleaded with him, for they did not wish to lose their Prince. They were afraid he would die in the forest they so dreaded. They did not realize how difficulties and dangers give way before a brave, true-hearted youth.

[Illustration: THE SLEEPING BEAUTY FROM A DRAWING BY EDITH W. YAFFEE]

When Prince Winsome reached the edge of the dense forest it looked as if no man could ever enter. Great trees grew close together with their branches intertwined. So thick were they that the place looked as dark as night. When Winsome came near, a marvelous thing happened. The branches slowly untwined and the trees seemed to bend apart and make a narrow pathway for his entrance. They closed immediately after him, so that his followers were closed out and he went on alone. After a long time he found himself in the courtyard of a great castle. There was not a sound or a stir; the watchman stood sleeping at the gate, and the guards were standing as if playing a game of dice, but all were sound asleep.

Prince Winsome entered the castle hall and found it full of noble ladies and knights, servants, waiting maids, flower girls, all motionless and yet the flush of life on their cheeks. The dancers seemed about to whirl away in the waltz; the musicians bent over their violins; and a servant was in the act of passing cakes to the guests--yet they all held the same fixed position, and had since that day years before when sleep overcame them.

Advancing from room to room the same sight everywhere met our hero's eyes, but his heart began to beat faster and faster, and he knew that the object of his search was near. At last he entered the throne room and there on an ivory throne, her head resting against a satin pillow, was his longed-for Princess. She was so much more beautiful than he had even imagined that he paused in rapture; then, crossing to her, he knelt by her side and kissed her tenderly on the brow.

Then what do you think happened? The Princess smiled, drew a long breath, opened her eyes slowly, and said: "Oh, my Prince! I knew you would come." At the same moment the musicians went on just where they had stopped playing so many years before; the dancers finished their waltz; the servant offered the cakes; and no one but the Prince seemed to think the proceeding strange at all.

The Sleeping Beauty and Prince Winsome were married at once, and lived long and happily.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

There was once a merchant who was extremely rich. He had six children--three boys and three girls; and as he was a very sensible man, he spared nothing on their education, but gave them all kinds of masters. His daughters were beautiful, but the youngest had such a peculiar charm about her that even from her birth she had been called Beauty; and this name caused her sisters to feel jealous and envious of her. The reason she was so much more admired than they were, was that she was much more amiable. Her sweet face beamed with good temper and cheerfulness. No frown ever spoiled her fair brow, or bowed the corners of her mouth. She possessed the charm of good temper, which is in itself beauty.

The merchant's elder daughters were idle, ill-tempered, and proud; therefore people soon forgot that they were beautiful, and only remembered them as very disagreeable.

The pride of these young ladies was so great that they did not care to visit the daughters of men in their father's own rank of life, but wished to be the friends of great ladies and princesses.

They were always busy trying to get great acquaintances, and met with many mortifications in the effort; however, it pleased them to go out and endeavor to be people of fashion. Every day they drove in the parks, and went in the evening to balls, operas, and plays.

Meantime, Beauty spent almost all her days in studying. Her recreation was to do good. She was to be found in every poor cottage where there was trouble or sickness, and the poor loved her as much as the rich admired her. As it was known that their father was very rich, many merchants asked the girls in marriage; but all these offers were refused, because the two eldest thought they ought at least to be wives of a rich nobleman or a prince.

As for Beauty, she thanked those who asked her to share their fortunes, but told them that she was too young; that she wished to be her father's companion, and cheer his old age by her loving care.

One unhappy day the merchant returned home in the evening, and told them that he was ruined; that his ships had gone down at sea, and that the firms with which he had been dealing were bankrupt.

Beauty wept for grief, because her father was unhappy and unfortunate, and asked him what was to be done.

"Alas! my child," he replied, "we must give up our house, and go into the country. There I can get a cottage to shelter us; and we must live by the work of our own hands."

"Ah!" said Beauty eagerly, "I can spin and knit, and sew very well. I dare say I shall be able to help you, my dear father."

But the elder daughters did not speak. They had made up their minds to marry one or the other of their rejected lovers, and did not intend to share their father's fallen fortunes.

They found themselves, however, greatly mistaken. The merchants who had wished to marry them when rich cared nothing for them when poor, and never came to see them again. But those who had loved Beauty crowded to the house, and begged and besought her to marry them and share their fortunes. Beauty was grateful, but she told them that she could not leave her father in his sorrow; she must go with him to console him and work for him. The poor girl was very sorry to lose her fortune, because she could not do so much good without it; but she knew that her place was ordered for her, and that she might be quite as happy poor as rich.

Very soon the merchant's family had to leave their noble mansion, to sell off all their costly furniture, and to go into the country, where the father and his sons got work; the former as a bailiff, the latter as farm laborers. And now Beauty had to think and work for all.

She rose at four o'clock every morning. She cleaned the house; prepared the breakfast; spread it neatly, and decked the board with the sweetest flowers. Then she cooked the dinner, and when evening came and brought the laborers home, Beauty had always a cheerful welcome for them, a clean home, and a savory supper. During the hours of the afternoon she used to read and keep up her knowledge of languages; and all the time she worked she sang like a bird. Her taste made their poor home look nice, even elegant.

She was happy in doing her duty. Her early rising revealed to her a thousand beauties in nature of which she had never before dreamed.

Beauty acknowledged to herself that sunrise was finer than any picture she had ever seen; that no perfumes equalled those of the flowers; that no opera gave her so much enjoyment as the song of the lark and the serenade of the nightingale.

Her sleep was as happy and peaceful as that of a child; her awakening, cheerful, contented, and blest by heaven.

Meantime her sisters grew peevish, cross, and miserable. They would not work, and as they had nothing else to amuse them, the days dragged along, and seemed as if they would never end. They did nothing but regret the past and bewail the present. As they had no one to admire them, they did not care how they looked, and were as dirty and neglected in appearance as Beauty was neat and fresh and charming.

Perhaps they had some consciousness of the contrast between her and themselves, for they disliked the poor girl more than ever, and were always mocking her, and jesting about her wonderful fitness for being a servant.

"It is quite plain," they would say, "that you are just where you ought to be: We are ladies; but you are a low-minded girl, who have found your right place in the world."

Beauty only answered her sisters' unkind words with soft and tender ones, so there was no quarrelling, and by-and-by they became ashamed to speak to her harshly.

At the expiration of a year the merchant received intelligence of the arrival of one of his richest ships, which had escaped the storm. He prepared to set off to a distant port to claim his property; but before he went he asked each daughter what gift he should bring back for her. The eldest wished for pearls; the second for diamonds; but the third said, "Dear father, bring me a white rose."

Now it is no easy task to find a white rose in that country, yet, as Beauty was his kindest daughter, and was very fond of flowers, her father said he would try what he could do. So he kissed all three, and bade them good-by. And when the time came for him to go home, he had bought pearls and jewels for the two eldest, but he had sought everywhere in vain for the white rose; and when he went into any garden and asked for such a thing, the people laughed at him, and asked him who had ever heard of a white rose. This grieved him very much, for his third daughter was his dearest child; and as he was journeying home, thinking what he should bring her, he lost his way in a wood. The night was closing in, and as the merchant was aware that there were many bears in that country, he became very anxious to find a shelter for the night.

By-and-by he perceived afar off a light, which appeared to come from a human dwelling, and he urged on his tired horse till he gained the spot. Instead of the woodman's hut on a hill which he had expected to see, he found himself in front of a magnificent castle, built of white marble. Approaching the door, he blew a golden horn which hung from a chain by the side of it, and as the blast echoed through the wood, the door slowly unclosed, and revealed to him a wide and noble hall, illuminated by myriads of golden lamps.

He looked to see who had admitted him, but perceiving no one, he said:

"Sir porter, a weary traveler craves shelter for the night." To his amazement, two hands, without any body, moved from behind the door, and taking hold of his arm drew him gently into the hall.

He perceived that he was in a fairy palace, and putting his own hands in a friendly pressure on one of the ghostly hands, said:

"You are very kind, but I cannot leave my horse out in the cold."

The hand beckoned, and another pair of shadowy hands crossed the hall, and went outside and led away the horse to the stable.

Then the merchant's first friends led him gently onwards till he stood in a large and splendid dining-room, where a costly banquet was spread, evidently intended for him, for the hands placed a chair for him and handed him the dishes, and poured out a refreshing drink for him, and waited on him while he supped.

When his repast was over, they touched him, and beckoned to him; and following them, he found himself in a bedroom furnished with great elegance; the curtains were made of butterflies' wings sewn together.

The hands undressed the stranger, prepared him a bath of rose-water, lifted him into bed and put out the light.

Then the merchant fell asleep. He did not awake till late the next morning. The sun was streaming in through the beautiful window-curtains, and the birds were uttering their shrill cries in the woods. In that country a singing bird is as rare as a white rose.

As he sprang out of bed some bells rang a silvery chime, and he perceived that he had shaken them by his own movements, for they were attached to the golden bed-rail, and tinkled as he shook it.

At the sound the bedroom door opened, and the hands entered bearing a costly suit of clothes, all embroidered with gold and jewels. Again they prepared a bath of rose-water, and attended on and dressed the merchant. And when his toilette was completed, they led him out of his room and downstairs to a pretty little room, where breakfast awaited him.

When he had quite finished eating he thought that it was time to resume his journey; therefore, laying a costly diamond ring on the table, he said:

"Kind fairy, whoever you may be to whom I owe this hospitality, accept my thanks and this small token of my gratitude."

The hands took the gift up, and the merchant therefore considered that it was accepted. Then he left the castle and proceeded to the stables to find and saddle his horse.

The path led through a most enchanting garden full of the fairest flowers, and as the merchant proceeded, he paused occasionally to glance at the wonderful plants and choice flowers around him. Suddenly his eyes rested on a white rose-tree, which was quite weighed down by its wealth of blossoms.

He remembered his promise to his youngest daughter.

"Ah!" he thought, "at last I have found a _white_ rose. The fairy who has been so generous to me already will not grudge me a single flower from amongst so many."

And bending down, he gathered a white rose.

At that moment he was startled by a loud and terrific roar, and a fierce lion sprang on him and exclaimed in tones of thunder:

"Whoever dares to steal my roses shall be eaten up alive."

Then the merchant said: "I knew not that the garden belonged to you; I plucked only a rose as a present for my daughter; can nothing save my life?"

"No!" said the Lion, "nothing, unless you undertake to come back in a month, and bring me whatever meets you first on your return home. If you agree to this, I will give you your life; and the rose, too, for your daughter."

But the man was unwilling to do so, and said, "It may be my youngest daughter, who loves me most, and always runs to meet me when I go home." But then he thought again, "It may, perhaps, be only a cat or a dog." And at last he yielded with a heavy heart, and took the rose, and said he would give the Lion whatever should meet him first on his return.

As he came near home, it was his youngest and dearest daughter that met him; she came running out and kissed him, and welcomed him home; and when she saw that he had brought her the rose, she was still more glad.

But her father began to be very sorrowful, and to weep, saying, "Alas! my dearest child! I have bought this flower at a high price, for I have said I would give you to a wild lion, and when he has you, he will, perhaps, tear you in pieces and eat you."

And he told her all that had happened, and said she should not go, let what would come of it.

But she comforted him, and said, "Dear father, the word you have given must be kept; I will go with you to the Lion and coax him; perhaps he will let us both return safe home again."

The time now arrived for the merchant to return to the Lion's palace, and he made preparations for his dreadful journey. Beauty had so fully made up her mind to accompany him, that nothing could turn her from her purpose. Her father, seeing this, determined to take her, and they accordingly set out on their journey. The horses galloped swiftly across the forest, and speedily reached the palace. As they entered they were greeted with the most enchanting music; but no living creature was to be seen. On entering the salon, the furniture of which was of the most costly kind, they found a rich repast prepared for them, consisting of every delicacy. Beauty's heart failed her, for she feared something strange would soon happen. They, however, sat down, and partook freely of the various delicacies. As soon as they had finished, the table was cleared by the hands. Shortly afterward there was a knock at the door.

"Enter," replied the merchant; and immediately the door flew open, and the same monster that had seized the merchant entered the room.

The sight of his form terrified both the merchant and his daughter; as for Beauty, she almost fainted with fright.

But the Lion, having a handsome mantle thrown over him, advanced toward them, and seating himself opposite Beauty, said: "Well, merchant, I admire your fidelity in keeping your promise; is this the daughter for whom you gathered the rose?"

"Yes," replied the merchant; "so great is my daughter's love to me that she met me first on my return home, and she is now come here in fulfillment of my promise."

"She shall have no reason to repent it," said the Lion, "for everything in this palace shall be at her command. As for yourself, you must depart on the morrow, and leave Beauty with me. I will take care that no harm shall happen to her. You will find an apartment prepared for her." Having said this, he arose, wished them good-night, and departed.

Poor Beauty heard all that passed, and she trembled from head to foot with fear. As the night was far advanced the merchant led Beauty to the apartment prepared for her, and she retired to rest. This room was furnished in the richest manner. The chairs and sofas were magnificently adorned with jewels. The hangings were of the finest silk and gold, and on all sides were mirrors reaching from the floor to the ceiling; it contained, in fact, everything that was rich and splendid.

Beauty and her father slept soundly, notwithstanding their sorrow at the thought of so soon parting. In the morning they met in the salon, where a handsome breakfast was ready prepared, of which they partook. When they had concluded, the merchant prepared for his departure; but Beauty threw herself on his neck and wept. He also wept at the thought of leaving her in this forlorn state, but he could not delay his return forever, so at length he rushed into the courtyard, mounted his horse, and soon disappeared.

Poor Beauty, now left to herself, resolved to be as happy as she could. She amused herself by walking in the gardens and gathering the white roses, and when tired of that she read and played on the harp which she found in her room. On her dressing-table she found these lines, which greatly comforted her:

"Welcome, Beauty! dry your tears, Banish all your sighs and fears; You are queen and mistress here, Whate'er you ask for shall appear."

After amusing herself thus for some time she returned to the salon, where she found dinner ready prepared. The most delightful music was played during the whole of dinner. When Beauty had finished, the table was cleared, and the most delicious fruits were produced. At the same hour as on the preceding day the Lion rapped at the door, and asked permission to enter. Beauty was terrified, and with a trembling voice she said: "Come in." He then entered, and advancing toward Beauty, who dared not look up, he said: "Will you permit me to sit with you?" "That is as you please," replied she. "Not so," said the Lion, "for you are mistress here; and if my company is disagreeable I will at once retire."

Beauty, struck with the courtesy of the Lion, and with the friendly tone of his voice, began to feel more courageous; and she desired him to be seated. He then entered into the most agreeable conversation, which so charmed Beauty that she ventured to look up; but when she saw his terrible face she could scarcely avoid screaming aloud. The Lion, seeing this, got up, and making a respectful bow, wished her good-night. Soon after, Beauty herself retired to rest.

On the following day she amused herself as before, and began to feel more reconciled to her condition; for she had everything at her command which could promote her happiness. As evening approached she anticipated the visit of the Lion; for, notwithstanding his terrible looks, his conversation and manners were very pleasing. He continued to visit her every day, till at length she began to think he was not so terrible as she once thought him. One day when they were seated together the Lion took hold of her hand, and said in a gentle voice: "Beauty, will you marry me?" She hastily withdrew her hand, but made no reply; at which the Lion sighed deeply and withdrew. On his next visit he appeared sorrowful and dejected, but said nothing. Some weeks after he repeated the question, when Beauty replied: "No, Lion, I cannot marry you, but I will do all in my power to make you happy." "This you cannot do," replied he, "for unless you marry me I shall die." "Oh, say not so," said Beauty, "for it is impossible that I can ever marry you." The Lion then departed, more unhappy than ever.

Amidst all this, Beauty did not forget her father. One day she felt a strong desire to know how he was, and what he was doing; at that instant she cast her eyes on a mirror and saw her father lying on a sick-bed, in the greatest pain, whilst her sisters were trying on some fine dresses in another room. At this sad sight poor Beauty wept bitterly.

When the Lion came as usual he perceived her sorrow, and inquired the cause. She told him what she had seen, and how much she wished to go and nurse her father. He asked her if she would promise to return at a certain time if she went. Beauty gave him her promise, and he immediately presented her with a rose, like that which her father had plucked, saying: "Take this rose, and you may be transported to whatever place you choose; but, remember, I rely on your promise to return." He then withdrew.

Beauty felt very grateful for his kindness. She wished herself in her father's cottage, and immediately she was at the door.

[Illustration: Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art "LISTENING TO FAIRY TALES" FROM A PAINTING BY J. J. SHANNON]

Full of joy, she entered the house, ran to her father's room, and fell on her knees by his bedside and kissed him. His illness had been much increased by fretting for poor Beauty, who he thought had long since died, either from fear or by the cruel monster. He was overcome with joy on finding her still alive. He now soon began to recover under the affectionate nursing of Beauty. The two sisters were very much annoyed at Beauty's return, for they had hoped that the Lion would have destroyed her. They were greatly annoyed to see her so superbly dressed, and felt extremely vexed to think that Beauty should have clothes as splendid as a queen's, whilst they could not get anything half so fine.

Beauty related all that had passed in the Beast's palace, and told them of her promise to return on such a day. The two sisters were so very jealous that they determined to ruin her prospects if possible. The eldest said to the other: "Why should this minx be better off than we are? Let us try to keep her here beyond the time; the monster will then be so enraged with her for breaking her promise, that he will destroy her at once when she returns." "That is well thought of," replied the sister. "We will keep her."

In order to succeed, they treated Beauty with the greatest affection, and the day before her intended departure they stole the rose which she had told them was the means of conveying her in an instant wherever she might wish. Beauty was so much affected by their kindness that she was easily persuaded to remain a few days. In the meantime the envious sisters thought of enriching themselves by means of the rose, and they accordingly wished themselves in some grand place. Instead of being carried away as they expected, the rose withered, and they heard a most terrible noise, which so alarmed them that they threw down the flower and hid themselves.

Beauty was greatly troubled at the loss of her rose, and sought everywhere for it, but in vain. She happened, however, to enter her sisters' room, and, to her great joy, saw it lying withered on the floor; but as soon as she picked it up, it at once recovered all its freshness and beauty. She then remembered her broken promise, and, after taking leave of her father, she wished herself in the Beast's palace, and in an instant she was transported thither. Everything was just as she had left it; but the sweet sounds of music which used to greet her were now hushed, and there was an air of apparent gloom hanging over everything. She herself felt very melancholy, but she knew not why.

At the usual time she expected a visit from the Lion, but no Lion appeared. Beauty, wondering what all this could mean, now reproached herself for her ingratitude in not having returned as she promised. She feared the poor Beast had died of grief, and she thought that she could have married him rather than suffer him to die. She resolved to seek him in the morning in every part of the palace. After a miserable and sleepless night, she arose early and ran through every apartment, but no Lion could be seen. With a sorrowful heart she went into the garden, saying, "Oh that I had married the poor Lion who has been so kind to me; for, terrible though he is, I might have saved his life. I wish I could once more see him."

At that moment she arrived at a plot of grass where the poor Lion lay as if dead. Beauty ran toward him, and knelt by his side, and seized his paw.

He opened his eyes and said: "Beauty, you forgot your promise, in consequence of which I must die."

"No, dear Lion," exclaimed Beauty, weeping, "no, you shall not die. What can I do to save you?"

"Will you marry me?" asked he.

"Yes," replied Beauty, "to save your life."

No sooner had these words passed her lips than the lion-form disappeared, and she saw at her feet a handsome Prince, who thanked her for having broken his enchantment. He told her that a wicked magician had condemned him to wear the form of a lion until a beautiful lady should consent to marry him; a kind fairy had, however, given him the magic rose to help him.

At the same instant that the Prince was changed the whole palace became full of courtiers, all of whom had been rendered invisible when the Prince was enchanted.

The Prince now led Beauty into the palace, where she found her father. The Prince related all to him, and asked him to allow Beauty to become his wife, to which he cheerfully assented, and the nuptials were solemnized with great rejoicing.

The good fairy appeared to congratulate the Prince on his deliverance and on his marriage with Beauty. As for the two sisters, she punished them severely for their jealous and unkind behavior. But the Prince and his wife Beauty lived happily together in the royal palace for many, many years.

PRINCE DARLING

Once upon a time there was a young Prince who was so well liked by everyone in the kingdom where he lived that they named him Prince Darling.

This boy's father, the King, was a very good man, and his subjects loved and respected him for his justness and kindness. The King loved his son greatly, and he loved his subjects, too. He was very anxious to have his son grow up to be a splendid man, and a just ruler for his people. The King was no longer young, and he knew that it would not be many years before his son would be left without a father's advice. He knew, too, that the boy would succeed to the throne, and would have to see that everyone in the kingdom was treated justly and kindly.

One day a strange thing happened. The King was out hunting, when suddenly a little white rabbit leaped into his arms. The rabbit seemed to think that in the King's arms it would find protection from the dogs that were chasing it, and had nearly run it down. And the rabbit was right; for the King stroked the trembling creature gently, and said:

"The dogs shan't get you now, poor bunny!" Then the King took the rabbit home, and saw that the best care was given it.

That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, the King sat alone thinking about Prince Darling. Suddenly a beautiful lady seemed to come into the room. She was dressed in pure white, and wore a wreath of white roses on her golden hair.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" she asked in a lovely, clear voice. "I am the rabbit you rescued from the dogs in the forest this afternoon. The rabbit was really the Fairy Truth. I took the shape of a rabbit to see whether you were really as good as everyone said. Now I know you are, and I shall always be your friend. Isn't there something you want, above everything else in the world, which I can give you to repay you for your goodness to me?"

The King was amazed by the lovely Fairy and her wonderful offer. He thought at once that if only he could win the friendship of the Fairy Truth for Prince Darling, all would be well. So he said:

"Good Fairy, above all things I should like to know that you would be my son's friend. Will you?"

"Gladly. I will make him the richest or the handsomest or the most powerful Prince in the world. Which shall it be?" the Fairy inquired.

"I would not ask any of those things, good Fairy, but I would have him good, the best instead of the richest of princes. If he is good and his conscience does not trouble him, I am sure he will be happy. Riches and power and good looks, without goodness, cannot make him happy."

"That is all true," said the Fairy, "and I will do all I can to make Prince Darling good. He will have to do most of it himself, though. I can only advise him, praise him when he is good, and scold him when he is bad. But I will do all I can."

Not long after this strange happening the King died, and Prince Darling became King in his father's place. The Fairy Truth remembered her promise, and came to the palace with a present for Prince Darling.

"This little gold ring," she said, as she slipped it on his finger, "is my gift to you. I promised your father that I would be your friend. This ring will help you to keep my friendship. When it pricks you, you will know you have done something mean or unkind. It will warn you to stop doing such things. If you stop, I will be your friend; if you keep on doing wicked things, I will become your enemy."

Before Prince Darling could say a word the Fairy vanished.

The Prince was curious to know whether the ring really would do as the Fairy said. But he never felt a single prick from the ring. Then one day he was badly pricked. He came home from hunting in a horrid temper, and kicked his unoffending little dog, that was trying to be friendly, until it howled with pain.

"Really, Prince Darling, that is too bad of you." The Fairy's voice sounded quietly in his ear. "You lost your temper because things did not go just to suit you. Even if you are a prince, the world cannot always run just to suit your whims. What's worse, you hurt a poor creature who loves you. I don't think that's being the sort of a prince your father would be proud of, do you?"

The Prince was greatly embarrassed, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets to make himself seem full-grown up--so he would not cry! He promised to be good forever after.

But he wasn't, and the ring pricked him often. After a time he paid hardly any attention to the ring at all. Finally he made up his mind that a prince ought to be able to decide for himself what was right or wrong. Besides, the ring pricked so hard and so often that it made his finger bleed. So he threw it away entirely.

Just after this he met Celia, the loveliest girl he had ever seen. It seemed to him he could never be happy until he had made her his wife; and he lost no time in asking her to marry him.

"Sire, I cannot," said the girl.

The Prince was indignant, for he thought any girl should be proud to have him offer to marry her and make her Queen.

"Sire," Celia went on, "you are handsome and rich and powerful, I know; but the man I marry must be good."

This speech made the Prince so angry that he ordered his men to take Celia off to the palace as a prisoner.

[Illustration: "THIS LITTLE GOLD RING IS MY GIFT TO YOU"]

Now, the Prince had a foster-brother who was a very wicked man. When the Prince told him about Celia, he said:

"What! a peasant girl refuse to marry the Prince! How ridiculous! The whole kingdom would laugh if they knew about it."

This speech hurt the Prince's pride, and he decided to make Celia consent to marry him at any cost. He rushed off to find her. His men had given him the key to the cell where they had imprisoned her. But the cell was quite empty.

The Prince was terribly angry, and swore that he would put to death the person who had helped Celia to escape. It happened that this threat gave some of the Prince's wicked friends the very chance they wanted to get rid of the Prince's tutor, an old nobleman whom they all hated because he was good.

Soon these wicked men had everyone in the court whispering: "Yes, it was Suliman who helped Celia escape." Some men even were found who swore that Suliman himself had told them about it. When the Prince heard it he was still more angry. To think that his old tutor could treat him so! He ordered his men to arrest the supposed offender, put him in chains, as if he were a murderer, and bring him to court.

No sooner was the order given than there was a tremendous roar of thunder. The ground was still shaking when the Fairy Truth appeared.

"Until now, Prince Darling," the fairy said sternly, "I have been very gentle with you. You have been very wicked, but I have done no more than warn you that you were doing wrong and becoming the very sort of man your father, the good King, wanted you NOT to be. Now I must take stronger measures, for you have paid no attention to my warnings.

"Really you are more like the wild animals than a man and a prince. You roar with anger like a lion. You are greedy for fine food and clothes and a good time, as a wolf is greedy for its prey. You are untrue to your friends, like a treacherous snake. You even turn upon the kind tutor who was your father's firmest friend, and who would like to help you, too, if you would let him. You are as disagreeable as an angry bull, that keeps everyone out of its neighborhood, because everyone knows it is not safe to go near."

The Fairy's voice now roared forth in terrible tones, which made Prince Darling shake from head to heel:

"Therefore, I condemn you to have a hideous body like your ugly character--part lion, part wolf, part snake, and part bull."

The Prince put his hand to his head, because he felt as if he should weep at this awful sentence. He found his face covered with a lion's shaggy beard; a bull's horns had grown out of his skull. He looked at his feet: they were those of a wolf. His body was the long slimy body of a snake.

The palace had disappeared, and he stood beside a clear lake in a deep forest. He shuddered with horror when he saw his reflection in the lake. His horror turned to rage when he heard the Fairy Truth say:

"Your punishment has just begun. Your pride will be hurt still more when you fall into the hands of your own subjects. And that is what is going to happen to you."

Just as the Fairy said the Prince fell into the hands of his subjects, and in a most humiliating way, for he was caught in a trap which had been set to catch bears. Thus he was captured alive and led into the chief city of the kingdom.

There was no mourning in the town because of the Prince's death, by a thunderbolt, as they supposed. Instead, there was great rejoicing, for Suliman had been made King by the people, who were sick and tired of the way Prince Darling had misruled them.

"Long live King Suliman!" they shouted. "His rule will bring us peace and prosperity."

In the middle of the public park sat King Suliman. Just as the Prince, in his ugly disguise came up, Suliman was saying:

"Prince Darling is not dead, as you suppose. I have accepted the crown only until he comes back, for the Fairy Truth says he may still return, a good and just man like his father. For myself, I want nothing more than to see Prince Darling come back a worthy ruler for this mighty kingdom."

This speech made the Prince feel very much ashamed of himself, for it showed plainly that the Fairy was right, and that he himself had misjudged Suliman.

Meantime the Prince was put in the menagerie, and people pointed him out as a most strange beast, the only one of his sort ever found anywhere. The Prince was beginning to feel like his old, gentle self. He was even good to his keeper, although the keeper was anything but good to him.

One day a tiger broke through his cage and attacked the keeper. At first the Prince was pleased to see the keeper in danger of his life, and mused: "When he's dead and out of the way I can easily escape."

But the Prince's punishment had not been in vain, for suddenly he began to think, "Well, the poor old keeper; after all I'm sorry for him!"

Then as if by magic the bars of the Prince's cage seemed to melt away, and he rushed out to rescue the keeper who had treated him so badly. The man was more terrified than ever when he saw the huge monster loose. But imagine his amazement when the beast fell upon the tiger, instead of crushing his (the keeper's) life out, as he had feared.

Naturally the keeper was filled with gratitude. The strange beast's kindness made him feel ashamed when he remembered how badly he had treated the animal.

The keeper now tried to stroke the beast's head, by way of gratitude, when to his amazement he found himself stroking, not a wild animal, but a gentle little dog.

The keeper picked up the dog in his arms and took him to the King, to whom he told the strange story of his rescue. The Queen liked the dog, and decided to keep him for a pet. Unluckily for Prince Darling, however, she took him to the court doctor, who decided that too much food would be very bad for the dog, and ordered that he be fed nothing but bread, and very little at that! So Prince Darling prized the small amount of bread he got very highly indeed.

Once Prince Darling trotted off with his little loaf of bread--all he would get to eat that day--to a brook some distance away. Strange to tell, the brook was gone, and in its place was a huge house. Prince Darling thought the persons who lived there must be fabulously rich, because the house was made of precious stones and gold, and the people were dressed in the most elegant and expensive clothes. He heard music, and saw people feasting and dancing.

Yet the people who came out of the house presented the most forlorn appearance--ragged, and sick, and half starved. Prince Darling saw a poor young girl, and his heart was filled with pity. She was eating grass and leaves, she was so hungry. Prince Darling was hungry himself, but he thought:

"I can't be as hungry as that poor girl, and to-morrow I'll have another loaf." So he gave the bread to her, and she ate it eagerly.

Suddenly there was a great outcry, and the Prince, running in the direction whence the noise came, saw Celia being dragged against her will into this mysterious house. The poor little dog could do nothing to help her. Then he thought sadly: "I am very angry now with these terrible people who treat Celia so badly; but not long ago I was myself threatening to have her killed!"

And the little dog, feeling quite forlorn, put its tail between its legs, as dogs often do, and went off to watch the house where Celia was imprisoned.

An upper window was opened, and a girl threw out some food. The dog thought this was because the girl had a kind heart. But when it started to eat, the one to whom it had given the bread but a short time before cried out: "Stop! If you touch that you will die! That food came from the house of pleasure, and is deadly poison."

So once again the Prince found that his good action had been rewarded. And the Fairy Truth, to show her approval, transformed the little dog into a lovely white dove.

The dove flew straight into the house of pleasure, searching for Celia. No sign of her could it find there, as she had escaped. Therefore it decided to fly and fly all around the world until it did get her.

One day it came to a desert island, where no living person could be seen, nor any green tree to light upon. It searched about, and after a time found a cavern, and in it was Celia, sharing a simple meal with an old hermit.

Prince Darling flew right up to Celia, lighted on her shoulder, and tried in all the ways a dove knows to show its affection for her. Celia in return stroked it gently, although she, of course, had no idea who it was. Indeed, Celia seemed delighted to have found a new friend, and said softly:

"I am glad you have come to me, and I will care for you and love you always."

Celia did not expect the dove to understand what she said. The hermit understood, however, and asked her whether she really meant it.

"Ah! Celia," Prince Darling exclaimed, "with my whole heart I hope you do mean it!" And the astonished Celia turned and saw Prince Darling himself standing before her.

"Celia will not stop loving you now, Prince Darling," said Fairy Truth, who had been disguised as the hermit all this time. "She has loved you from the beginning, and now that you have started on the road to goodness I know she will gladly join her fate with yours."

Then Celia and Prince Darling threw themselves at the Fairy's feet, and thanked her a thousand times over for bringing them together again after all their trials.

"Come, my children," said the Fairy, "if you had not helped me I could not have brought this to pass. And now, let's go back to Prince Darling's kingdom, for I know King Suliman is waiting eagerly for a chance to give back the throne."

The Fairy had scarcely stopped speaking when they found themselves in the royal palace. King Suliman was overjoyed to see the Prince return, and gladly yielded the throne to him again.

When the Prince was crowned King for the second time he also put on again the little gold ring which he had thrown away so long before. He and Celia gave their whole hearts to the effort to govern the kingdom justly and kindly. You will know that they succeeded very well, when I tell you that the magic ring never again pricked Prince Darling's finger.

[Illustration: "PRINCE DARLING FLEW RIGHT UP TO CELIA"]

[Illustration: "ONCE UPON A TIME THERE LIVED"]

RUMPELSTILTSKIN

ADAPTED FROM THE GRIMM BROTHERS

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away from here, there lived a miller who was very proud, and a King who was exceedingly fond of money.

The miller had a lovely daughter, and he could not say enough about her beauty and cleverness. He used to tell all the men who brought their wheat to his mill, to be ground into flour, of the wonderful things this daughter could do "to perfection."

One day, in a fit of boasting, the miller told the servant who had brought flour from the King's household, that he had a daughter who could actually turn straw into pure gold by spinning it.

The messenger was astonished, and could hardly wait to get back to the palace and see the King. He knew how mad the King was about money, and wanted to be the first to tell him of the miller's extraordinary daughter, who could make him vastly rich so easily.

The King was tremendously excited by the story, just as his servant had hoped. He sent at once for the miller.

"My man," the King said, "I hear you have a daughter who can spin straw into gold. That's a fine story, but you can hardly expect me to believe it without seeing it. Have your daughter come here this evening."

So the miller went home and told his daughter that the King wanted to see her. He dared not tell her why. Naturally, the girl was pleased and flattered. She put on her best dress and braided her hair very carefully. Then she went to the palace.

"So you're the miller's daughter," said the King. "Now we'll see whether you can really spin straw into gold."

The girl thought the King must be crazy. She felt even surer of it when he took her into a great room full of straw with a spinning wheel in one corner.

A spinning wheel, you know, is an old-fashioned machine for making flax and cotton into yarn and thread.

"If you don't spin all this straw into gold before the night is over, you will die," the King said, and closed the door.

The poor little miller's daughter sat down in front of the spinning wheel and cried and cried. She didn't know how to spin straw into gold any more than you or I do, and she didn't want to die a bit.

"Well, well, what's all this crying for?" said a tiny voice at her ear.

So many queer things had happened that night that it did not seem at all strange to have a man appear out of nowhere. He was not exactly a man, though. He was just a tiny little Dwarf. And the miller's daughter told him all her troubles.

"Why, that's nothing," the little man said; "I can spin that straw into gold myself. But I won't do it for nothing. What will you give me for doing it?"

The girl had a necklace she was very proud of. She hated to part with it, but she gave it to the little man. He sat promptly down at the spinning wheel, and in a jiffy the golden straws were flying through his hands, and turning into threads of pure gold. Long before daybreak the room was full of gold instead of straw.

Early in the morning the King came. He could hardly wait to learn whether the girl had done her difficult task. When he saw the room heaped with gold he fairly danced with joy, although that was not very dignified for a King. Having one room full of gold only made him want another. So he took the miller's daughter to a larger room, where there was even more straw. Once more he told her that if she wanted to live she must turn the straw to gold.

The little Dwarf helped her out again. This time she had to pay him with her ring.

In the morning, when the King saw all the gold, he was still not satisfied. He was getting rich so easily that he hated to stop. So he had the miller's daughter led to the largest room in the palace, and had it filled with straw for her to spin into gold.

This time, however, he told the girl that if she succeeded for the third time in her task she should become his wife. "She's only the poor miller's daughter," he said to himself, "but look how rich she is."

The girl was not surprised to see the Dwarf come in. He was quite disagreeable, though, when she said she had nothing to give him this time for spinning the gold.

"What!" he said, "have you no reward for me? Then you must promise me your first child after you become Queen."

There seemed nothing to do but to promise the little fellow what he asked. "Lots of things may happen before the promise is fulfilled," she thought.

So the straw was spun into gold, and the King was greatly pleased. Soon after this the miller's daughter became Queen.

[Illustration: "THIS TIME SHE HAD TO PAY HIM WITH HER RING"]

A year passed, and the whole kingdom was celebrating the birth of a son to the King and Queen. The Queen was so happy about her child that she quite forgot the promise she had made to the manikin who had saved her life. But _he_ had not forgotten.

"Give me that child," said he one day, appearing, as was his habit, out of nowhere. The Queen was frightened, yet refused to give up her child. She offered him anything else he would name, but the child he could never have.

"The child," he answered, "is the only thing I want." Yet he was sorry for the Queen.

"Well," he said finally, "I'll let you have the child for three days. If you can tell me my name before this time is up, you can keep your little one."

The Queen sent messengers to search the country and bring her all the unusual names they could discover.

After one day the manikin came back to find out whether his name had been discovered.

"Is your name Kasper, or Melchior, or Belshayzar?" the Queen asked in a worried manner.

"Oh, no!" the little fellow said to each name she suggested.

The second day the Queen tried him with some names she had made up herself. "Perhaps they call you Sheepshanks, or Cruickshanks, or Spindleshanks?" she suggested eagerly. But each time the manikin shook his head haughtily and answered, "No!"

The poor Queen was nearly crazy with worry on the third day, and the messengers could find no more queer names. One of them, however, told this story:

"I was drawing to the top of a high hill, and the road where I was riding went through a thick wood. Not a new name had I learned all day. But suddenly I came upon a hut, and before it was a big fire. A little man was hopping madly about the fire, and singing at the top of his voice:

"'Now a feast I must prepare, Of the finest royal fare. Soon the Queen must give her son To me, for I'm the lucky one. That Rumpelstiltskin is my name, She will never guess--the silly dame.'"

The Queen was so delighted she did not even mind being called silly. Soon the manikin came in.

"Well," he said defiantly, "I guess you don't know my name yet, do you? Remember, this is your last chance."

"Oh, dear," said the Queen, pretending to be very anxious. "Is it John?"

"No!" thundered the manikin. "Give me the child."

"Is it," the Queen asked softly, "by any chance Rumpelstiltskin?"

"Some witch has told you that! Some witch had told you that!" cried the little man; and he dashed his left foot in a rage so deep into the floor that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out. Then he made the best of his way off, while everybody laughed at him for having had all his trouble for nothing.

[Illustration: "SOME WITCH HAS TOLD YOU THAT!"]

RAPUNZEL, OR THE FAIR MAID WITH GOLDEN HAIR

BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM

There were once a man and a woman who wished very much to have a little child. Now, these people had a small window in their cottage which looked out into a beautiful garden full of the most lovely flowers and vegetables. There was a high wall round it, but even had there not been no one would have ventured to enter the garden, because it belonged to a sorceress, whose power was so great that every one feared her.

One day the woman stood at the window looking into the garden, and she saw a bed which was planted full of most beautiful lettuces. As she looked at them she began to wish she had some to eat, but she could not ask for them.

Day after day her wish for these lettuces grew stronger, and the knowledge that she could not get them so worried her that at last she became so pale and thin that her husband was quite alarmed.

"What is the matter with you, dear wife?" he asked one day.

"Ah!" she said, "if I do not have some of that nice lettuce which grows in the garden behind our house, I feel that I shall die."

The husband, who loved his wife dearly, said to himself: "Rather than my wife should die, I will get some of this lettuce for her, cost what it may."

So in the evening twilight he climbed over the wall into the garden of the Witch, hastily gathered a handful of the lettuces, and brought them to his wife. She made a salad, and ate it with great eagerness.

[Illustration: THE FAIR MAIDEN WITH GOLDEN HAIR FROM A DRAWING BY EDITH W. YAFFEE]

It pleased her so much and tasted so good that, after two or three days had passed, she gave her husband no rest till he promised to get her some more. So again in the evening twilight he climbed the wall, but as he slid down into the garden on the other side he was terribly alarmed at seeing the Witch standing near him.

"How came you here?" she said with a fierce look. "You have climbed over the wall into my garden like a thief and stolen my lettuces; you shall pay dearly for this!"

"Ah!" replied the poor man, "let me entreat for mercy; I have only taken it in a case of extreme need. My wife has seen your lettuces from her window, and she wished for them so much that she said she should die if she could not have some of them to eat."

Then the Witch's anger cooled a little, and she replied: "If what you tell me is true, then I will give you full permission to take as many lettuces as you like, on one condition: you must give up to me the child which your wife may bring into the world. I will be very kind to it, and be as careful of it as a mother could be."

The husband in his alarm promised everything the Witch asked, and took away with him as many lettuces as his wife wanted.

Not many weeks after this the wife became the mother of a beautiful little girl, and in a short time the Witch appeared and claimed her according to the husband's promise. Thus they were obliged to give up their child, which she took away with her directly, and gave her the name of Letitia, but she was always called Lettice, after the name of the vegetable which grew in the garden.

Lettice was the most beautiful child under the sun, and as soon as she reached the age of twelve years the Witch locked her up in a tower that stood in a forest, and this tower had no steps, nor any entrance, excepting a little window. When the Witch, wished to visit Lettice, she would place herself under this window and sing:

"Lettice, Lettice, let down your hair, That I may climb without a stair."

Lettice had the most long and beautiful hair like spun-gold; and when she heard the voice of the Witch she would unbind her golden locks and let them fall loose over the window sill, from which they hung down to such a length that the Witch could draw herself up by them into the tower.

Two years passed in this manner, when it happened one day that the King's son rode through the forest. While passing near the tower he heard such a lovely song that he could not help stopping to listen. It was Lettice, who tried to lighten her solitude by the sound of her own sweet voice.

The King's son was very eager to obtain a glimpse of the singer, but he sought in vain for a door to the tower; there was not one to be found.

So he rode home, but the song had made such an impression on his heart that he went daily into the forest to listen. Once, while he stood behind a tree, he saw the Witch approach the tower, and heard her say:

"Lettice, Lettice, let down your hair, That I may climb without a stair."

Presently he saw a quantity of long golden hair hanging down low over the window sill, and the Witch climbing up by it.

"Oh!" said the young Prince, "if that is the ladder on which persons can mount and enter, I will take the first opportunity of trying my luck that way."

So on the following day, as it began to grow dark, he placed himself under the window, and cried:

"Lettice, Lettice, let down your hair, That I may climb without a stair."

Immediately the hair fell over the window, and the young Prince quickly climbed up and entered the room where the young maiden lived.

Lettice was dreadfully frightened at seeing a strange man come into the room through the window; but the King's son looked at her with such friendly eyes, and began to converse with her so kindly, that she soon lost all fear.

He told her that he had heard her singing, and that her song had excited such a deep emotion in his heart that he could not rest till he had seen her. On hearing this Lettice ceased to fear him, and they talked together for some time, till at length the Prince asked her if she would take him for a husband. For a time she hesitated, although she saw that he was young and handsome, and he had told her he was a prince.

At last she said to herself: "He will certainly love me better than old Mother Grethel does." So she placed her hand in his, and said: "I would willingly go with you and be your wife, but I do not know in the least how to get away from this place. Unless," she added, after a pause, "you will bring me every day some strong silk cord; then I will weave a ladder of it, and when it is finished I will descend upon it, and you shall take me away on your horse."

The Prince readily agreed to this, and promised to come and see her every evening till the ladder was finished, for the old Witch always came in the daytime.

The Witch had never seen the Prince; she knew nothing of his visits till one day Lettice said innocently: "I shall not have such a heavy weight as you to draw up much longer, Mother Grethel, for the King's son is coming very soon to fetch me away."

"You wicked child!" cried the Witch; "what do I hear you say? I thought I had hidden you from all the world, and now you have betrayed me!" In her wrath she caught hold of Lettice's beautiful hair, and struck her several times with her left hand. Then she seized a pair of scissors and cut Lettice's hair, while the beautiful locks, glistening like gold, fell to the ground. And she was so hard-hearted after this that she dragged poor Lettice out into the forest, to a wild and desert place, and left her there in sorrow and great distress.

On the same day on which the poor maiden had been exiled the Witch tied the locks of hair which she had cut off poor Lettice's golden head into a kind of tail, and hung it over the window sill.

In the evening the Prince came and cried:

"Lettice, Lettice, let down your hair, That I may climb without a stair."

Then the Witch let the hair down, and the King's son climbed up; but at the open window he found not his dear Lettice, but a wicked witch who looked at him with cruel and malicious eyes.

"Ah!" she cried with a sneer, "you are come to fetch your loving bride, I suppose; but the beautiful bird has flown from the nest, and will never sing any more. The cat has fetched it away, and she intends also to scratch your eyes out. To thee is Lettice lost; thou wilt never behold her again!"

The Prince felt almost out of his mind with grief as he heard this, and in his despair he sprang out of the tower window and fell among the thorns and brambles beneath. He certainly escaped with his life, but the thorns stuck into his eyes and blinded them. After this he wandered about the wood for days, eating only wild roots and berries, and did nothing but lament and weep for the loss of his beloved bride.

So wandered he for a whole year in misery, till at last he came upon the desert place where Lettice had been banished and lived in her sorrow.

As he drew near he heard a voice which he seemed to recognize, and advancing toward the sound came within sight of Lettice, who recognized him at once, with tears. Two of her tears fell on his eyes, and so healed and cleared them of the injury done by the thorns that he could soon see as well as ever. Then he traveled with her to his kingdom, and she became his wife, and the remainder of their days were spent in happiness and content.

SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED

BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM

There was once a poor Widow, who lived alone in her hut with her two children, who were called Snow-White and Rose-Red, because they were like the flowers which bloomed on two rose-bushes which grew before the cottage. But they were two as pious, good, industrious, and amiable children as any that were in the world, only Snow-White was more quiet and gentle than Rose-Red. For Rose-Red would run and jump about the meadows, seeking flowers, and catching butterflies, while Snow-White sat at home helping her Mother to keep house, or reading to her, if there were nothing else to do.

The two children loved one another dearly, and always walked hand-in-hand when they went out together; and ever when they talked of it they agreed that they would never separate from each other, and that whatever one had the other should share. Often they ran deep into the forest and gathered wild berries; but no beast ever harmed them. For the hare would eat cauliflowers out of their hands, the fawn would graze at their side, the goats would frisk about them in play, and the birds remained perched on the boughs singing as if nobody were near.

No accidents ever befell them; and if they stayed late in the forest, and night came upon them, they used to lie down on the moss and sleep till morning; and because their Mother knew they would do so, she felt no concern about them. One time when they had thus passed the night in the forest, and the dawn of morning awoke them, they saw a beautiful Child dressed in shining white sitting near their couch. She got up and looked at them kindly, but without saying anything went into the forest; and when the children looked round they saw that where they had slept was close to the edge of a pit, into which they would have certainly fallen had they walked a couple of steps further in the dark.

Their Mother told them the figure they had seen was, doubtless, the good angel who watches over children.

Snow-White and Rose-Red kept their Mother's cottage so clean that it was a pleasure to enter it. Every morning in the summertime Rose-Red would first put the house in order, and then gather a nosegay for her Mother, in which she always placed a bud from each rose-tree. Every winter's morning Snow-White would light the fire and put the kettle on to boil, and, although the kettle was made of copper, it yet shone like gold, because it was scoured so well. In the evenings, when the flakes of snow were falling, the Mother would say, "Go, Snow-White, and bolt the door;" and then they used to sit down on the hearth, and the Mother would put on her spectacles and read out of a great book while her children sat spinning. By their side, too, lay a little lamb, and on a perch behind them a little white dove reposed with her head tucked under her wing.

One evening when they were thus sitting comfortably together, there came a knock at the door, as if somebody wished to come in. "Make haste, Rose-Red," cried her Mother; "make haste and open the door; perhaps there is some traveler outside who needs shelter."

So Rose-Red went and drew the bolt and opened the door, expecting to see some poor man outside; but instead, a great fat bear poked his black head in. Rose-Red shrieked out and ran back, the little lamb bleated, the dove fluttered on her perch, and Snow-White hid herself behind her Mother's bed. The Bear, however, began to speak, and said, "Be not afraid, I will do you no harm; but I am half frozen, and wish to come in and warm myself."

"Poor Bear!" cried the Mother; "come in and lie down before the fire; but take care you do not burn your skin;" and then she continued, "Come here, Rose-Red and Snow-White, the Bear will not harm you, he means honorably." So they both came back, and by degrees the lamb too and the dove overcame their fears and welcomed the rough visitor.

"You children!" said the Bear, before he entered, "come and knock the snow off my coat." And they fetched their brooms and swept him clean. Then he stretched himself before the fire and grumbled out his satisfaction, and in a little while the children became familiar enough to play tricks with the unwieldy animal. They pulled his long shaggy skin, set their feet upon his back and rolled him to and fro, and even ventured to beat him with a hazel-stick, laughing when he grumbled. The Bear bore all their tricks good-temperedly, and if they hit too hard he cried out,--

"Leave me my life, you children, Snow-White and Rose-Red, Or you'll never wed."

When bedtime came and the others were gone, the Mother said to the Bear, "You may sleep here on the hearth if you like, and then you will be safely protected from the cold and bad weather."

As soon as day broke the two children let the Bear out again, and he trotted away over the snow, and ever afterward he came every evening at a certain hour. He would lie down on the hearth and allow the children to play with him as much as they liked, till by degrees they became so accustomed to him that the door was left unbolted till their black friend arrived.

But as soon as spring returned, and everything out of doors was green again, the Bear one morning told Snow-White that he must leave her, and could not return during the whole summer. "Where are you going, then, dear Bear?" asked Snow-White. "I am obliged to go into the forest and guard my treasures from the evil Dwarfs; for in winter, when the ground is hard, they are obliged to keep in their holes and cannot work through; but now, since the sun has thawed the earth and warmed it, the Dwarfs pierce through and steal all they can find; and what has once passed into their hands, and gets concealed by them in their caves, is not easily brought to light."

Snow-White, however, was very sad at the departure of the Bear, and opened the door so hesitatingly, that when he pressed through it he left behind on the latch a piece of his hairy coat; and through the hole which was made in his coat Snow-White fancied she saw the glittering of gold, but she was not quite certain of it. The Bear, however, ran hastily away, and was soon hidden behind the trees.

Some time afterward the Mother sent the children into the woods to gather sticks, and while doing so they came to a tree which was lying across the path, on the trunk of which something kept bobbing up and down from the grass, and they could not imagine what it was. When they came nearer they saw a Dwarf, with an old wrinkled face and a snow-white beard a yard long. The end of this beard was fixed in a split of the tree, and the little man kept jumping about like a dog tied by a chain, for he did not know how to free himself. He glared at the Maidens with his red, fiery eyes, and exclaimed, "Why do you stand there? Are you going to pass without offering me any assistance?"

"What have you done, little man?" asked Rose-Red.

"You stupid, gazing goose!" exclaimed he, "I wanted to have split the tree in order to get a little wood for my kitchen, for the little food which we use is soon burnt up with great faggots, not like what you rough greedy people devour! I had driven the wedge in properly, and everything was going on well, when the smooth wood flew upward, and the tree closed so suddenly together, that I could not draw my beautiful beard out; and here it sticks, and I cannot get away. There, don't laugh, you milk-faced things! Are you dumbfounded?"

The children took all the pains they could to pull the Dwarf's beard out, but without success. "I will run and fetch some help," cried Rose-Red at length.

"Crack-brained sheep's-head that you are!" snarled the Dwarf; "what are you going to call other people for? You are two too many now for me; can you think of nothing else?"

"Don't be impatient," replied Snow-White: "I have thought of something;" and pulling her scissors out of her pocket, she cut off the end of the beard. As soon as the Dwarf found himself at liberty he snatched up his sack, which laid between the roots of the tree filled with gold, and, throwing it over his shoulder, marched off, grumbling, and groaning, and crying "Stupid people! to cut off a piece of my beautiful beard. Plague take you!" And away he went without once looking at the children.

Some time afterward Snow-White and Rose-Red went a-fishing and as they neared the pond they saw something like a great locust hopping about on the bank, as if going to jump into the water. They ran up and recognized the Dwarf; "What are you after?" asked Rose-Red; "you will fall into the water."

"I am not quite such a simpleton as that," replied the Dwarf; "but do you not see this fish will pull me in?"

The little man had been sitting there angling, and, unfortunately, the wind had entangled his beard with the fishing-line; and so when a great fish bit at the bait, the strength of the weak little fellow was not able to draw it out, and the fish had the best of the struggle. The Dwarf held on by the reeds and rushes which grew near, but to no purpose, for the fish pulled him where it liked, and he must soon have been drawn into the pond. Luckily just then the two Maidens arrived, and tried to release the beard of the Dwarf from the fishing-line, but both were too closely entangled for it to be done. So the Maiden pulled out her scissors again and cut off another piece of the beard.

When the Dwarf saw this done he was in a great rage, and exclaimed, "You donkey! that is the way to disfigure my face. Was it not enough to cut it once, but you must now take away the best part of my fine beard? I dare not show myself again now to my own people. I wish you had run the soles off your boots before you had come here!" So saying he took up a bag of pearls, which lay among the rushes, and, without speaking another word, slipped off and disappeared behind a stone.

Not many days after this adventure, it chanced that the Mother sent the two Maidens to the next town to buy thread, needles and pins, laces, and ribbons. Their road passed over a common, on which, here and there, great pieces of rock were lying about. Just over their heads they saw a great bird flying round and round, and every now and then dropping lower and lower, till at last it flew down behind a rock. Immediately afterward they heard a piercing shriek, and, running up, they saw with affright that the eagle had caught their old acquaintance, the Dwarf, and was trying to carry him off. The compassionate children thereupon laid hold of the little man, and held him fast till the bird gave up the struggle and flew off.

As soon, then, as the Dwarf had recovered from his fright, he exclaimed in his squeaking voice:

"Could you not hold me more gently? You have seized my fine brown coat in such a manner that it is all torn and full of holes, meddling and interfering rubbish that you are!" With these words he shouldered a bag filled with precious stones, and slipped away to his cave among the rocks.

The Maidens were now accustomed to his ingratitude, and so they walked on to the town and transacted their business there. Coming home they returned over the same common, and unawares walked up to a certain clean spot, on which the Dwarf had shaken out his bag of precious stones, thinking nobody was near. The sun was shining and the bright stones glittered in its beams, and displayed such a variety of colors that the two Maidens stopped to admire them.

[Illustration: THE TWO MAIDENS ARRIVED AND TRIED TO RELEASE THE BEARD OF THE DWARF]

"What are you standing there gaping for?" asked the Dwarf, while his face grew as red as copper with rage: he was continuing to abuse the poor Maidens, when a loud roaring noise was heard, and presently a great black Bear came rolling out of the forest. The Dwarf jumped up terrified, but he could not gain his retreat before the Bear overtook him. Thereupon he cried out, "Spare me, my dear Lord Bear! I will give you all my treasures. See these beautiful precious stones which lie here; only give me my life; for what have you to fear from a little fellow like me? You could not touch me with your big teeth. There are two wicked girls, take them; they would make nice morsels; as fat as young quails; eat them, for heaven's sake!"

The Bear, however, without troubling himself to speak, gave the bad-hearted Dwarf a single blow with his paw, and he never stirred after.

The Maidens were then going to run away, but the Bear called after them, "Snow-White and Rose-Red, fear not! Wait a bit, and I will accompany you." They recognized his voice and stopped; and when the Bear came, his rough coat suddenly fell off, and he stood up a tall man, dressed entirely in gold. "I am a King's son," he said, "and was condemned by the wicked Dwarf, who stole all my treasures, to wander about in this forest in the form of a bear till his death released me."

Then they went home, and Snow-White was married to the Prince, and Rose-Red to his brother, with whom they shared the immense treasure which the Dwarf had collected. The old Mother also lived for many years happily with her two children; and the rose-trees which had stood before the cottage were planted now before the palace, and produced every year beautiful red and white roses.

HANSEL AND GRETHEL

BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM

Once upon a time there dwelt near a large wood a poor wood-cutter, with his wife and two children by his former marriage, a little boy called Hansel, and a girl named Grethel. He had little enough to break or bite; and once, when there was a great famine in the land, he could not procure even his daily bread; and as he lay thinking in his bed one evening, rolling about for trouble, he sighed, and said to his wife, "What will become of us? How can we feed our children, when we have no more than we can eat ourselves?"

"Know, then, my husband," answered she, "we will lead them away, quite early in the morning, into the thickest part of the wood, and there make them a fire, and give them each a little piece of bread; then we will go to our work, and leave them alone, so they will not find the way home again, and we shall be freed from them." "No, wife," replied he, "that I can never do;, how can you bring your heart to leave my children all alone in the wood; for the wild beasts will soon come and tear them to pieces?"

"Oh, you simpleton!" said she, "then we must all four die of hunger; you had better plane the coffins for us." But she left him no peace till he consented, saying, "Ah, but I shall regret the poor children."

The two children, however, had not gone to sleep for very hunger, and so they overheard what the stepmother said to their father. Grethel wept bitterly, and said to Hansel, "What will become of us?" "Be quiet, Grethel," said he; "do not cry--I will soon help you." And as soon as their parents had fallen asleep, he got up, put on his coat, and, unbarring the back door, slipped out. The moon shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay before the door seemed like silver pieces, they glittered so brightly. Hansel stooped down, and put as many into his pocket as it would hold; and then going back he said to Grethel, "Be comforted, dear sister, and sleep in peace; God will not forsake us." And so saying, he went to bed again.

The next morning, before the sun arose, the wife went and awoke the two children. "Get up, you lazy things; we are going into the forest to chop wood." Then she gave them each a piece of bread, saying, "There is something for your dinner; do not eat it before the time, for you will get nothing else." Grethel took the bread in her apron, for Hansel's pocket was full of pebbles; and so they all set out upon their way. When they had gone a little distance, Hansel stood still, and peeped back at the house; and this he repeated several times, till his father said, "Hansel, what are you peeping at, and why do you lag behind? Take care, and remember your legs."

"Ah, father," said Hansel, "I am looking at my white cat sitting upon the roof of the house, and trying to say good-by." "You simpleton!" said the wife, "that is not a cat; it is only the sun shining on the white chimney." But in reality Hansel was not looking at a cat; but every time he stopped, he dropped a pebble out of his pocket upon the path.

[Illustration: GRETHEL AND THE WITCH FROM A DRAWING BY MALCOLM PATTERSON]

When they came to the middle of the wood, the father told the children to collect wood, and he would make them a fire, so that they should not be cold. So Hansel and Grethel gathered together quite a little mountain of twigs. Then they set fire to them; and as the flame burnt up high, the wife said, "Now, you children, lie down near the fire, and rest yourselves, whilst we go into the forest and chop wood; when we are ready, I will come and call you."

Hansel and Grethel sat down by the fire, and when it was noon, each ate the piece of bread; and because they could hear the blows of an axe they thought their father was near; but it was not an axe, but a branch which he had bound to a withered tree, so as to be blown to and fro by the wind. They waited so long, that at last their eyes closed from weariness, and they fell fast asleep. When they awoke, it was quite dark, and Grethel began to cry, "How shall we get out of the wood?" But Hansel tried to comfort her by saying, "Wait a little while till the moon rises, and then we will quickly find the way." The moon soon shone forth, and Hansel, taking his sister's hand, followed the pebbles, which glittered like new-coined silver pieces, and showed them the path. All night long they walked on, and as day broke they came to their father's house. They knocked at the door, and when the wife opened it, and saw Hansel and Grethel, she exclaimed, "You wicked children! why did you sleep so long in the wood? We thought you were never coming home again." But their father was very glad, for it had grieved his heart to leave them all alone.

Not long afterward there was again great scarcity in every corner of the land; and one night the children overheard their mother saying to their father, "Everything is again consumed; we have only half a loaf left, and then the song is ended: the children must be sent away. We will take them deeper into the wood, so that they may not find the way out again: it is the only means of escape for us."

But her husband felt heavy at heart, and thought, "It were better to share the last crust with the children." His wife, however, would listen to nothing that he said, and scolded and reproached him without end.

He who says A must say B too; and he who consents the first time must also the second.

The children, however, had heard the conversation as they lay awake, and as soon as the old people went to sleep Hansel got up, intending to pick up some pebbles as before; but the wife had locked the door, so that he could not get out. Nevertheless he comforted Grethel, saying, "Do not cry; sleep in quiet; the good God will not forsake us."

Early in the morning the stepmother came and pulled them out of bed, and gave them each a slice of bread, which was still smaller than the former piece. On the way, Hansel broke his in his pocket, and, stooping every now and then, dropped a crumb upon the path. "Hansel, why do you stop and look about?" said the father, "keep in the path." "I am looking at my little dove," answered Hansel, "nodding a good-by to me." "Simpleton!" said the wife, "that is no dove, but only the sun shining on the chimney." But Hansel still kept dropping crumbs as he went along.

The mother led the children deep into the wood, where they had never been before, and there making an immense fire, she said to them, "Sit down here and rest, and when you feel tired you can sleep for a little while. We are going into the forest to hew wood, and in the evening, when we are ready, we will come and fetch you."

When noon came Grethel shared her bread with Hansel, who had strewn his on the path. Then they went to sleep; but the evening arrived and no one came to visit the poor children, and in the dark night they awoke, and Hansel comforted his sister by saying, "Only wait, Grethel, till the moon comes out, then we shall see the crumbs of bread which I have dropped, and they will show us the way home." The moon shone and they got up, but they could not see any crumbs, for the thousands of birds which had been flying about in the woods and fields had picked them all up. Hansel kept saying to Grethel, "We will soon find the way;" but they did not, and they walked the whole night long and the next day, but still they did not come out of the wood; and they got so hungry, for they had nothing to eat but the berries which they found upon the bushes. Soon they got so tired that they could not drag themselves along, so they lay down under a tree and went to sleep.

It was now the third morning since they had left their father's house, and they still walked on; but they only got deeper and deeper into the wood, and Hansel saw that if help did not come very soon they would die of hunger. As soon as it was noon they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting upon a bough, which sang so sweetly that they stood still and listened to it. It soon left off, and spreading its wings flew off; and they followed it until it arrived at a cottage, upon the roof of which it perched; and when they went close up to it they saw that the cottage was made of bread and cakes, and the window-panes were of clear sugar.

"We will go in here," said Hansel, "and have a glorious feast. I will eat a piece of the roof, and you can eat the window. Will they not be sweet?" So Hansel reached up and broke a piece off the roof, in order to see how it tasted; while Grethel stepped up to the window and began to bite it. Then a sweet voice called out in the room, "Tip-tap, tip-tap, who raps at my door?" and the children answered, "The wind, the wind, the child of heaven;" and they went on eating without interruption. Hansel thought the roof tasted very nice, and so he tore off a great piece; while Grethel broke a large round pane out of the window, and sat down quite contentedly. Just then the door opened, and a very old woman, walking upon crutches, came out. Hansel and Grethel were so frightened that they let fall what they had in their hands; but the old woman, nodding her head, said "Ah, you dear children, what has brought you here? Come in and stop with me, and no harm shall befall you;" and so saying she led them into her cottage. A good meal of milk and pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts was spread on the table, and in the back room were two nice little beds, covered with white, where Hansel and Grethel laid themselves down, and thought themselves in heaven. The old woman behaved very kindly to them, but in reality she was a wicked witch who waylaid children and built the breadhouse in order to entice them in; but as soon as they were in her power she killed them, cooked and ate them, and made a great festival of the day. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see very far; but they have a fine sense of smelling, like wild beasts, so that they know when children approach them. When Hansel and Grethel came near the witch's house she laughed wickedly, saying, "Here come two who shall not escape me." And early in the morning, before they awoke, she went up to them, and saw how lovingly they lay sleeping, with their chubby red cheeks; and she mumbled to herself, "That will be a good bite." Then she took up Hansel with her rough hand, and shut him up in a little cage with a lattice-door; and although he screamed loudly it was of no use. Grethel came next, and, shaking her till she awoke, she said, "Get up, you lazy thing, and fetch some water to cook something good for your brother, who must remain in that stall and get fat; when he is fat enough I shall eat him." Grethel began to cry, but it was all useless, for the old witch made her do as she wished. So a nice meal was cooked for Hansel, but Grethel got nothing else but a crab's claw.

Every morning the old witch came to the cage and said, "Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel whether you are getting fat." But Hansel used to stretch out a bone, and the old woman, having very bad sight, thought it was his finger, and wondered very much that he did not get more fat. When four weeks had passed, and Hansel still kept quite lean, she lost all her patience, and would not wait any longer. "Grethel," she called out in a passion, "get some water quickly; be Hansel fat or lean, this morning I will kill and cook him." Oh, how the poor little sister grieved, as she was forced to fetch the water, and fast the tears ran down her cheeks! "Dear good God, help us now!" she exclaimed. "Had we only been eaten by the wild beasts in the wood, then we should have died together." But the old witch called out, "Leave off that noise; it will not help you a bit."

So early in the morning Grethel was forced to go out and fill the kettle, and make a fire. "First, we will bake, however," said the old woman; "I have already heated the oven and kneaded the dough;" and so saying, she pushed poor Grethel up to the oven, out of which the flames were burning fiercely. "Creep in," said the witch, "and see if it is hot enough, and then we will put in the bread;" but she intended when Grethel got in to shut up the oven and let her bake, so that she might eat her as well as Hansel. Grethel perceived what her thoughts were, and said, "I do not know how to do it; how shall I get in?" "You stupid goose," said she, "the opening is big enough. See, I could even get in myself!" and she got up, and put her head into the oven. Then Grethel gave her a push, so that she fell right in, and then shutting the iron door she bolted it. Oh! how horribly she howled; but Grethel ran away, and left the ungodly witch to burn to ashes.

[Illustration: "SHE LED THEM INTO HER COTTAGE"]

Now she ran to Hansel, and, opening his door, called out, "Hansel, we are saved; the old witch is dead." So he sprang out, like a bird out of his cage when the door is opened; and they were so glad that they fell upon each other's neck, and kissed each other over and over again. And now, as there was nothing to fear, they went into the witch's house, where in every corner were caskets full of pearls and precious stones. "These are better than pebbles," said Hansel, putting as many into his pocket as it would hold; while Grethel thought, "I will take some home too," and filled her apron full. "We must be off now," said Hansel, "and get out of this enchanted forest;" but when they had walked for two hours they came to a large piece of water. "We cannot get over," said Hansel; "I can see no bridge at all." "And there is no boat either," said Grethel, "but there swims a white duck, I will ask her to help us over;" and she sang:

"Little Duck, good little duck, Grethel and Hansel, here we stand; There is neither stile nor bridge, Take us on your back to land."

So the Duck came to them, and Hansel sat himself on, and bade his sister sit behind him. "No," answered Grethel, "that will be too much for the Duck, she shall take us over one at a time." This the good little bird did, and when both were happily arrived on the other side, and had gone a little way, they came to a well-known wood, which they knew the better every step they went, and at last they perceived their father's house. Then they began to run, and, bursting into the house, they fell on their father's neck. He had not had one happy hour since he had left the children in the forest: and his wife was dead. Grethel shook her apron, and the pearls and precious stones rolled out upon the floor, and Hansel threw down one handful after the other out of his pocket. Then all their sorrows were ended, and they lived in happiness.

My tale is done. There runs a mouse; whoever catches her may make a great, great cap out of her fur.

[Illustration: Reproduced by special permission of the Artist TWINS FROM A PAINTING BY JOSEPH T. PEARSON, JR.]

[Illustration: STORIES BY FAVORITE AMERICAN WRITERS]

THE FLAG-BEARER

BY CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY

The primary class had a very beautiful American flag, and some child was going to carry it from the schoolroom across the park and into the Town Hall on the holiday. All the primary children would march after the flag, and they were going to sing "America" and "The Star Spangled Banner." It would be a wonderful day and each child wanted to carry the flag.

No one was sure who would be chosen as flag-bearer, but their teacher had said the week before: "It will be the child who loves his country the most who will carry the Stars and Stripes. Try and do something for your country during the week."

So the children had been very busy ever since doing all sorts of things that would show how they loved their country.

Marjory had been knitting for soldiers. Her grandmother had given her a pair of pretty yellow needles and a ball of soft gray yarn and had started a scarf. But the stitches would drop, and there was still enough snow for sliding on the hill back of Marjory's house. Her knitting was not much further along on Saturday than on Monday.

"I will show how much I love my country," Hubert said, and he asked his mother to take the gilt buttons from his great-grandfather's soldier coat that hung in the attic and sew them on his reefer. Then he showed the bright buttons to all the other children, and they thought that Hubert looked very fine indeed.

"I shall wear them when I carry the flag next week," Hubert told them.

But the children thought that perhaps Roger would be chosen as flag-bearer because he bought such a large flag with the money in his bank, and put it up on the flagpole in his front yard. Roger's father helped him raise the flag on a rope so that he could pull it down at night, but once the Stars and Stripes were flying Roger forgot all about them. His flag stayed out in the wind and sleet, and its bright colors faded and the stripes were torn.

After all, the children decided, it would be Edward who would carry the flag. Edward had a dog named Trusty, and he decided to train him to be a Red Cross dog. He put a white band with a red cross on it around Trusty and harnessed him to a little express wagon to carry bundles. Trusty had never worn a harness in his life, or been fastened to anything. He tried to get away from the wagon, but Edward strapped the harness more tightly. The straps hurt Trusty, and it hurt his feelings to be made to drag the cart; but Edward drove him to and from the drug-store and the grocery and the butcher's, carrying the parcels that Edward had always brought alone before.

The other children, too, all tried to do unusual things to win themselves the place of flag-bearer. They played their drums in the street and made soldier caps and wooden swords and drilled. The little girls dressed up and played army nurse with their dolls. The boys bought toy soldiers and horns at the toy shop. There was a great deal of noise everywhere.

Then it was the holiday, and everyone was greatly excited over what was going to happen. Whoever had a red ribbon, or a blue necktie, or a red-white-and-blue badge felt very proud indeed to wear it. Every child sat as still as a mouse as the teacher spoke to them.

"Marjory showed me five rows that she had knitted for a soldier when I went to her house a few days ago," she said. "I wonder how many rows she has finished now?"

"Only five," Marjory said softly.

Hubert touched the buttons on his reefer and sat up very straight in his place.

"I am wearing my great-grandfather's soldier buttons," he said.

"That ought to make you feel as brave as he was, when he earned the right to wear them in battle," the teacher said; and Hubert suddenly thought that gilt buttons had not made him into a soldier at all.

The other children began to think, too, as they looked up at the Stars and Stripes at the end of the room. Edward remembered how the harness had hurt Trusty, and the boy with the drum remembered how he had awakened the baby from her nap. Roger thought of his torn flag, flapping in the wind on the top of the flagpole. No one said anything until the teacher looked at the end of the class and smiled, and said:

"Well, Peter!"

Peter smiled back, and tried to cover up the holes in his jacket sleeves, and tucked his old shoes under the seat. Peter's father had gone to be a soldier, and there were his mother, and the two babies, and his grandfather who was blind, at home.

"What have you been doing all the week, Peter?" the teacher asked.

"Tending the babies so that mother could go to the factory and sew the soldiers' uniforms," Peter said. "And leading grandfather out for a walk when it was a sunny day."

"Peter's got a little flag hanging out of the window," one of the children said, "and he's so careful of it. He takes it in every night and puts it out again in the morning."

"He saluted the flag and took off his hat to it when the parade went by the other day," said another child. Everyone loved merry, ragged Peter, who could play so gayly when he had time for a game.

Just then they heard the band outside. It was playing, "The Red, White and Blue," the music to which the children were to march with the flag.

"Who shall be our flag-bearer?" the teacher asked.

The children knew now. They were quite sure.

"Peter!" they said.

So Peter carried the Stars and Stripes across the park and into the Town Hall, with all the primary children marching like soldiers behind. The wind blew it around him like a cloak to cover up the holes in his jacket sleeves and his old shoes. Wherever he looked he could see the colors; the sky was as blue as the field in the flag, a few snow stars lay on the ground and the first robin redbreast sang on a branch over his head. And the children following Peter knew what the colors told them to do for their country--to be brave, and good, and true at home.

JOHNNY CHUCK FINDS THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD[A]

BY THORNTON W. BURGESS

Old Mother West Wind had stopped to talk with the Slender Fir Tree.

"I've just come across the Green Meadows," said Old Mother West Wind, "and there I saw the Best Thing in the World."

Striped Chipmunk was sitting under the Slender Fir Tree, and he couldn't help hearing what Old Mother West Wind said. "The Best Thing in the World--now what can that be?" thought Striped Chipmunk. "Why, it must be heaps and heaps of nuts and acorns! I'll go and find it."

So Striped Chipmunk started down the Lone Little Path through the wood as fast as he could run. Pretty soon he met Peter Rabbit.

"Where are you going in such a hurry, Striped Chipmunk?" asked Peter Rabbit.

"Down in the Green Meadows to find the Best Thing in the World," replied Striped Chipmunk, and ran faster.

"The Best Thing in the World," said Peter Rabbit, "why, that must be a great pile of carrots and cabbage! I think I'll go and find it."

So Peter Rabbit started down the Lone Little Path through the wood as fast as he could go after Striped Chipmunk.

As they passed the great hollow tree Bobby Coon put his head out. "Where are you going in such a hurry?" asked Bobby Coon.

"Down in the Green Meadows to find the Best Thing in the World!" shouted Striped Chipmunk and Peter Rabbit, and both began to run faster.

"The Best Thing in the World," said Bobby Coon to himself; "why, that must be a whole field of sweet milky corn. I think I'll go and find it."

So Bobby Coon climbed down out of the great hollow tree and started down the Lone Little Path through the wood as fast as he could go after Striped Chipmunk and Peter Rabbit, for there is nothing that Bobby Coon likes to eat so well as sweet milky corn.

At the edge of the wood they met Jimmy Skunk.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" asked Jimmy Skunk.

"Down in the Green Meadows to find the Best Thing in the World!" shouted Striped Chipmunk, and Peter Rabbit, and Bobby Coon. Then they all tried to run faster.

"The Best Thing in the World," said Jimmy Skunk. "Why, that must be packs and packs of beetles!" And for once in his life Jimmy Skunk began to hurry down the Lone Little Path after Striped Chipmunk, and Peter Rabbit, and Bobby Coon.

They were all running so fast that they didn't see Reddy Fox until he jumped out of the long grass and asked:

"Where are you going in such a hurry?"

"To find the Best Thing in the World!" shouted Striped Chipmunk, and Peter Rabbit, and Bobby Coon, and Jimmy Skunk, and each did his best to run faster.

"The Best Thing in the World," said Reddy Fox to himself, "why, that must be a whole pen full of tender young chickens, and I must have them."

So away went Reddy Fox as fast as he could run down the Lone Little Path after Striped Chipmunk, Peter Rabbit, Bobby Coon, and Jimmy Skunk.

By-and-by they all came to the house of Johnny Chuck.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" asked Johnny Chuck.

"To find the Best Thing in the World," shouted Striped Chipmunk, and Peter Rabbit, and Bobby Coon, and Jimmy Skunk, and Reddy Fox.

"The Best Thing in the World," said Johnny Chuck. "Why, I don't know of anything better than my own little home, and the warm sunshine, and the beautiful blue sky."

So Johnny Chuck stayed at home and played all day among the flowers with the Merry Little Breezes of Old Mother West Wind, and was as happy as could be.

But all day long Striped Chipmunk, and Peter Rabbit, and Reddy Fox, and Bobby Coon, and Jimmy Skunk, ran this way and ran that way over the Green Meadows trying to find the Best Thing in the World. The sun was very, very warm, and they ran so far and ran so fast that they were very, very hot and tired, and still they hadn't found the Best Thing in the World.

When the long day was over they started up the Lone Little Path past Johnny Chuck's house to their own homes. They didn't hurry now, for they were so very, very tired! And they were cross--oh, so cross!

Striped Chipmunk hadn't found so much as the leaf of a cabbage. Bobby Coon hadn't found the tiniest bit of sweet milky corn. Jimmy Skunk hadn't seen a single beetle. Reddy Fox hadn't heard so much as the peep of a chicken. And all were hungry as hungry could be.

Half way up the Lone Little Path they met Old Mother West Wind going to her home behind the hill. "Did you find the Best Thing in the World?" asked Old Mother West Wind.

"No!" shouted Striped Chipmunk, and Peter Rabbit, and Bobby Coon, and Jimmy Skunk, and Reddy Fox, all together.

"Johnny Chuck has it," said Old Mother West Wind. "It is being happy with the things you have, and not wanting things which some one else has. And it is called Con-tent-ment."

[A] From "Old Mother West Wind," by Thornton W. Burgess; used by permission of the author and the publishers, Little, Brown & Company.

LITTLE WEE PUMPKIN'S THANKSGIVING[B]

BY MADGE A. BINGHAM

It was the night before Thanksgiving in Peter Pumpkin-eater's garden. Great Big Pumpkin, Middle-Sized Pumpkin, and Little Wee Pumpkin were speaking together.

"All here?" asked Great Big Pumpkin.

"I'm here," answered Middle-Sized Pumpkin.

"I'm here," answered Little Wee Pumpkin. "But I heard Peter say that he would pull us to-morrow and send us away."

"That will be fine!" said Great Big Pumpkin. "I hope we shall make good pies for some one's dinner. I wish we could go to the palace."

"So do I," said Middle-Sized Pumpkin. "Maybe we could see the King."

"I should like to see Cinderella," said Little Wee Pumpkin. "But I am not large enough to go to the palace. Still, I wish I could make some one glad on Thanksgiving Day."

Little Wee Pumpkin was the first to wake in the morning. Peter had opened the garden gate, and Cinderella was walking into the garden.

Little Wee Pumpkin opened her eyes and listened.

Cinderella was beautiful, and Little Wee Pumpkin knew that she was good and kind. She was carrying a basket full of yellow flowers.

"They are for you, Peter," she said, laughing. "I have brought them from the palace garden. They are for your Thanksgiving.

"Now you must help me find the right pumpkin for a jack-o'-lantern. It is to make a little girl glad. She has been ill a long time, and must have a jack-o'-lantern for Thanksgiving."

"Yes, my lady," said Peter; and they went from vine to vine.

First, they stopped at Great Big Pumpkin, but that was too large. Then they stopped at Middle-Sized Pumpkin, but that was too flat. Then they stopped at Little Wee Pumpkin, and that was just right.

"This is the pumpkin for the jack-o'-lantern, Peter," she said, pointing to Little Wee Pumpkin. "This will make the little girl glad."

"Yes, my lady," said Peter, as he pulled Little Wee Pumpkin from the vine.

"The two large pumpkins shall go to the palace, to the King," said Cinderella. "They will make fine pies for his Thanksgiving dinner."

"Yes, my lady," said Peter, as he pulled the two pumpkins from the vines.

So Great Big, Middle-Sized, and Little Wee all had their wishes.

[B] From "Mother Goose Village," by Madge A. Bingham, published by Rand, McNally & Company, and used by special arrangement.

THE COMING OF THE KING[C]

BY LAURA E. RICHARDS

Some children were at play in their playground one day when a herald rode through the town, blowing a trumpet, and crying aloud: "The King! The King passes by this road to-day!"

"Did you hear that?" they said. "The King is coming. He may look over the wall and see our playground: who knows? We must put it in order."

The playground was sadly dirty, and in the corners were scraps of paper and broken toys--for these were careless children! But now, one brought a hoe, and another a rake, and a third ran to fetch the wheelbarrow from behind the garden gate. They labored hard, till at length all was clean and tidy.

"Now it is clean!" they said; "but we must make it pretty, too, for kings are used to fine things; maybe he would not notice mere cleanness, for he may have it all the time."

Then one brought sweet rushes and strewed them on the ground; and others made garlands of oak leaves and pine tassels and hung them on the walls; and the littlest one pulled marigold buds and threw them all about the playground.

When all was done the playground was so beautiful that the children stood and looked at it, and clapped their hands with pleasure.

"Let us keep it always like this!" said the littlest one; and the others cried: "Yes! yes!"

They waited all day for the coming of the King, but he did not come; only, toward sunset, a man with travel-worn clothes, and a kind, tired face passed along the road, and stopped to look over the wall.

"What a pleasant place!" said the man. "May I come in and rest, dear children?"

The children brought him in gladly, and set him on the seat that they had made out of an old cask. They had covered it with an old red cloak, to make it look like a throne; and it made a very good one.

"It is our playground!" they said. "We made it pretty for the King, but he did not come, and now we mean to keep it so for ourselves."

"That is good!" said the man.

"Because we think pretty and clean is nicer than ugly and dirty!" said another.

"That is better!" said the man.

"And for tired people to rest in!" said the littlest one.

"That is best of all!" said the man.

He sat and rested, and looked at the children with such kind eyes that they came about him, and told him all they knew; about the five puppies in the barn, and the thrush's nest with four blue eggs, and the shore where the gold shells grew: and the man nodded, and understood all about it.

By-and-by he asked for a cup of water, and they brought it to him in the best cup, with the gold sprigs on it, then he thanked the children, and rose and went on his way; but before he went he laid his hand on their heads for a moment, and the touch went warm to their hearts.

The children stood by the wall and watched the man as he went slowly along. The sun was setting, and the light fell in long slanting rays across the road.

"He looks so tired!" said one of the children.

"But he was so kind!" said another.

"See!" said the littlest one. "How the sun shines on his hair! it looks like a crown of gold."

[C] From "The Golden Windows," by Laura E. Richards; published by Little, Brown & Company, Boston. Used by permission of the publishers.

[Illustration: The Coming of the King]

THE LITTLE PIG[D]

BY MAUD LINDSAY

Once upon a time a little black-and-white pig with a curly tail went out to take a morning walk. He intended to go to the Mud Puddle, but before he got there he came to a garden gate that was stretched wide open.

"Umph, umph," said the little pig, when he saw it; "isn't this fine? I have wanted to get into this garden ever since I can remember." And in he went as fast as his four short legs could carry him.

The garden was full of flowers. There were pansies, and daisies, and violets, and honeysuckles, and all the bright flowers that you can name. Everything was in the proper place. There were tulips on either side of the garden walk, and hollyhocks stood in a straight row against the fence. The pansies had a garden bed all to themselves, and the young vines were just beginning to climb up on the frame that the gardener had made for their special benefit.

"Umph, umph, nice place," said the little pig; and he put his nose down in the pansy bed and began to root up the pansies, for he thought that was the way to behave in a garden.

While he was enjoying himself there the brown hen came down the road with her family. She had thirteen children, and she was looking for a nice rich spot where they might scratch for their breakfast. When she saw the open gate she was delighted.

"Cluck, cluck, come on," she said to her chicks.

"Peep, peep, peep," said the little chickens, "is it a worm?"

"It is a beautiful garden, and there is nothing that I like better than to scratch in a garden," answered the hen, as she bustled through the gate. The chickens followed her, and soon they were all busy scratching among the violets.

They had not been there very long when the red cow walked by the garden. She was on her way to the Pond, but when she saw the open garden gate she decided at once to go in.

"Moo, moo," she said, "this is delightful. Tender flowers are such a treat." And she swished her tail over her back as she nipped the daisies from their stems.

"Cluck," said the hen, "Peep," said the chicks, "Umph," said the little pig, for they were pleased to have company. While they were talking a rabbit with very bright eyes peeped in at the gate.

"Oh, is it a party?" he said when he saw the red cow, and the pig with a curly tail, and the hen and chickens.

"Come in," said the pig, "and help yourself. There is plenty of room." So the rabbit hopped into the garden and nibbled the green leaves and the young vines.

"How many of us are here?" asked the red cow, but before any of them could count, the gardener came home.

When _he_ looked into the garden he began to cry: "Oh, my pretty pansies! my dear daisies! my sweet violets! my tender young vines!"

"What is he talking about?" said the chickens.

"I suppose he wants us to go out," answered the hen; and she ruffled her feathers and quarreled as the gardener came hurrying toward them.

Then the cow ran one way and the pig ran another. The little chickens got lost in the bushes, and the rabbit hid in the vines. The hen cackled, and the pig squealed, and the gardener scolded. By the time he had driven them all out of the garden the sun was high in the sky.

"Umph, umph," cried the little pig, as he scampered down the road, "we will all come back to-morrow."

But when they went back the next day the garden gate was fastened close, and not even the smallest chicken could get inside.

[D] From "More Winter Stories," by Maud Lindsay; used by permission of the publishers, Milton Bradley Company, Springfield, Mass.

THE TRAVELS OF THE LITTLE TOY SOLDIER

BY CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY

He was the largest and the best dressed and the bravest looking of all the toy soldiers in the toy shop. Some of the toy soldiers were made of paper, and these tore easily if they even tried to drill. Some of the toy soldiers were made of tin, and these bent if they had an encounter.

But this toy soldier, who stood head and shoulders above the others, was made of wood. He had once been part of a great pine tree that stood in the forest, and his heart was as brave and true as the heart of the tree.

His trousers were painted green, with yellow stripes; and his jacket was painted red, with gold buttons. He wore a painted blue cap upon the side of his head, with a band that went under his chin, and he carried a wooden gun in one arm. He could stand alone, for his wooden legs were glued to a block of wood, and his eyes were black and shining, and his mouth was painted in a smile.

When the Toy Soldier went from the toy shop to live in Gregory's house the little boy thought that he had never seen such a fine soldier in his life. He made him captain of all the soldier ninepins and guard of the toy train, and he took him to bed with him at night. Then, one day, James, who lived next door and was Gregory's neighbor, came over to play with Gregory.

"What a nice Toy Soldier!" James said.

"Yes, he's mine," Gregory said.

"May I play with him?" James asked.

"No, I said he was my Toy Soldier," Gregory answered.

"Then I'll take him," James said.

"I won't let you," Gregory said.

Then the two little boys began pulling the Toy Soldier to see which could get him away from the other, and the Toy Soldier did not like it at all. He was fond of a good battle, but not of a quarrel. He decided that he would not stay in a house where there was a quarrelsome boy, and so he tumbled out of a window that was close by and fell, down, down, to the street below.

The Toy Soldier had not lain long on the sidewalk when Harold passed by and picked him up.

"I wanted a toy soldier and here is the finest one I ever saw," Harold said; and he slipped the soldier inside his coat and started on, for he was going to school. The Toy Soldier lay close to Harold's watch that was tick, tick, ticking the time away, but Harold loitered, and at last he stopped to play a game of marbles with another little boy whom he met. "I don't care if I am late for school," he said.

"Oho!" thought the Toy Soldier, and as the two little boys played he dropped out from under Harold's coat and into the gutter. When Harold reached school, late, the Toy Soldier was gone.

Joe found the Toy Soldier in the gutter and ran home with him to his mother.

"I have a Toy Soldier!" he said.

"How brave he looks," said Joe's mother.

All the rest of the day the Toy Soldier went about with Joe and listened to what he said and watched what he did.

"I can't go to the grocer's; I'm afraid of his dog."

"I can't put in that nail. I am afraid that the hammer will slip and hit my finger." This was what the Toy Soldier heard.

Then it was Joe's bedtime, and the Toy Soldier went upstairs with him to bed, but Joe cried all the way.

"I'm afraid of the dark!" he said.

When Joe was asleep the Toy Soldier slipped out of his hand and fell into a scrap basket. He knew very well that he couldn't stay with a child who was a coward.

No one saw the Toy Soldier when the basket was emptied in the morning. He went with the scraps into a huge bag, and then into a wagon, and then into a factory where men sorted the cloth to make it into paper. One of these men found the Toy Soldier and took him home to his little boy, who was lame and had to stay alone all day.

"Has it been a good day, John?" his father asked.

"Oh, yes!" laughed John as he hugged the Toy Soldier.

"You have my supper ready just in time," his father said, watching the soup bubbling in a shining pot on the stove.

"And I cleaned a little and set the table," John said.

"Has your back hurt you very much to-day?" asked his father.

"A little, but I don't mind that," John said. "See how fine the Toy Soldier looks standing on the table!"

"Oho!" thought the Toy Soldier, "now I have found a place where I can stay. Here is another soldier, cheerful and willing to work, and brave!"

WHAT HAPPENED TO DUMPS

BY CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY

Once upon a time there was a queer little elf named Dumps, who lived all by himself in a dark little house down in a valley. Ever since he could remember, things had gone wrong with him.

He shivered in the cold and kicked the coal bucket when the fire wouldn't burn. He howled when he stumbled over his own dinner pots that he had left in the middle of the floor; and he stood in his front door and scowled when other happy elves went by without speaking to him.

He and his family had lived like that for years. When any elf wanted to describe something very sad he would say it was "Down in the Dumps." And so Dumps went on without a single happy day.

But suddenly the elves decided to give a party. Oh, it was going to be a very jolly party indeed, and Dumps heard about it. Almost every elf who passed was whistling, or singing something cheerful. And some of them carried their best green suits to the Wood Fairy's house to be pressed. And when Dumps heard about the party, he cried so loud because he knew he wouldn't be invited that the Wood Fairy heard him. The noise disturbed her, and she went down to Dumps' house to see what was the matter with him _now_.

"Tell me all about it, from the beginning, my dear," she said to poor little Dumps.

"I can't see the sunshine!" Dumps howled.

"Of course, you can't," said the Wood Fairy. "Your windows are dirty. Get some nice spring water in your little pail and wash them."

Dumps had never thought of doing that. When he washed the windows the sunbeams streamed in like a golden ladder.

"Is there something else the matter?" the Wood Fairy asked.

"My fire won't burn, even though I kick the coal bucket every day," Dumps sobbed.

"Well, try blowing the fire," the Wood Fairy suggested.

Dumps had never thought of doing that. His bellows were stiff, but he blew them very hard, and--crackle--there was a nice bright fire, and his kettle began to sing!

"Is that all?" asked the Wood Fairy.

"Oh, no!" Dumps sighed, "The other elves are giving a party, and I'm not invited."

"It is for all the elves, and you don't have to be invited," the Wood Fairy said. "Stand up straight and let me brush your suit. Now run along, my dear."

So Dumps started up the hill to the party, laughing all the way, for he just couldn't help it. You see, he had so many years of being one of the Dumps to make up for! He laughed until all his wrinkles were gone, and he was puffed out with happiness. He started bees buzzing, and grasshoppers fiddling, and crickets chirping.

"Who can this new, fat, cheerful elf be?" asked all the other elves, as Dumps arrived at the party, turning a double-somersault into their midst. "We are all here except Dumps, and of course this isn't he?"

Then Dumps showed them how he could turn back-somersaults, and make a see-saw out of a rush leaf. He taught them how to play baseball with white clover heads, and how to make a swing of braided grasses. He surprised himself with all the good times he was able to think up.

"Of course, this isn't Dumps," the other elves decided. "His name must be Delight." And Dumps never told them their mistake, for it wasn't really a mistake at all. Now, was it?

[Illustration]

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm, His pipe was in his mouth; And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now west, now south.

Then up and spake an old Sailor, Had sailed to the Spanish Main: "I pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the northeast, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain, The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so; For I can weather the roughest gale, That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church-bells ring, Oh say, what may it be?" "'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"-- And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns. Oh say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light. Oh say, what may it be?" But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Toward the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf, On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool, But the cruel rocks, they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair, Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed, On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe.

[Illustration: Ballad of the Little Page]

BY ABBIE FARWELL BROWN

It was a little, little page, Was brought from far away, To bear the great queen's velvet train Upon her bridal day.

His yellow curls were long and bright, His page's suit was blue, With golden clasps at neck and knee, And ruffles fair and new.

And faith, he was the smallest page The court had ever known: His head scarce reached the topmost step That led up to the throne.

And oh, 't was but a little lad Had never been before So many leagues from kin and friends, And from his father's door!

And oh!--'t was but a little child Who never yet, I wis, Had stolen lonely to his bed Without his mother's kiss.

He had not seen the noble queen, Of whom his heart had fear; He knew no friend at court to give A welcome and good cheer.

It was the busy night before The great queen's wedding-day, And all was bustle, haste, and noise, And every one was gay;

And each one had his task to do, And none had time to spare To tend a weeping little page Whose mother was not there.

Far in a big and gloomy room Within the castle keep, The little page lay all alone, And wept, and could not sleep.

The little page lay all alone, And hid his head and cried, Until it seemed his aching heart Would burst his little side.

The chamber door was set ajar, And one was passing by Who heard the little page's sobs And then his piteous cry.

Then some one lifted up the latch And pushed the heavy door, And then a lady entered in And crossed the chamber floor--

A lady tall and sweet and fair, In bridal white who stepped; She stood beside the page's bed, And asked him why he wept.

[Illustration: "--AND NONE HAD TIME TO SPARE TO TEND A LITTLE WEEPING PAGE"]

[Illustration: "HE TREMBLED AND LOOKED DOWN"]

And then he sobbed about a "kiss," His "mother," and his "home," And wished the queen had called no page, And wished he had not come;

For she was "such a proud, great queen" He was afraid, he said; And he was "lost and lonely" there In that huge, gloomy bed.

And then the lady bent her down And kissed him on the lips, And smoothed his yellow, silken curls With tender finger-tips.

The tears stood in her gentle eyes; "Poor little lad!" she said, And cuddled him up in her arms And knelt down by the bed.

And so she held him, close and warm, And sang him off to sleep, While at her nod her waiting-maids A silent watch did keep.

And when the morning smiled again The little page awoke. They clad him in a suit of white, With velvet cap and cloak,

And crystal buckles on his shoes, And led him to the queen, All lovely in her bridal gear, The fairest ever seen.

And he was such a tiny page, He trembled and looked down, For he was sore afraid to see The great queen sternly frown.

But lo! he heard a soft voice say, "O little page, look here! Am I, who sing to sleep so well, A queen for child to fear?"

He raised his eyes, and lo! the bride Looked on the page and smiled, And then he knew the queen had played At nurse-maid for a child.

And well he graced the wedding-feast And bore her velvet train, And at his dear queen's side thenceforth Was never sad again.

[Illustration]

THE SNOW-IMAGE

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow.

The elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents and other people who were familiar with her used to call Violet.

But her brother was known by the title of Peony, on account of the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers.

"Yes, Violet--yes, my little Peony," said their kind mother; "you may go and play in the snow."

Forth sallied the two children, with a hop-skip-and-jump that carried them at once into the very heart of a huge snowdrift, whence Violet emerged like a snow bunting, while little Peony floundered out with his round face in full bloom.

Then what a merry time had they! To look at them frolicking in the wintry garden, you would have thought that the dark and pitiless storm had been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new plaything for Violet and Peony; and that they themselves had been created, as the snowbirds were, to take delight only in the tempest and in the white mantle which it spread over the earth.

At last, when they had frosted one another all over with handfuls of snow, Violet, after laughing heartily at little Peony's figure, was struck with a new idea.

"You look exactly like a snow-image, Peony," said she, "if your cheeks were not so red. And that puts me in mind! Let us make an image out of snow--an image of a little girl--and it shall be our sister, and shall run about and play with us all winter long. Won't it be nice?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Peony, as plainly as he could speak, for he was but a little boy. "That will be nice! And mamma shall see it!"

"Yes," answered Violet; "mamma shall see the new little girl. But she must not make her come into the warm parlor, for, you know, our little snow-sister will not love the warmth."

And forthwith the children began this great business of making a snow-image that should run about; while their mother, who was sitting at the window and overheard some of their talk, could not help smiling at the gravity with which they set about it. They really seemed to imagine that there would be no difficulty whatever in creating a live little girl out of the snow.

Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight--those bright little souls at their tasks. Moreover, it was really wonderful to observe how knowingly and skillfully they managed the matter. Violet assumed the chief direction and told Peony what to do, while, with her own delicate fingers, she shaped out all the nicer parts of the snow-figure.

It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and prattling about it. Their mother was quite surprised at this; and the longer she looked, the more and more surprised she grew.

Now, for a few moments there was a busy and earnest but indistinct hum of the two children's voices, as Violet and Peony wrought together with one happy consent. Violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit; while Peony acted rather as a laborer and brought her the snow from far and near. And yet the little urchin evidently had a proper understanding of the matter.

"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet; for her brother was at the other side of the garden. "Bring me those light wreaths of snow that have rested on the lower branches of the pear tree. You can clamber on the snowdrift, Peony, and reach them easily. I must have them to make some ringlets for our snow-sister's head!"

"Here they are, Violet!" answered the little boy. "Take care you do not break them. Well done! Well done! How pretty!"

"Does she not look sweet?" said Violet, with a very satisfied tone; "and now we must have some little shining bits of ice to make the brightness of her eyes. She is not finished yet. Mamma will see how very beautiful she is; but papa will say, 'Tush! nonsense! come in out of the cold!'"

"Let us call mamma to look out," said Peony; and then he shouted, "Mamma! mamma!! mamma!!! Look out and see what a nice 'ittle girl we are making!"

"What a nice playmate she will be for us all winter long!" said Violet. "I hope papa will not be afraid of her giving us a cold! Shan't you love her dearly, Peony?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Peony. "And I will hug her and she shall sit down close by me and drink some of my warm milk."

"Oh, no, Peony!" answered Violet, with grave wisdom. "That will not do at all. Warm milk will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister. Little snow-people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony; we must not give her anything warm to drink!"

There was a minute or two of silence; for Peony, whose short legs were never weary, had gone again to the other side of the garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully:

"Look here, Peony! Come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek out of that rose-colored cloud! And the color does not go away! Is not that beautiful?"

"Yes, it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, pronouncing the three syllables with deliberate accuracy. "O Violet, only look at her hair! It is all like gold!"

"Oh, certainly," said Violet, as if it were very much a matter of course. "That color, you know, comes from the golden clouds that we see up there in the sky. She is almost finished now. But her lips must be made very red--redder than her cheeks. Perhaps, Peony, it will make them red if we both kiss them!"

Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her children were kissing the snow-image on its frozen mouth. But as this did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed that the snow-child should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek.

"Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me!" cried Peony.

"There! she has kissed you," added Violet, "and now her lips are very red. And she blushed a little, too!"

"Oh, what a cold kiss!" cried Peony.

Just then there came a breeze of the pure west wind sweeping through the garden, and rattling the parlor windows. It sounded so wintry cold that the mother was about to tap on the window-pane with her thimbled finger to summon the two children in when they both cried out to her with one voice:

"Mamma! mamma! We have finished our little snow-sister, and she is running about the garden with us!"

"What imaginative little beings my children are!" thought the mother, putting the last few stitches into Peony's frock. "And it is strange, too, that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are! I can hardly help believing now that the snow-image has really come to life!"

"Dear mamma!" cried Violet, "pray look out and see what a sweet playmate we have!"

The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer delay to look forth from the window. The sun was now gone out of the sky, leaving, however, a rich inheritance of his brightness among those purple and golden clouds which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent.

But there was not the slightest gleam or dazzle, either on the window or on the snow; so that the good lady could look all over the garden and see everything and everybody in it. And what do you think she saw there? Violet and Peony, of course, her own two darling children.

Ah, but whom or what did she see besides? Why, if you will believe me, there was a small figure of a girl, dressed all in white, with rose-tinged cheeks and ringlets of golden hue, playing about the garden with the two children!

A stranger though she was, the child seemed to be on as familiar terms with Violet and Peony, and they with her, as if all the three had been playmates during the whole of their little lives.

The mother thought to herself that it must certainly be the daughter of one of the neighbors, and that, seeing Violet and Peony in the garden, the child had run across the street to play with them.

So this kind lady went to the door, intending to invite the little runaway into her comfortable parlor; for, now that the sunshine was withdrawn, the atmosphere out of doors was already growing very cold.

But, after opening the house door, she stood an instant on the threshold, hesitating whether she ought to ask the child to come in, or whether she should even speak to her. Indeed, she almost doubted whether it were a real child after all, or only a light wreath of the new-fallen snow, blown hither and thither about the garden by the intensely cold west wind.

There was certainly something very singular in the aspect of the little stranger. Among all the children of the neighborhood the lady could remember no such face, with its pure white and delicate rose-color, and the golden ringlets tossing about the forehead and cheeks.

And as for her dress, which was entirely of white, and fluttering in the breeze, it was such as no reasonable woman would put upon a little girl when sending her out to play in the depth of winter. It made this kind and careful mother shiver only to look at those small feet, with nothing in the world on them except a very thin pair of white slippers.

Nevertheless, airily as she was clad, the child seemed to feel not the slightest inconvenience from the cold, but danced so lightly over the snow that the tips of her toes left hardly a print in its surface; while Violet could but just keep pace with her, and Peony's short legs compelled him to lag behind.

All this while, the mother stood on the threshold, wondering how a little girl could look so much like a flying snowdrift, or how a snowdrift could look so very like a little girl.

"Violet, my darling, what is this child's name?" asked she. "Does she live near us?"

"Why, dearest mamma," answered Violet, laughing to think that her mother did not comprehend so very plain an affair, "this is our little snow-sister whom we have just been making!"

"Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his mother and looking up simply into her face. "This is our snow-image! Is it not a nice 'ittle child?"

"Violet," said her mother, greatly perplexed, "tell me the truth without any jest. Who is this little girl?"

"My darling mamma," answered Violet, looking seriously into her mother's face, surprised that she should need any further explanation, "I have told you truly who she is. It is our little snow-image which Peony and I have been making. Peony will tell you so, as well as I."

"Yes, mamma," asseverated Peony, with much gravity in his crimson little phiz; "this is 'ittle snow-child. Is not she a nice one? But, mamma, her hand is, oh, so very cold!"

While mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, the street gate was thrown open and the father of Violet and Peony appeared, wrapped in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap drawn down over his ears, and the thickest of gloves upon his hands.

Mr. Lindsey was a middle-aged man, with a weary and yet a happy look in his wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, as if he had been busy all the day long and was glad to get back to his quiet home. His eyes brightened at the sight of his wife and children, although he could not help uttering a word or two of surprise at finding the whole family in the open air on so bleak a day, and after sunset, too.

He soon perceived the little white stranger, sporting to and fro in the garden like a dancing snow-wreath, and the flock of snowbirds fluttering about her head.

"Pray, what little girl may that be?" inquired this very sensible man. "Surely her mother must be crazy to let her go out in such bitter weather as it has been to-day, with only that flimsy white gown and those thin slippers!"

"My dear husband," said his wife, "I know no more about the little thing than you do. Some neighbor's child, I suppose. Our Violet and Peony," she added, laughing at herself for repeating so absurd a story, "insist that she is nothing but a snow-image which they have been busy about in the garden almost all the afternoon."

As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes toward the spot where the children's snow-image had been made. What was her surprise on perceiving that there was not the slightest trace of so much labor!--no image at all!--no piled-up heap of snow!--nothing whatever save the prints of little footsteps around a vacant space!

"This is very strange!" said she.

"What is strange, dear mother?" asked Violet. "Dear father, do not you see how it is? This is our snow-image, which Peony and I have made because we wanted another playmate. Did not we, Peony?"

"Yes, papa," said crimson Peony. "This be our 'ittle snow-sister. Is she not beau-ti-ful? But she gave me such a cold kiss!"

"Poh, nonsense, children!" cried their good, honest father, who had a plain matter-of-fact way of looking at matters. "Do not tell me of making live figures out of snow. Come, wife; this little stranger must not stay out in the bleak air a moment longer. We will bring her into the parlor; and you shall give her a supper of warm bread and milk, and make her as comfortable as you can."

So saying, this honest and very kind-hearted man was going toward the little white damsel, with the best intentions in the world. But Violet and Peony, each seizing their father by the hand, earnestly besought him not to make her come in.

"Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense!" cried the father, half-vexed, half-laughing. "Run into the house, this moment! It is too late to play any longer now. I must take care of this little girl, or she will catch her death-a-cold!"

And so, with a most benevolent smile, this very well-meaning gentleman took the snow-child by the hand and led her toward the house.

She followed them, droopingly and reluctant, for all the glow and sparkle were gone out of her figure; and whereas just before she had resembled a bright, frosty, star-gemmed evening, with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she now looked as dull and languid as a thaw.

As kind Mr. Lindsey led her up the steps of the door, Violet and Peony looked into his face, their eyes full of tears, which froze before they could run down their cheeks, and entreated him not to bring their snow-image into the house.

"Not bring her in!" exclaimed the kind-hearted man. "Why, you are crazy, my little Violet--quite crazy, my small Peony! She is so cold already that her hand has almost frozen mine, in spite of my thick gloves. Would you have her freeze to death?"

His wife, as he came up the steps, had been taking another long, earnest gaze at the little white stranger. She hardly knew whether it was a dream or no; but she could not help fancying that she saw the delicate print of Violet's fingers on the child's neck. It looked just as if, while Violet was shaping out the image, she had given it a gentle pat with her hand, and had neglected to smooth the impression quite away.

"After all, husband," said the mother, "after all, she does look strangely like a snow-image! I do believe she is made of snow!"

A puff of the west wind blew against the snow-child, and again she sparkled like a star.

"Snow!" repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest over his hospitable threshold. "No wonder she looks like snow. She is half frozen, poor little thing! But a good fire will put everything to rights."

The common-sensible man placed the snow-child on the hearthrug, right in front of the hissing and fuming stove.

"Now she will be comfortable!" cried Mr. Lindsey, rubbing his hands and looking about him, with the pleasantest smile you ever saw. "Make yourself at home, my child."

Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white maiden as she stood on the hearthrug, with the hot blast of the stove striking through her like a pestilence. Once she threw a glance toward the window, and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs and the stars glimmering frostily and all the delicious intensity of the cold night. The bleak wind rattled the window panes as if it were summoning her to come forth. But there stood the snow-child, drooping, before the hot stove!

But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss.

"Come, wife," said he, "let her have a pair of thick stockings and a woolen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your little friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place. For my part, I will go around among the neighbors and find out where she belongs."

The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings. Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlor door carefully behind him.

Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate when he was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony and the rapping of a thimbled finger against the parlor window.

"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face through the window panes. "There is no need of going for the child's parents!"

"We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as he re-entered the parlor. "You would bring her in; and now our poor--dear--beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed!"

And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in this everyday world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might be going to thaw, too. In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an explanation of his wife.

She could only reply that, being summoned to the parlor by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearthrug.

"And there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointing to a pool of water in front of the stove.

"Yes, father," said Violet, looking reproachfully at him through her tears, "there is all that is left of our dear little snow-sister!"

"Father!" cried Peony, stamping his foot, and--I shudder to say--shaking his little fist at the common-sensible man. "We told you how it would be. What for did you bring her in?"

And the stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to glare at good Mr. Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon triumphing in the mischief which it had done!

THE CASTLE OF GEMS

BY SOPHIE MAY

Once upon a time, though I cannot tell when, and in what country I do not now remember, there lived a maiden as fair as a lily, as gentle as a dewdrop, and as modest as a violet. A pure, sweet name she had: It was Blanche.

She stood one evening, with her friend Victor, by the shore of a lake. Never had the youth or maiden seen the moonlight so enchanting; but they did not know--

"It was midsummer day, When all the fairy people From elf-land came away."

Presently, while they gazed at the lake, which shone like liquid emerald and sapphire and topaz, a boat, laden with strangely beautiful beings, glided toward them across the waters. The fair voyagers were clad in robes of misty blue, with white mantles about their waists, and on their heads wreaths of valley-lilies.

They were all as fair as need be; but fairest of all was the helms-woman, the Queen of the Fairies. Her face was soft and clear like moonlight; and she wore a crown of nine large diamonds, which refracted the evening rays, and formed nine lunar rainbows.

The fairies were singing a roundelay; and, as the melody floated over the water, Victor and Blanche listened with throbbing hearts. Fairy music has almost passed away from the earth; but those who hear it are strangely moved, and have dreams of beautiful things which have been, and may be again.

"It makes me think of the days of long ago when there was no sin," whispered Blanche.

"It makes me long to be a hero," answered Victor with a sparkling eye.

All the while the pearly boat was drifting toward the youth and maiden; and, when it had touched the shore the Queen stepped out upon the land as lightly as if she had been made entirely of dewdrops.

"I am Fontana," said she: "and is this Blanche?"

She laid her soft hand upon the maiden's shoulder; and Blanche thought she would like to die then and there, so full was she of joy.

"I have heard of thy good heart, my maiden: now what would please thee most?" inquired the Queen.

Blanche bowed her head, and dared not speak.

Queen Fontana smiled. When she smiled it was as if a soft cloud had slid away from the moon, revealing a beautiful light.

"Say pearls and diamonds," said Victor in her ear.

"I don't know," whispered Blanche; "they are not the best things."

"No," said the Queen kindly; "pearls and diamonds are _not_ the best things."

Then Blanche knew that her whisper had been overheard, and she hid her face in her hands for shame. But the Queen only smiled down on her, and without speaking dropped into the ground a little seed. Right at the feet of Blanche it fell; and in a moment two green leaves shot upward, and between them a spotless lily, which hung its head with modest grace.

Victor gazed at the perfect flower in wonder, and before he knew it said aloud: "Ah, how like Blanche!"

The Queen herself broke it from the stem, and gave it to the maiden, saying:

"Take it! It is my choicest gift. Till it fades (which will never be), love will be thine; and in time to come it will have power to open the strongest locks, and swing back the heaviest doors.

"'Gates of brass cannot withstand One touch of this magic wand.'"

Blanche looked up to thank the Queen; but no words came--only tears.

"I see a wish in thine eyes," said Fontana.

"It is for Victor," faltered Blanche, at last; "he wishes to be rich and great."

The Queen looked grave.

"Shall I make him one of the great men of the earth, little Blanche? Then he may one day go to the ends of the world, and forget thee."

Blanche only smiled, and Victor's cheek flushed.

"I shall be a great man," said he--"perhaps a prince; but where I go Blanche shall go: she will be my wife."

"That is well," said the Queen. "Never forget Blanche, for her love will be your dearest blessing."

Then, removing from her girdle a pair of spectacles, she placed them in the youth's hand. He drew back in surprise. "Does she take me for an old man?" thought he. He had expected a casket of gems at least; perhaps a crown.

"Wait," said Fontana; "they are the eyes of Wisdom. When you have learned their use, you will not despise my gift. Keep a pure heart, and always remember Blanche. And now farewell!"

So saying, she moved on to the boat, floating over the ground as softly as a creeping mist.

When Blanche awoke next morning, her first thought was, "Happy are the maidens who have sweet dreams!" for she believed she had only been wandering in a midsummer's night's dream; so, when she saw her lily in the broken pitcher where she had placed it, great was her delight. But a change had come over it during the night. It was no longer a common lily; its petals were now large pearls, and the green leaves were green emeralds. This strange thing had happened to the flower, that it might never fade.

After this, people looked at Blanche and said: "How is it? She grows fairer every day!" And every one loved her; for the human heart has no choice but to love what is good and gentle.

As for Victor, he at first put on his spectacles with a scornful smile; but, when he had worn them a moment, he found them very wonderful things. When he looked through them, he could see people's thoughts written out on their faces; he could easily decipher the fine writing which you see traced on green leaves; and found there were long stories written on pebbles in little black and gray dots.

When he wore the spectacles, he looked so wise that Blanche hardly dared speak to him. She saw that one day he was to become great.

At last Victor said he must leave his home, and sail across the seas. Tears filled the eyes of Blanche; but the youth whispered:

"I am going away to find a home for you and me. So adieu, dearest Blanche!"

Now Victor thought the ship in which he sailed moved very slowly; for he longed to reach the land which he could see through his magic spectacles. It was a beautiful kingdom, rich with mines of gold and silver.

When the ship touched shore, the streets were lined with people who walked to and fro with sad faces. The King's daughter, a beautiful young maiden, was very ill, and it was feared she must die.

Victor asked one of the people if there was no hope.

It so happened that this man was the greatest physician in the kingdom and he answered:

"Alas, there is no hope!"

Then Victor went to a distant forest where he knew a healing spring was to be found. Very few remembered it was there; and those who had seen it did not know of its power to heal disease.

Victor filled a crystal goblet with the precious water and carried it to the palace. The old King shook his head sadly, but consented to let the attendants moisten the parched lips of the Princess with the water, as it could do no harm. Far from doing harm, it wrought a great good; and in time the royal maiden was restored to health.

Then, for gratitude, the King would have given his daughter to Victor for a wife; but Victor remembered Blanche, and knew that no other maiden must be bride of his.

Not long after this the King was lost overboard at sea during a storm. Now the people must have a new ruler. They determined to choose a wise and brave man; and, young as he was, no man could be found braver and wiser than Victor; so the people elected him for their King. Thus Fontana's gift of the eyes of Wisdom had made him truly "one of the great men of earth."

In her humble home Blanche dreamed every night of Victor, and hoped he would grow good, if he did not become great; and Victor remembered Blanche, and knew that her love was his dearest blessing.

"This old palace," thought he, "will never do for my beautiful bride."

So he called together his people, and told them he must have a castle of gems. Some of the walls were to be of rubies, some of emeralds, some of pearls. There was to be any amount of beaten gold for doors and pillars; and the ceilings were to be of milk-white opals, with a rosy light which comes and goes.

All was done as he desired; and when the castle of gems was finished it would need a pen of jasponyx dipped in rainbows to describe it.

Victor thought he would not have a guard of soldiers for his castle, but would lock the four golden gates with a magic key, so that no one could enter unless the gates should swing back of their own accord.

When the castle of gems was just completed, and not a soul was in it, Victor locked the gates with a magic key, and then dropped the key into the ocean.

"Now," thought he, "I have done a wise thing. None but the good and true can enter my castle of gems. The gates will not swing open for men with base thoughts or proud hearts!"

Then he hid himself under the shadow of a tree, and watched the people trying to enter. But they were proud men, and so the gates would not open.

King Victor laughed, and said to himself:

"I have done a wise thing with my magic key. How safe I shall be in my castle of gems!"

So he stepped out of his hiding place, and said to the people:

"None but the good and true can get in."

Then he tried to go in himself; but the gates would not move.

The King bowed his head in shame, and walked back to his old palace.

"Alas!" said he to himself, "wise and great as I am, I thought I could go in. I see it must be because I am filled with pride. Let me hide my face; for what would Blanche say if she knew, that, because my heart is proud, I am shut out of my own castle? I am not worthy that she should love me; but I hope I shall learn of her to be humble and good."

The next day he sailed for the home of his childhood. When Blanche saw him she blushed and cast down her eyes; but Victor knew they were full of tears of joy. He held her hand, and whispered:

"Will you go with me and be my bride, beautiful Blanche?"

"I will go with you," she answered softly; and Victor's heart rejoiced.

All the while Blanche never dreamed that he was a great Prince, and that the men who came with him were his courtiers.

When they reached Victor's kingdom, and the people shouted "Long live the Queen!" Blanche veiled her face and trembled; for Victor whispered in her ear that the shouts were for her. And as the people saw her beautiful face through her gossamer veil, they cried all the more loudly:

"Long live Queen Blanche! Thrice welcome, fair lady!"

The sun was sinking in the west, and his rays fell with dazzling splendor upon the castle of gems. When Blanche saw the silent, closed castle and its golden gates she remembered the words of Queen Fontana, who had said that her lily should have power to "open the strongest locks, and swing back the heaviest doors."

Like one walking in a dream, she led Victor toward the resplendent castle. She touched with her lily the lock which fastened one of the gates.

"Gates of gold could not withstand One touch of that magic wand."

In an instant, the hinges trembled; and the massive door swung open so far that forty people could walk in side by side. Then it slowly closed, and locked itself without noise.

One of the people who passed in was the King, whose heart was no longer proud. The others, who had entered unwittingly, could not speak for wonder. Some of them were poor, and some were lame or blind; but all were good and true.

At the rising of the moon a wonderful thing came to pass. The people entered the castle of gems and became beautiful. This was through the power of the magic lily.

Now there were no more crooked backs, and lame feet, and sightless eyes; and the King looked at these people, who were beautiful as well as good, and declared he would have them live in the castle; and the gentlemen should be knights; and the ladies maids of honor.

To this day Victor and Blanche rule the kingdom; and such is the charm of the lily--so like the pure heart of the Queen--that the people are becoming gentle and good.

Until Queen Fontana shall call for the magic spectacles and the lily of pearl, it is believed that Victor and Blanche will live in the castle of gems, though the time should be a hundred years.

THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Once there was a nice young hen that we will call Mrs. Feathertop. She was a hen of most excellent family, being a direct descendant of the Bolton Grays, and as pretty a young fowl as you wish to see of a summer's day. She was, moreover, as fortunately situated in life as it was possible for a hen to be. She was bought by young Master Fred Little John, with four or five family connections of hers, and a lively young cock, who was held to be as brisk a scratcher and as capable a head of a family as any half-dozen sensible hens could desire.

I can't say that at first Mrs. Feathertop was a very sensible hen. She was very pretty and lively, to be sure, and a great favorite with Master Bolton Gray Cock, on account of her bright eyes, her finely shaded feathers, and certain saucy dashing ways that she had, which seemed greatly to take his fancy. But old Mrs. Scratchard, living in the neighboring yard, assured all the neighborhood that Gray Cock was a fool for thinking so much of that flighty young thing--that she had not the smallest notion how to get on in life, and thought of nothing in the world but her own pretty feathers. "Wait till she comes to have chickens," said Mrs. Scratchard. "Then you will see. I have brought up ten broods myself--as likely and respectable chickens as ever were a blessing to society--and I think I ought to know a good hatcher and brooder when I see her; and I know _that_ fine piece of trumpery, with her white feathers tipped with gray, never will come down to family life. _She_ scratch for chickens! Bless me, she never did anything in all her days but run round and eat the worms which somebody else scratched up for her!"

When Master Bolton Gray heard this he crowed very loudly, like a cock of spirit, and declared that old Mrs. Scratchard was envious because she had lost all her own tail-feathers, and looked more like a worn-out old feather duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore she was filled with sheer envy of anybody that was young and pretty. So young Mrs. Feathertop cackled gay defiance at her busy rubbishy neighbor, as she sunned herself under the bushes on fine June afternoons.

Now Master Fred Little John had been allowed to have these hens by his mamma on the condition that he would build their house himself, and take all the care of it; and, to do Master Fred justice, he executed the job in a small way quite creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank covered with a thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little hen-house, with two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole for his family to roost on. He made, moreover, a row of nice little boxes with hay in them for nests, and he bought three or four little smooth white china eggs to put in them, so that, when his hens _did_ lay, he might carry off their eggs without their being missed. The hen-house stood in a little grove that sloped down to a wide river, just where there was a little cove which reached almost to the hen-house.

The situation inspired one of Master Fred's boy advisers with a new scheme in relation to his poultry enterprise. "Hullo! I say, Fred," said Tom Seymour, "you ought to raise ducks--you've got a capital place for ducks there."

"Yes, but I've bought _hens_, you see," said Freddy; "so it's no use trying."

"No use! Of course there is! Just as if your hens couldn't hatch ducks' eggs. Now, you just wait till one of your hens wants to set, and you put ducks' eggs under her, and you'll have a family of ducks in a twinkling. You can buy ducks' eggs, a plenty, of old Sam under the hill; he always has hens hatch his ducks."

So Freddy thought it would be a good experiment, and informed his mother the next morning that he intended to furnish the ducks for the next Christmas dinner; and when she wondered how he was to come by them, he said, mysteriously, "O, I will show you how!" but did not further explain himself. The next day he went with Tom Seymour, and made a trade with old Sam, and gave him a middle-aged jack-knife for eight of his ducks' eggs. Sam, by the bye, was a woolly-headed old negro man, who lived by the pond hard by, and who had long cast envying eyes on Fred's jack-knife, because it was of extra-fine steel, having been a Christmas present the year before. But Fred knew very well there were any number more of jack-knives where that came from, and that, in order to get a new one, he must dispose of the old; so he made the trade and came home rejoicing.

Now, about this time Mrs. Feathertop, having laid her eggs daily with great credit to herself, notwithstanding Mrs. Scratchard's predictions, began to find herself suddenly attacked with nervous symptoms. She lost her gay spirits, grew dumpish and morose, stuck up her feathers in a bristling way, and pecked at her neighbors if they did so much as look at her. Master Gray Cock was greatly concerned, and went to old Doctor Peppercorn, who looked solemn and recommended an infusion of angle-worms, and said he would look in on the patient twice a day till she was better.

"Gracious me, Gray Cock!" said old Goody Kertarkut, who had been lolling at the corner as he passed, "a'n't you a fool?--cocks always are fools. Don't you know what's the matter with your wife? She wants to set--that's all; and you just let her set! A fiddlestick for Doctor Peppercorn! Why, any good old hen that has brought up a family knows more than a doctor about such things. You just go home and tell her to set, if she wants to, and behave herself."

When Gray Cock came home, he found that Master Freddy had been before him, and established Mrs. Feathertop upon eight nice eggs, where she was sitting in gloomy grandeur. He tried to make a little affable conversation with her, and to relate his interview with the Doctor and Goody Kertarkut, but she was morose and sullen, and only pecked at him now and then in a very sharp, unpleasant way; so, after a few more efforts to make himself agreeable, he left her, and went out promenading with the captivating Mrs. Red Comb, a charming young Spanish widow, who had just been imported into the neighboring yard.

"Bless my soul!" said he, "you've no idea how cross my wife is."

"O you horrid creature!" said Mrs. Red Comb; "how little you feel for the weaknesses of us poor hens!"

"On my word, ma'am," said Gray Cock, "you do me injustice. But when a hen gives way to temper, ma'am and no longer meets her husband with a smile--when she even pecks at him whom she is bound to honor and obey----"

"Horrid monster! talking of obedience! I should say, sir, you came straight from Turkey!" And Mrs. Red Comb tossed her head with a most bewitching air, and pretended to run away, and old Mrs. Scratchard looked out of her coop and called to Goody Kertarkut:

"Look how Mr. Gray Cock is flirting with that widow. I always knew she was a baggage."

"And his poor wife left at home alone," said Goody Kertarkut. "It's the way with 'em all!"

"Yes, yes," said Dame Scratchard, "she'll know what real life is now, and she won't go about holding her head so high, and looking down on her practical neighbors that have raised families."

"Poor thing, what'll she do with a family?" said Goody Kertarkut.

"Well, what business have such young flirts to get married," said Dame Scratchard. "I don't expect she'll raise a single chick; and there's Gray Cock flirting about fine as ever. Folks didn't do so when I was young. I'm sure my husband knew what treatment a setting hen ought to have--poor old Long Spur--he never minded a peck or so now and then. I must say these modern fowls a'n't what fowls used to be."

Meanwhile the sun rose and set, and Master Fred was almost the only friend and associate of poor little Mrs. Feathertop, whom he fed daily with meal and water, and only interrupted her sad reflections by pulling her up occasionally to see how the eggs were coming on.

At last "Peep, peep, peep!" began to be heard in the nest, and one little downy head after another poked forth from under the feathers, surveying the world with round, bright, winking eyes; and gradually the brood was hatched, and Mrs. Feathertop arose, a proud and happy mother, with all the bustling, scratching, caretaking instincts of family life warm within her breast. She clucked and scratched, and cuddled the little downy bits of things as handily and discreetly as a seven-year-old hen could have done, exciting thereby the wonder of the community.

Master Gray Cock came home in high spirits and complimented her; told her she was looking charmingly once more, and said, "Very well, very nice!" as he surveyed the young brood. So that Mrs. Feathertop began to feel the world going well with her, when suddenly in came Dame Scratchard and Goody Kertarkut to make a morning call.

"Let's see the chicks," said Dame Scratchard.

"Goodness me," said Goody Kertarkut, "what a likeness to their dear papa!"

"Well, but bless me, what's the matter with their bills?" said Dame Scratchard. "Why, my dear, these chicks are deformed! I'm sorry for you, my dear, but it's all the result of your inexperience; you ought to have eaten pebble-stones with your meal when you were setting. Don't you see, Dame Kertarkut, what bills they have? That'll increase, and they'll be frightful!"

"What shall I do?" said Mrs. Feathertop, now greatly alarmed.

"Nothing as I know of," said Dame Scratchard, "since you didn't come to me before you set. I could have told you all about it. Maybe it won't kill 'em, but they'll always be deformed."

And so the gossips departed, leaving a sting under the pin-feathers of the poor little hen mamma, who began to see that her darlings had curious little spoon-bills different from her own, and to worry and fret about it.

"My dear," she said to her spouse, "do get Doctor Peppercorn to come in and look at their bills, and see if anything can be done."

Doctor Peppercorn came in, and put on a monstrous pair of spectacles and said: "Hum! Ha! Extraordinary case--very singular!"

"Did you ever see anything like it, Doctor?" said both parents, in a breath.

"I've read of such cases. It's a calcareous enlargement of the vascular bony tissue, threatening ossification," said the Doctor.

"Oh, dreadful!--can it be possible?" shrieked both parents. "Can anything be done?"

"Well, I should recommend a daily lotion made of mosquitoes' horns and bicarbonate of frogs' toes together with a powder, to be taken morning and night, of muriate of fleas. One thing you must be careful about: they must never wet their feet, nor drink any water."

"Dear me, Doctor, I don't know what I _shall_ do, for they seem to have a particular fancy for getting into water."

"Yes, a morbid tendency often found in these cases of bony tumification of the vascular tissue of the mouth; but you must resist it, ma'am, as their life depends upon it." And with that Doctor Peppercorn glared gloomily on the young ducks, who were stealthily poking the objectionable little spoon-bills out from under their mothers' feathers.

After this poor Mrs. Feathertop led a weary life of it; for the young fry were as healthy and enterprising a brood of young ducks as ever carried saucepans on the end of their noses, and they most utterly set themselves against the doctor's prescriptions, murmured at the muriate of fleas and the bicarbonate of frogs' toes and took every opportunity to waddle their little ways down to the mud and water which was in their near vicinity. So their bills grew larger and larger, as did the rest of their bodies, and family government grew weaker and weaker.

"You'll wear me out children, you certainly will," said poor Mrs. Feathertop.

"You'll go to destruction, do ye hear?" said Master Gray Cock.

"Did you ever see such frights as poor Mrs. Feathertop has got?" said Dame Scratchard. "I knew what would come of _her_ family--all deformed, and with a dreadful sort of madness, which makes them love to shovel mud with those shocking spoon-bills of theirs."

[Illustration: "THEY MUST NEVER WET THEIR FEET, NOR DRINK ANY WATER," SAID THE DOCTOR]

"It's a kind of idiocy," said Goody Kertarkut. "Poor things! they can't be kept from the water, nor made to take powders, and so they got worse and worse."

"I understand it's affecting their feet so that they can't walk, and a dreadful sort of net is growing between their toes; what a shocking visitation!"

"She brought it on herself," said Dame Scratchard. "Why didn't she come to me before she set? She was always an upstart, self-conceited thing, but I'm sure I pity her."

Meanwhile the young ducks throve apace. Their necks grew glossy like changeable green and gold satin, and though they would not take the doctor's medicine, and would waddle in the mud and water--for which they always felt themselves to be very naughty ducks--yet they grew quite vigorous and hearty. At last one day the whole little tribe waddled off down to the bank of the river. It was a beautiful day, and the river was dancing and dimpling and winking as the little breezes shook the trees that hung over it.

"Well," said the biggest of the little ducks, "in spite of Doctor Peppercorn I can't help longing for the water. I don't believe it is going to hurt me; at any rate, here goes." And in he plumped, and in went every duck after him, and they threw out their great brown feet as cleverly as if they had taken rowing-lessons all their lives, and sailed off on the river, away, away, among the ferns, under the pink azalias, through reeds and rushes and arrow-heads and pickerel-weed, the happiest ducks that ever were born; and soon they were quite out of sight.

"Well, Mrs. Feathertop, this is a dispensation," said Mrs. Scratchard. "Your children are all drowned at last, just as I knew they'd be. The old music-teacher Master Bullfrog, that lives down in Water-Dock Lane, saw 'em all plump madly into the water together this morning; that's what comes of not knowing how to bring up a family."

Mrs. Feathertop gave only one shriek and fainted dead away, and was carried home on a cabbage leaf, and Mr. Gray Cock was sent for, where he was waiting on Mrs. Red Comb through the squash vines.

"It's a serious time in your family, sir," said Goody Kertarkut, "and you ought to be at home supporting your wife. Send for Doctor Peppercorn without delay."

Now as the case was a very dreadful one, Doctor Peppercorn called a council from the barnyard of the Squire two miles off, and a brisk young Doctor Partlett appeared in a fine suit of brown and gold, with tail-feathers like meteors. A fine young fellow he was, lately from Paris, with all the modern scientific improvements fresh in his head.

When he had listened to the whole story, he clapped his spur into the ground, and, leaning back laughed so loud that all the cocks in the neighborhood crowed.

Mrs. Feathertop rose up out of her swoon, and Mr. Gray Cock was greatly enraged.

"What do you mean, sir, by such behavior in the house of mourning?"

"My dear sir, pardon me, but there is no occasion for mourning. My dear madam, let me congratulate you. There is no harm done. The simple matter is, dear madam, you have been under a hallucination all along. The neighborhood and my learned friend the doctor have all made a mistake in thinking that these children of yours were hens at all. They are ducks, ma'am, evidently ducks, and very finely formed ducks, I dare say."

At this moment a quack was heard, and at a distance the whole tribe were seen coming waddling home, their feathers gleaming in green and gold, and they themselves in high good spirits.

"Such a splendid day as we have had!" they all cried in a breath. "And we know now how to get our own living; we can take care of ourselves in future, so you need have no further trouble with us."

"Madam," said the Doctor, making a bow with an air which displayed his tail-feathers to advantage, "let me congratulate you on the charming family you have raised. A finer brood of young healthy ducks I never saw. Give claw, my dear friend," he said, addressing the elder son. "In our barnyard no family is more respected than that of the ducks."

And so Madam Feathertop came off glorious at last; and when after this the ducks used to go swimming up and down the river, like so many nabobs, among the admiring hens, Doctor Peppercorn used to look after them and say: "Ah! I had the care of their infancy!"

And Mr. Gray Cock and his wife used to say to each other: "It was our system of education did that!"

[Illustration: THE BALLAD OF PIPING WILL]

BY ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH

There was a lad named Piping Will With tattered coat and poor; He had no home to bide him in, But roamed from door to door.

This lad had naught except a pipe On which he used to play; Yet never lad did laugh so free, Nor had a look so gay.

"Nay, bide, thou merry piper-boy!" The kindly house-dames said. "The roads are rough, the skies are wild, And thou dost lack for bread.

"The hills are steep, the stones unkind-- Why wilt thou always roam? And winter turns a barren heart To them that have no home."

Then would he smile and pipe awhile, But would not ever stay. How strange that he could be so poor, Yet have a heart so gay!

And so the good folk shook their heads, And they would turn and stare To see him piping through the fields. What was he doing there?

It fell about the blithe Yule-tide, When winter winds were keen, The Burgomaster's little maid Slipped from the house unseen;

For she had heard that in the wood The dear snow-children run, And play where shadows are most cold And where there is no sun.

But lo, the evening hurried on, And bitter sleet blew cold; It whitened all her scarlet cloak And flying locks of gold.

The road was hid, and she was lost, And knew not where to go; And still the sharp blast swept her on, Whether she would or no.

Now who is this amid the sleet? His face she cannot see! He tunes his pipe against the wind, As merry as can be.

He tunes his pipe against the wind With music sweet and wild, When lo, a fluttering scarlet cape, The sobbing of a child!

He took her up and held her close; "I'll take you home," he said. But still the little maid sobbed on, Nor was she comforted.

"What! Cold and hungry, little maid, And frightened of the storm? I'll play upon my pipe," said he, "And that will keep you warm!"

And lo, when first he blew his pipe, It was a wondrous thing-- The sleet and snow turned all to flowers, The birds began to sing!

When next he blew upon his pipe, She marveled more and more; For, built of gold with strange device, A palace rose before!

A lovely lady led them in, And there they sat them down; The piper wore a purple cloak, And she a snow-white gown.

And there was song and light and cheer, Feasting and everything! Who would have thought that Piping Will Could be so great a king?

The third time that he blew his pipe They took her to the queen; Her hair was yellow as the sun, And she was clothed in green.

[Illustration: "THEY TOOK HER TO THE QUEEN"]

Yet did she kiss that little maid, Who should no longer roam-- When lo, the dear dream flashed away, And there she was at home!

"Make this thy home, thou Piping Will," The Burgomaster cried. "Thou hast restored our little maid! I tell thee, thou must bide."

[Illustration: "'NAY, BIDE, THOU MERRY PIPER BOY!' THE KINDLY HOUSE-DAMES SAID"]

[Illustration]

"Make this thy home, thou Piping Will," The bustling mother said. "Come, warm thyself before the hearth And eat the good white bread."

But Piping Will would only smile: "Good friends, I cannot wait!" (Who could have thought that tattered coat Had been a robe of state!)

So forth he fared into the night, And, piping, went his way. "How strange," they said, "a lad so poor Can have a heart so gay!"

Only the little maid that sat Upon her father's knee Remembered how they two had fared That night right pleasantly.

And as she ate her bread and milk, So close and safe and warm, She wondered what strange, lovely lands He wrought of wind and storm.

For he that plays a fairy pipe Is lord of everything! She laughed to think that Piping Will Should be so great a king.

[Illustration: "A LOVELY LADY LED THEM IN"]

LITTLE ANNIE'S DREAM, OR THE FAIRY FLOWER

BY LOUISA M. ALCOTT

In a large and pleasant garden sat little Annie, all alone, and she seemed very sad, for drops that were not dew fell fast upon the flowers beside her, which looked wonderingly up, and bent still nearer, as if they longed to cheer and comfort her. The warm wind lifted up her shining hair, and softly kissed her cheek, while the sunbeams, looking most kindly in her face, made little rainbows in her tears, and lingered lovingly about her. But Annie paid no heed to sun, or wind, or flower; still the bright tears fell, and she forgot all but her sorrow.

"Little Annie, tell me why you weep," said a low voice in her ear; and, looking up, the child beheld a little figure standing on a vine leaf at her side; a lovely face smiled on her from amid bright locks of hair, and shining wings were folded on a white and glittering robe that fluttered in the wind.

"Who are you, lovely little thing?" cried Annie, smiling through her tears.

"I am a Fairy, little child, and am come to help and comfort you; now tell me why you weep, and let me be your friend," replied the spirit, as she smiled more kindly still on Annie's wondering face.

"And are you really, then, a little Elf, such as I read of in my fairy books? Do you ride on butterflies, sleep in flower-cups, and live among the clouds?"

"Yes, all these things I do, and many stranger still that all your fairy books can never tell; but now, dear Annie," said the Fairy, bending nearer, "tell me why I found no sunshine on your face; why are these great drops shining on the flower and why do you sit alone when bird and bee are calling you to play?"

"Ah, you will not love me any more if I should tell you all," said Annie, while the tears began to fall again; "I am not happy, for I am not good; how shall I learn to be a patient, gentle child? Good little Fairy, will you teach me how?"

"Gladly will I aid you Annie. The task is hard, but I will give this fairy flower to help and counsel you. Bend hither, that I may place it on your breast; no hand can take it hence, till I unsay the spell that holds it there."

As thus she spoke, the Elf took from her bosom a graceful flower, whose snow-white leaves shone with a strange, soft light. "This is a fairy flower," said the Elf, "invisible to every eye save yours; now listen while I tell its power, Annie. When your heart is filled with loving thoughts, when some kindly deed has been done, some duty well performed, then from the flower there will arise the sweetest, softest fragrance, to reward and gladden you. But when an unkind word is on your lips, when a selfish, angry feeling rises in your heart, or an unkind, cruel deed is to be done, then will you hear the soft, low chime of the flower bell; listen to its warning, let the word remain unspoken, the deed undone, and in the quiet joy of your own heart, and the magic perfume of your bosom flower, you will find a sweet reward."

"O kind and generous Fairy, how can I ever thank you for this lovely gift!" cried Annie. "I will be true, and listen to my little bell whenever it may ring. But shall I never see you more? Ah! if you would only stay with me, I should indeed be good."

"I cannot stay now, little Annie," said the Elf, "but when another Spring comes round, I shall be here again, to see how well the fairy gift has done its work. And now farewell, dear child; be faithful to yourself, and the magic flower will never fade."

Then the gentle Fairy folded her little arms around Annie's neck, laid a soft kiss on her cheek, and, spreading wide her shining wings, flew singing up among the white clouds floating in the sky.

And little Annie sat among her flowers, and watched with wondering joy the fairy blossom shining on her breast.

The pleasant days of Spring and Summer passed away, and in little Annie's garden Autumn flowers were blooming everywhere, with each day's sun and dew growing still more beautiful and bright; but the fairy flower, that should have been the loveliest of all, hung pale and drooping on little Annie's bosom; its fragrance seemed quite gone, and the clear, low music of its warning chime rang often in her ear.

When first the Fairy placed it there, she had been pleased with her new gift, and for a while obeyed the fairy bell, and often tried to win some fragrance from the flower by kind and pleasant words and actions; then, as the Fairy said, she found a sweet reward in the strange, soft perfume of the magic blossom as it shone upon her breast; but selfish thoughts would come to tempt her, she would yield, and unkind words fell from her lips; and then the flower drooped pale and scentless, the fairy bell rang mournfully, Annie would forget her better resolutions, and be again a selfish, willful little child.

At last she tried no longer, but grew angry with the faithful flower, and would have torn it from her breast; but the fairy spell still held it fast, and all her angry words but made it ring a louder, sadder peal. Then she paid no heed to the silvery music sounding in her ear, and each day grew still more unhappy, discontented, and unkind; so, when the Autumn days came round, she was no better for the gentle Fairy's gift, and longed for Spring, that it might be returned; for now the constant echo of the mournful music made her very sad.

One sunny morning, when the fresh, cool winds were blowing, and not a cloud was in the sky, little Annie walked among her flowers, looking carefully into each, hoping thus to find the Fairy, who alone could take the magic blossom from her breast. But she lifted up their drooping leaves, peeped into their dewy cups in vain; no little Elf lay hidden there, and she turned sadly from them all, saying: "I will go out into the fields and woods, and seek her there. I will not listen to this tiresome music more, nor wear this withered flower longer." So out into the fields she went, where the long grass rustled as she passed, and timid birds looked at her from their nests; where lovely wild flowers nodded in the wind, and opened wide their fragrant leaves to welcome in the murmuring bees, while butterflies, like winged flowers, danced and glittered in the sun.

Little Annie looked, searched, and asked them all if any one could tell her of the Fairy whom she sought; but the birds looked wonderingly at her with their soft, bright eyes, and still sang on; the flowers nodded wisely on their stems, but did not speak, while butterfly and bee buzzed and fluttered away, one far too busy, the other too idle, to stay and tell her what she asked.

Then she went through broad fields of yellow grain that waved around her like a golden forest; here crickets chirped, grasshoppers leaped, and busy ants worked, but they could not tell her what she longed to know.

"Now will I go among the hills," said Annie, "she may be there." So up and down the green hillsides went her little feet; long she searched and vainly she called; but still no Fairy came. Then by the riverside she went, and asked the gay dragon flies and the cool white lilies if the Fairy had been there; but the blue waves rippled on the white sand at her feet, and no voice answered her.

Then into the forest little Annie went; and as she passed along the dim, cool paths, the wood-flowers smiled up in her face, gay squirrels peeped at her, as they swung amid the vines, and doves cooed softly as she wandered by; but none could answer her. So, weary with her long and useless search, she sat amid the ferns, and feasted on the rosy strawberries that grew beside her, watching meanwhile the crimson evening clouds that glowed around the setting sun.

The night-wind rustled through the boughs, and when the autumn moon rose up, her silver light shone on the child, where, pillowed on green moss, she lay asleep amid the wood-flowers in the dim old forest.

And all night long beside her stood the Fairy she had sought, and by elfin spell and charm sent to the sleeping child this dream.

Little Annie dreamed she sat in her own garden, as she had often sat before, with angry feelings in her heart, and unkind words upon her lips. The magic flower was ringing its soft warning, but she paid no heed to anything, save her own troubled thoughts; thus she sat, when suddenly a low voice whispered in her ear: "Little Annie, look and see the evil things that you are cherishing."

Then Annie saw, with fear and wonder, that the angry words she uttered changed to dark, unlovely forms, each showing plainly from what fault or passion it had sprung. Some of the shapes had scowling faces and bright, fiery eyes; these were the spirits of Anger. Others, with sullen, anxious, looks seemed gathering up all they could reach, and Annie saw that the more they gained, the less they seemed to have; and these she knew were shapes of Selfishness. Spirits of Pride were there, who folded their shadowy garments round them, and turned scornfully away from all the rest. These and many others little Annie saw, which had come from her own heart, and taken form before her eyes.

When first she saw them, they were small and weak; but as she looked they seemed to grow and gather strength, and each gained a strange power over her. She could not drive them from her sight, and they grew ever stronger, darker, and more unlovely to her eyes. They seemed to cast black shadows over all around, to dim the sunshine, blight the flowers, and drive away all bright and lovely things; while rising slowly round her Annie saw a high, dark wall, that seemed to shut out everything she loved; she dared not move, or speak, but, with a strange fear at her heart, sat watching the dim shapes that hovered round her.

Higher and higher rose the shadowy wall. Slowly the flowers near her died, lingeringly the sunlight faded; but at last they both were gone, and left her all alone behind the gloomy wall. Then she could hear no more, but, sinking down among the withered flowers, wept sad and bitter tears, for her lost liberty and joy; then through the gloom there shone a faint, soft light, and on her breast she saw her fairy flower, upon whose snow-white leaves her tears lay shining.

Clearer and brighter grew the radiant light, till the evil spirits turned away to the dark shadow of the wall, and left the child alone.

The light and perfume of the flower seemed to bring new strength to Annie, and she rose up, saying, as she bent to kiss the blossom on her breast: "Dear flower, help and guide me now, and I will listen to your voice, and cheerfully obey my faithful fairy bell."

Then in her dreams she felt how hard the spirits tried to tempt and trouble her, and how, but for her flower, they would have led her back, and made all dark and dreary as before. Long and hard she struggled, and tears often fell; but after each new trial, brighter shone her magic flower, and sweeter grew its breath, while the spirits lost still more their power to tempt her. Meanwhile, green, flowering vines crept up the high, dark wall, and hid its roughness from her sight; and over these she watched most tenderly, for soon, wherever green leaves and flowers bloomed, the wall beneath grew weak, and fell apart. Thus little Annie worked and hoped, till one by one the evil spirits fled away, and in their place came shining forms, with gentle eyes and smiling lips, who gathered round her with such loving words, and brought such strength and joy to Annie's heart, that nothing evil dared to enter in; while slowly sank the gloomy wall, and, over wreaths of fragrant flowers, she passed out into the pleasant world again, the fairy gift no longer pale and drooping, but now shining like a star upon her breast.

Then the low voice spoke again in Annie's sleeping ear, saying: "Remember well the lesson of the dream, dear child, and let the shining spirits make your heart their home."

And with that voice sounding in her ear, little Annie woke to find it was a dream; but like other dreams it did not pass away; and as she sat alone, bathed in the rosy morning light, and watched the forest waken into life, she silently resolved to strive, as she had striven in her dream, to bring back light and beauty to its faded leaves, by being what the Fairy hoped to render her, a patient, gentle little child. And as the thought came to her mind, the flower raised its drooping head, and, looking up into the earnest little face bent over it, seemed by its fragrant breath to answer Annie's silent thought, and strengthen her for what might come.

Meanwhile the forest was astir, birds sang their gay good-morrows from tree to tree, while leaf and flower turned to greet the sun, who rose up smiling on the world; and so beneath the forest boughs and through the dewy fields went little Annie home, better and wiser for her dream.

* * *

Autumn flowers were dead and gone, white winter snow fell softly down; yet now, when all without looked dark and dreary, on little Annie's breast the fairy flower bloomed more beautiful than ever. The memory of her forest dream had never passed away, and through trial and temptation she had been true, and kept her resolution still unbroken; seldom now did the warning bell sound in her ear, and seldom did the flower's fragrance cease to float about her, or the fairy light to brighten all whereon it fell.

So, through the long, cold winter, little Annie dwelt like a sunbeam in her home, each day growing richer in the love of others, and happier in herself; often was she tempted, but, remembering her dream, she listened only to the music of the fairy bell, and the unkind thought or feeling fled away, the smiling spirits of gentleness and love nestled in her heart, and all was bright again.

At length, one day, as she sat singing in the sunny nook where all her fairest flowers bloomed, weary with gazing at the far-off sky for the little forms she hoped would come, she bent to look with joyful love upon her bosom flower; and as she looked, its folded leaves spread wide apart, and, rising slowly from the deep white cup, appeared the smiling face of the lovely Elf whose coming she had waited for so long.

"Dear Annie, look for me no longer; I am here on your breast, for you have learned to love my gift, and it has done its work most faithfully and well," the Fairy said, as she looked into the happy child's bright face, and laid her little arms most tenderly about her neck.

"And now have I brought another gift from Fairy-land, as a fit reward for you, dear child," she said, when Annie had told all her gratitude and love; then, touching the child with her shining wand, the Fairy bid her look and listen silently.

And suddenly the world, to Annie, seemed changed for the air was filled with strange, sweet sounds, and all around her floated lovely forms. In every flower sat little smiling Elves, singing gayly as they rocked amid the leaves. On every breeze, bright, airy spirits came floating by; some fanned her cheek with their cool breath, and waved her long hair to and fro, while others rang the flower-bells, and made a pleasant rustling among the leaves. In the fountain, where the water danced and sparkled in the sun, astride of every drop she saw merry little spirits, who plashed and floated in the clear, cool waves, and sang as gayly as the flowers, on whom they scattered glittering dew. The tall trees, as their branches rustled in the wind, sang a low, dreamy song, while the waving grass was filled with little voices she had never heard before. Butterflies whispered lovely tales in her ear, and birds sang cheerful songs in a sweet language she had never understood before. Earth and air seemed filled with beauty and with music she had never dreamed of until now.

"Oh, tell me what it means, dear Fairy! is it another and a lovelier dream, or is the earth in truth so beautiful as this?" she cried, looking with wondering joy upon the Elf, who lay upon the flower on her breast.

"Yes, it is true, dear child," replied the Fairy, "and few are the mortals to whom we give this lovely gift; what to you is now so full of music and of light, to others is but a pleasant summer world; they never know the language of butterfly or bird or flower, and they are blind to all that I have given you the power to see. These fair things are your friends and playmates now, and they will teach you many pleasant lessons, and give you many happy hours; while the garden where you once sat, weeping sad and bitter tears, is now brightened by your own happiness, filled with loving friends by your own kindly thoughts and feelings; and thus rendered a pleasant summer home for the gentle, happy child, whose bosom flower will never fade. And now, dear Annie, I must go; but every springtime, with the earliest flowers, will I come again to visit you, and bring some fairy gift. Guard well the magic flower, that I may find all fair and bright when next I come."

Then, with a kind farewell, the gentle Fairy floated upward through the sunny air, smiling down upon the child, until she vanished in the soft, white clouds; and little Annie stood alone in her enchanted garden, where all was brightened with the radiant light, and fragrant with the perfume of her fairy flower.

COMPANIONS

BY HELEN HUNT JACKSON

During the whole of one of a summer's hottest days I had the good fortune to be seated in a railway car near a mother and four children, whose relations with each other were so beautiful that the pleasure of watching them was quite enough to make one forget the discomforts of the journey.

It was plain that they were poor; their clothes were coarse and old, and had been made by inexperienced hands. The mother's bonnet alone would have been enough to have condemned the whole party on any of the world's thoroughfares. I remembered afterward, with shame, that I myself had smiled at the first sight of its antiquated ugliness; but her face was one which it gave you a sense of rest to look upon--it was so earnest, tender, true, and strong. It had little comeliness of shape or color in it, it was thin, and pale; she was not young; she had worked hard; she had evidently been much ill; but I have seen few faces which gave me such pleasure. I think that she was the wife of a poor clergyman; and I think that clergyman must be one of the Lord's best watchmen of souls. The children--two boys and two girls--were all under the age of 12, and the youngest could not speak plainly. They had had a rare treat; they had been visiting the mountains, and they were talking over all the wonders they had seen with a glow of enthusiastic delight which was to be envied. Only a word-for-word record would do justice to their conversation; no description could give any idea of it--so free, so pleasant, so genial, no interruptions, no contradictions; and the mother's part borne all the while with such equal interest and eagerness that no one not seeing her face would dream that she was any other than an elder sister.

In the course of the day there were many occasions when it was necessary for her to deny requests, and to ask services, especially from the eldest boy; but no young girl, anxious to please a lover, could have done either with a more tender courtesy. She had her reward; for no lover could have been more tender and manly than was this boy of 12. Their lunch was simple and scanty; but it had the grace of a royal banquet. At the last, the mother produced with much glee three apples and an orange, of which the children had not known. All eyes fastened on the orange. It was evidently a great rarity. I watched to see if this test would bring out selfishness. There was a little silence; just the shade of a cloud. The mother said: "How shall I divide this? There is one for each of you; and I shall be best off of all, for I expect big tastes from each of you."

"Oh, give Annie the orange. Annie loves oranges," spoke out the oldest boy, with a sudden air of a conqueror, and at the same time taking the smallest and worst apple himself.

"Oh, yes, let Annie have the orange," echoed the second boy, nine years old.

"Yes, Annie may have the orange, because that is nicer than the apple, and she is a lady, and her brothers are gentlemen," said the mother, quietly. Then there was a merry contest as to who should feed the mother with largest and most frequent mouthfuls; and so the feast went on. Then Annie pretended to want an apple, and exchanged thin golden strips of orange for bites out of the cheeks of Baldwins; and, as I sat watching her intently, she suddenly fancied she saw longing in my face, and sprang over to me, holding out a quarter of her orange, and saying, "Don't you want a taste, too?" The mother smiled, understandingly, when I said, "No, I thank you, you dear, generous little girl; I don't care about oranges."

At noon we had a tedious interval of waiting at a dreary station. We sat for two hours on a narrow platform, which the sun had scorched till it smelled of heat. The oldest boy--the little lover--held the youngest child, and talked to her, while the tired mother closed her eyes and rested. Now and then he looked over at her, and then back at the baby; and at last he said confidentially to me (for we had become fast friends by this time): "Isn't it funny, to think that I was ever so small as this baby? And papa says that then mamma was almost a little girl herself."

The two other children were toiling up and down the banks of the railroad track, picking ox-eye daisies, buttercups, and sorrel. They worked like beavers, and soon the bunches were almost too big for their little hands. Then they came running to give them to their mother. "Oh, dear," thought I, "how that poor, tired woman will hate to open her eyes! and she never can take those great bunches of common, fading flowers, in addition to all her bundles and bags." I was mistaken.

"Oh, thank you, my darlings! How kind you were! Poor, hot, tired little flowers, how thirsty they look! If they will only try and keep alive till we get home, we will make them very happy in some water; won't we? And you shall put one bunch by papa's plate, and one by mine."

Sweet and happy, the weary and flushed little children stood looking up in her face while she talked, their hearts thrilling with compassion for the drooping flowers and with delight in the giving of their gift. Then she took great trouble to get a string and tie up the flowers, and then the train came, and we were whirling along again. Soon it grew dark, and little Annie's head nodded. Then I heard the mother say to the oldest boy, "Dear, are you too tired to let little Annie put her head on your shoulder and take a nap? We shall get her home in much better ease to see papa if we can manage to give her a little sleep." How many boys of twelve hear such words as these from tired, overburdened mothers?

Soon came the city, the final station, with its bustle and noise. I lingered to watch my happy family, hoping to see the father. "Why, papa isn't here!" exclaimed one disappointed little voice after another. "Never mind," said the mother, with a still deeper disappointment in her own tone; "perhaps he had to go to see some poor body who is sick." In the hurry of picking up all the parcels, and the sleepy babies, the poor daisies and buttercups were left forgotten in a corner of the rack. I wondered if the mother had not intended this. May I be forgiven for the injustice! A few minutes after I passed the little group, standing still just outside the station, and heard the mother say, "Oh, my darlings, I have forgotten your pretty bouquets. I am so sorry! I wonder if I could find them if I went back. Will you all stand still if I go?"

"Oh, mamma, don't go, don't go. We will get you some more. Don't go," cried all the children.

"Here are your flowers, madam," said I. "I saw that you had forgotten them, and I took them as mementos of you and your sweet children." She blushed and looked disconcerted. She was evidently unused to people, and shy with all but her children. However, she thanked me sweetly, and said:

"I was very sorry about them. The children took such trouble to get them, and I think they will revive in water. They cannot be quite dead."

"They will never die!" said I, with an emphasis which went from my heart to hers. Then all her shyness fled. She knew me; and we shook hands, and smiled into each other's eyes with the smile of kindred as we parted.

As I followed on, I heard the two children, who were walking behind, saying to each other: "Wouldn't that have been too bad? Mamma liked them so much, and we never could have got so many all at once again."

"Yes, we could, too, next Summer," said the boy, sturdily.

They are sure of their "next summers," I think, all six of those souls--children, and mother, and father. They may never again gather so many ox-eye daisies and buttercups "all at once." Perhaps some of the little hands have already picked their last flowers. Nevertheless, their summers are certain. To such souls as these, all trees, either here or in God's larger country, are Trees of Life, with twelve manner of fruits and leaves for healing; and it is but little change from the summers here, whose suns burn and make weary, to the summers there, of which "the Lamb is the light."

PRINCE LITTLE BOY

BY S. WEIR MITCHELL

A great many children live on the borders of Fairy-land and never visit it at all, and really there are people who grow up and are not very unhappy who will not believe they have lived near to it all their lives. But if once you have been in that pleasant country you never quite forget it, and when some stupid man says, "It is all stuff and nonsense," you do not say much, even if you yourself have come to be an old fellow with hair of two colors, but you feel proud to know how much more you have seen of the world than he has. Children are the best travelers in Fairy-land, and there also is another kingdom which is easy for them to reach and hard for some older folks.

Once upon a time there was a small boy who lived so near to Fairy-land that he sometimes got over the fence and inside of that lovely country, but, being a little afraid, never went very far, and was quick to run home if he saw Blue Beard or an Ogre or even Goody Two-Shoes. Once or twice he went a little farther, and saw things which may be seen but can never be written.

Sometimes he told his father that he had been into Fairy-land; but his father, who was a brick-maker and lived in the wood, only laughed, and cried aloud; "Next time you go, be sure to fetch back some fairy money."

One day the small boy, whose real name was Little Boy, told his father that he had gone a mile into Fairy-land, and that there the people were born old and grew younger all the time, and that on this account the hands of their clocks went backward. When his father heard this, he said that boy was only fit to sing songs and be in the sun, and would never make bricks worth a penny. Then he added, sharply, that his son must get to work at once and stop going over the fence to Fairy-land. So, after that, Little Boy was set to dig clay and make bricks for a palace which the King was building. He made a great many bricks of all colors, and did seem to work so very hard that his father began to think he might in time come to make the best of bricks. But if you are making bricks you must not even be thinking of fairies, because something is sure to get into the bricks and spoil them for building anything except a Spanish castle or a palace of Aladdin.

I am sorry to say that while Little Boy made bricks and patted them well and helped to bake them hard he was forever thinking of a Fairy who had kissed him one day in the wood. This was a very strange Fairy, large, with white limbs, and eyes which were full of joy for a child, but to such as being old looked upon them, were, as the poet says, "lakes of sadness." Perhaps, being little, you who read can understand this. I cannot; but whoever has once seen this Fairy loves the sun and the woods and all living creatures, and knows things without being taught, and what men will say before they say it. Yet, while he knows all these strange things, and what birds talk about, and what songs the winds sing to the trees, he can never make good bricks.

And this was why Little Boy's bricks were badly made; on account of which the King's palace, having many poor bricks in it, fell down one fine day and cracked the crowns of twenty-three courtiers and had like to have killed the King himself. This made the King very angry, so he put on his crown and said wicked words, and told everybody he would give one hundred pieces of gold to whoever would find the person who had made the bad bricks. When Little Boy's father heard this, he knew it must have been his son who was to blame. So he told his son that he had been very careless, and that surely the King would kill him, and that the best thing he could do would be to run away and hide in Fairy-land.

Little Boy was very badly scared, and was well pleased when his mother had put some cakes and apples in a bag and slung it over his shoulder and told him to run quickly away; and this he was glad to do, because he saw the King's soldiers coming over the hill to take him. When they came to his father's house his father told them that it was his son who had made the bad bricks. After hearing this, they let the man go, and went after Little Boy. As their legs were long and his were short, they soon got very near to him, and he had just time to scramble over the fence into Fairy-land. Then the soldiers began to get over the fence, too; but at this moment the giant Fee-Faw-Fum came out of the wood, and said, in a voice that was as loud as the roar of the winds of a winter night: "What do you want here?" This gave them such a fright that they all sat there in a row on top of the fence like sparrows, and could not move for a week. You may be sure Little Boy did not stop to look at them, but ran away, far away into Fairy-land. Of course, he soon got lost, because in the geographies there is not a word about Fairy-land, and nobody knows even what bounds it on the north.

It is sad to be lost, but not in Fairy-land. The sooner you lose yourself, the happier you are. And then such queer things chance to you--things no one could dream would happen. Mostly it is the children for whom they occur, and the grown-up person who is quite happy in this joyous land is not often to be met with. Perhaps you think I will tell you all about the fairy country. Not I, indeed. I have been there in my time; but my travels there I cannot write, or else I might never be allowed to return again.

By-and-by Little Boy grew tired and went into a deep wood and there sat down and ate a cake, and saw very soon that the squirrels were throwing him nuts from the trees. Of course, as he was in Fairy-land, this was just what one might have expected. He tried to crack the nuts with his teeth, but could not, and this troubled the squirrels so much that presently nine of them came down and sat around him and began to crack nuts for him and to laugh.

When Little Boy had finished his meal, he lay down and tried to go to sleep, for it was pleasant and warm, and the moss was soft to lie upon, and strange birds came and went and sang love-songs. But just as he was almost asleep he was shaken quite roughly, and when he looked up saw a beautiful Prince.

"Ho! ho!" said the Prince, "I heard you getting ready to snore. A moment more and I should have been too late."

"How is that?" said Little Boy, "and who are you?"

"Sir, I am Fine Ear, and before things happen I hear them. Do not you know, Fair Sir" (this is the way fairies speak), "that if you fall asleep the first day that you are in Fairy-land, it is years before you wake? Some people don't wake."

Little Boy felt that he was in high society, so he said, politely:

"Gracious Prince, a million thanks; but how can I keep awake?"

"It is only for one night, young sir. Come with me. My sister, Goody Two-Shoes, lives close by, and she may help us."

So they went along through the twilight and walked far, until Little Boy was ready to drop. At last Fine Ear said that as he heard his sister breathing, she could not be more than three miles away. As they climbed a great hill, it became dark, and Little Boy grew more and more sleepy, and could not see his way, and tumbled about so much that at last the Prince stood still and said: "My dear fellow, this won't do; you will be in Dream-land before I can pinch you." Then he whistled, and a little silver star--a shining white light--fell out of the fairy sky and rolled beside them, making all the road as bright as day, and quite waking up Little Boy.

After this they walked on, and the Prince said he would ask Jack the Giant-killer to supper. Little Boy replied that he would be proud to meet him. Just as they came near to the house, which was built of pearls and rubies, the Prince said: "Alas! here comes that tiresome fool, Humpty Dumpty." When Little Boy looked, he saw a short man very crooked in the back, and with a head all to one side, not having been well mended by the doctors, as you may recall. Also his mouth was very large, which was a pity, because when he stopped before them and bowed in a polite way, all of a sudden he opened this great mouth and gaped; and when poor, sleepy Little Boy saw this, what could he do but gape for company, and at once fall down sound asleep before the kind Prince could move?

"Alas! fool," said Fine Ear, "why must you gape at a mortal? You knew what would happen. It was lucky you did not sneeze."

Meanwhile, there lay Little Boy sound asleep, and what was to be done? At last he was carried into the house of Goody Two-Shoes and put on a bed. Every one knew that he could not be waked up, and so they put fairy food in his mouth twice a day, and just let him alone, so that for several years he slept soundly, and by reason of being fed with fairy food grew tall and beautiful; what was more strange, his clothes grew also.

At the end of seven years a great Sayer of Sooth came by on his way to visit his fairy godmother, and when he heard about Little Boy's sleep he stood still and uttered a loud Sooth. When Goody Two-Shoes heard it she was sorry, because it was told her that Little Boy would never wake until he was carried back to the country of mortals, when he would wake up at once. Now by this time she had come to love him very much, and was sorry to part with him, because in seven years he had never spoken one cross word!

[Illustration: "SHE PUT AROUND LITTLE BOY'S NECK A FAIRY KISS"]

But Sooths must be obeyed; so she sent for a gentle Giant, and told him to carry Little Boy to the Queen's tailor and to dress him like a fairy Prince, and to set him down on the roadside near his father's house. Then when the Giant took him up in his great arms, all sound asleep, she put around Little Boy's neck a fairy kiss tied fast to a gold chain, and this was for good luck. After this the Giant walked away, and Goody Two-Shoes went into the house and cried for two days and a night.

When the Giant came to Common-Folks'-land, he laid Little Boy beside the high-road and went home. Toward evening, the King's daughter went by, and seeing Little Boy, who, as I have said, was now grown tall and dressed all in velvet and jewels, she came and stood by him, and when she saw the fairy kiss hanging around his neck she knelt down and kissed him. Then all the old ladies cried, "Fy! for shame!" but you know she could not help it. As for Little Boy, he kept ever so still, being now wide awake, but having hopes that she would kiss him again, which she did, twice. As he still seemed to sleep, he was put in the Princess's chariot and taken to the King's palace.

At last, when every one had looked at him, they put him on a bed, and when morning came he opened his eyes, and began to walk around to stretch his legs. But as he went downstairs he met the King, who said to him: "Fair Sir, what is the name of thy beautiful self?" To which he answered: "I am called Prince Little Boy." "Ha! ha!" said the King. "That was the name of the bad brick-maker. Perchance thou art he." Then he called his guards, and Little Boy was at once shut up in a huge tower, for the King was not quite sure, or else he would have put him to death at once. But after Little Boy had been there three days he put his head out of a window and saw the Princess in the garden. Then he said:

"Sweet lady, look up."

"Alas!" said she, "they have sent for thy mother, and if she says thou art Little Boy they will kill thee, and, alas! I love thee."

"Ah!" he cried, "come to this tower at midnight, and cast me kisses a many through the night; blow a kiss to the north, blow a kiss to the south, to the east, to the west, from the flower of thy mouth and it may be that one will float to Fairy-land and fetch us help, for if not, I be but a dead man."

All this she did because she was brave and loved him. She stood in the dark and blew kisses to the four winds, and then listened, and by and by came a noise like great wings, and all the air was filled with strange, sweet odors, the like of which that Princess never smelled again.

As for Little Boy, he was aware of a Giant who was as tall as the tower. "Sir," said the Giant, "it is told me that you must keep your eyes shut until I bid them to open. I have brought the Kiss Queen to pay you a visit. No man has ever seen her; for if he did he could never, never kiss or be kissed of any mortal lips."

"Sir," said Little Boy, "the Princess is more sweet than any that kiss in Fairy-land."

"Prince," said the Giant, "your education has been but slight, or else you would know that all kisses are made in Fairy-land. But shut your eyes and stir not."

Then Little Boy did close his two eyes. At once he felt a tiny kiss from lips that might have been as long as one's fingernail, and once he was kissed on each cheek and once on his chin, and then he felt faint for a moment. All was still for a while, until the Giant said: "You are lucky. Open your eyes, Fair Sir," and went away.

Next day all the people came to see the King try Little Boy. When Little Boy saw his mother he was almost ready to cry, but he kept still and waited. Then the King said to her: "Tell me, is this your son? and do not deceive me, or dreadful things will happen to you and to him."

At this the good woman looked at him with care. "This looks like my son," she said; "but it is not my son, because this young man has a dimple on each cheek and one on his chin. Who ever saw any one with three dimples?"

When the King heard this and Little Boy's father declared also that his lost son had no dimples, the King bade them all go free, and said he had been now nine years angry about those bricks, and that whoever would find the bad brick-maker should marry the Princess. When Prince Little Boy heard this he said that he was the bad boy who had made those bricks. But the King was as good as his word, and ordered that the Prince should marry the Princess, and not have his head cut off, because the Princess did wisely say that a husband with no head wasn't much good as a husband. Therefore they were married that minute, and I have heard that they spent their honeymoon in Fairy-land. And this is the end of the Story of Prince Little Boy.

THE BEE-MAN OF ORN[E]

BY FRANK R. STOCKTON

In the ancient country of Orn there lived an old man who was called the Bee-man, because his whole time was spent in the company of bees. He lived in a small hut, which was nothing more than an immense bee-hive, for these little creatures had built their honeycombs in every corner of the one room it contained--on the shelves, under the little table, all about the rough bench on which the old man sat, and even about the head-board and along the sides of his low bed.

All day the air of the room was thick with buzzing insects, but this did not interfere in any way with the old Bee-man, who walked in among them, ate his meals, and went to sleep, without the slightest fear of being stung.

He had lived with the bees so long, they had become so accustomed to him, and his skin was so tough and hard, that the bees no more thought of stinging him than they would of stinging a tree or a stone. A swarm of bees had made their hive in a pocket of his old leathern doublet; and when he put on this coat to take one of his long walks in the forest in search of wild bees' nests, he was very glad to have this hive with him, for, if he did not find any wild honey, he would put his hand in his pocket and take out a piece of a comb for a luncheon. The bees in his pocket worked very industriously, and he was always certain of having something to eat with him wherever he went. He lived principally upon honey; and when he needed bread or meat, he carried some fine combs to a village not far away and bartered them for other food. He was ugly, untidy, shrivelled, and brown. He was poor, and the bees seemed to be his only friends. But, for all that, he was happy and contented; he had all the honey he wanted, and his bees, whom he considered the best company in the world, were as friendly and sociable as they could be, and seemed to increase in number every day.

One day there stopped at the hut of the Bee-man a Junior Sorcerer. This young person, who was a student of magic, was much interested in the Bee-man, whom he had often noticed in his wanderings, and he considered him an admirable subject for study. He had got a great deal of useful practice by trying to find out, by the various rules and laws of sorcery, exactly why the old Bee-man did not happen to be something that he was not, and why he was what he happened to be. He had studied a long time at this matter, and had found out something.

"Do you know," he said, when the Bee-man came out of his hut, "that you have been transformed?"

"What do you mean by that?" said the other, much surprised.

"You have surely heard of animals and human beings who have been magically transformed into different kinds of creatures?"

"Yes, I have heard of these things," said the Bee-man; "but what have I been transformed from?"

"That is more than I know," said the Junior Sorcerer. "But one thing is certain; you ought to be changed back. If you will find out what you have been transformed from, I will see that you are made all right again. Nothing would please me better than to attend to such a case."

And, having a great many things to study and investigate, the Junior Sorcerer went his way.

This information greatly disturbed the mind of the Bee-man. If he had been changed from something else, he ought to be that other thing, whatever it was. He ran after the young man, and overtook him.

"If you know, kind sir," he said, "that I have been transformed, you surely are able to tell me what it is that I was."

"No," said the Junior Sorcerer, "my studies have not proceeded far enough for that. When I become a Senior I can tell you all about it. But, in the meantime, it will be well for you to try to find out for yourself your original form; and when you have done that, I will get some of the learned masters of my art to restore you to it. It will be easy enough to do that, but you could not expect them to take the time and trouble to find out what it was."

And, with these words, he hurried away, and was soon lost to view.

Greatly disturbed, the Bee-man retraced his steps, and went to his hut. Never before had he heard anything which had so troubled him.

"I wonder what I was transformed from?" he thought, seating himself on his rough bench. "Could it have been a giant, or a powerful prince, or some gorgeous being whom the magicians or the fairies wished to punish? It may be that I was a dog or a horse, or perhaps a fiery dragon or a horrid snake. I hope it was not one of these. But whatever it was, everyone has certainly a right to his original form, and I am resolved to find out mine. I will start early to-morrow morning; and I am sorry now that I have not more pockets to my old doublet, so that I might carry more bees and more honey for my journey."

He spent the rest of the day in making a hive of twigs and straw; and, having transferred to this a number of honeycombs and a colony of bees which had just swarmed, he rose before sunrise the next day, and having put on his leathern doublet and having bound his new hive to his back, he set forth on his quest, the bees who were to accompany him buzzing around him like a cloud.

As the Bee-man pressed through the little village the people greatly wondered at his queer appearance, with the hive upon his back. "The Bee-man is going on a long journey this time," they said; but no one imagined the strange business on which he was bent.

About noon he sat down under a tree, near a beautiful meadow covered with blossoms, and ate a little honey. Then he untied his hive and stretched himself out on the grass to rest. As he gazed upon his bees hovering about him, some going out to the blossoms in the sunshine, and some returning laden with the sweet pollen, he said to himself: "They know just what they have to do, and they do it; but alas for me! I know not what I may have to do. And yet, whatever it may be, I am determined to do it. In some way or other I will find out what was my original form, and then I will have myself changed back to it."

And now the thought came to him that perhaps his original form might have been something very disagreeable, or even horrid.

"But it does not matter," he said sturdily. "Whatever I was that shall I be again. It is not right for anyone to keep a form which does not properly belong to him. I have no doubt I shall discover my original form in the same way that I find the trees in which the wild bees hive. When I first catch sight of a bee tree I am drawn toward it, I know not how. Something says to me: 'That is what you are looking for.' In the same way I believe that I shall find my original form. When I see it, I shall be drawn toward it. Something will say to me: 'That is it.'"

When the Bee-man was rested he started off again, and in about an hour he entered a fair domain. Around him were beautiful lawns, grand trees, and lovely gardens; while at a little distance stood the stately palace of the Lord of the Domain. Richly dressed people were walking about or sitting in the shade of the trees and arbors; splendidly equipped horses were waiting for their riders; and everywhere were seen signs of wealth and gayety.

"I think," said the Bee-man to himself, "that I should like to stop here for a time. If it should happen that I was originally like any of these happy creatures it would please me much."

He untied his hive, and hid it behind some bushes, and, taking off his old doublet, laid that beside it. It would not do to have his bees flying about him if he wished to go among the inhabitants of this fair domain.

For two days the Bee-man wandered about the palace and its grounds, avoiding notice as much as possible, but looking at everything. He saw handsome men and lovely ladies; the finest horses, dogs, and cattle that were ever known; beautiful birds in cages, and fishes in crystal globes; and it seemed to him that the best of all living-things were here collected.

At the close of the second day the Bee-man said to himself: "There is one being here toward whom I feel very much drawn, and that is the Lord of the Domain. I cannot feel certain that I was once like him, but it would be a very fine thing if it were so; and it seems impossible for me to be drawn toward any other being in the domain when I look upon him, so handsome, rich, and powerful. But I must observe him more closely, and feel more sure of the matter, before applying to the sorcerers to change me back into a lord of a fair domain."

The next morning the Bee-man saw the Lord of the Domain walking in his gardens. He slipped along the shady paths, and followed him so as to observe him closely, and find out if he were really drawn toward this noble and handsome being. The Lord of the Domain walked on for some time, not noticing that the Bee-man was behind him. But suddenly turning, he saw the little old man.

"What are you doing here, you vile beggar?" he cried; and he gave him a kick that sent him into some bushes which grew by the side of the path.

The Bee-man scrambled to his feet, and ran as fast as he could to the place where he had hidden his hive and his old doublet.

"If I am certain of anything," he thought, "it is that I was never a person who would kick a poor old man. I will leave this place. I was transformed from nothing that I see here."

He now traveled for a day or two longer, and then he came to a great black mountain, near the bottom of which was an opening like the mouth of a cave.

[Illustration: "HE WAS EXTREMELY LIVELY AND ACTIVE, AND CAME BOUNDING TOWARD THEM"]

This mountain he had heard was filled with caverns and underground passages, which were the abodes of dragons, evil spirits, and horrid creatures of all kinds.

"Ah me!" said the Bee-man with a sigh, "I suppose I ought to visit this place. If I am going to do this thing properly, I should look on all sides of the subject, and I may have been one of those horrid creatures myself."

Thereupon he went to the mountain, and as he approached the opening of the passage which led into its inmost recesses, he saw, sitting upon the ground, and leaning his back against a tree, a Languid Youth.

"Good-day," said this individual when he saw the Bee-man. "Are you going inside?"

"Yes," said the Bee-man, "that is what I intend to do."

"Then," said the Languid Youth, slowly rising to his feet, "I think I will go with you. I was told that if I went in there I should get my energies toned up, and they need it very much; but I did not feel equal to entering by myself, and I thought I would wait until some one came along. I am very glad to see you, and we will go in together."

So the two went into the cave, and they had proceeded but a short distance when they met a very little creature, whom it was easy to recognize as a Very Imp. He was about two feet high, and resembled in color a freshly polished pair of boots. He was extremely lively and active, and came bounding toward them.

"What did you two people come here for?" he asked.

"I came," said the Languid Youth, "to have my energies toned up."

"You have come to the right place," said the Very Imp. "We will tone you up. And what does that old Bee-man want?"

"He has been transformed from something, and wants to find out what it is. He thinks he may have been one of the things in here."

"I should not wonder if that were so," said the Very Imp, rolling his head on one side, and eying the Bee-man with a critical gaze.

"All right," said the Very Imp; "he can go around, and pick out his previous existence. We have here all sorts of vile creepers, crawlers, hissers, and snorters. I suppose he thinks anything will be better than a Bee-man."

"It is not because I want to be better than I am," said the Bee-man, "that I started out on this search. I have simply an honest desire to become what I originally was."

"Oh; that is it, is it?" said the other. "There is an idiotic moon-calf here with a clam head, which must be just what you used to be."

"Nonsense," said the Bee-man. "You have not the least idea what an honest purpose is. I shall go about and see for myself."

"Go ahead," said the Very Imp, "and I will attend to this fellow who wants to be toned up." So saying he joined the Languid Youth.

"Look here," said the Youth, "do you black and shine yourself every morning?"

"No," said the other, "it is water-proof varnish. You want to be invigorated, don't you? Well, I will tell you a splendid way to begin. You see that Bee-man has put down his hive and his coat with the bees in it. Just wait till he gets out of sight, and then catch a lot of those bees, and squeeze them flat. If you spread them on a sticky rag, and make a plaster, and put it on the small of your back, it will invigorate you like everything, especially if some of the bees are not quite dead."

"Yes," said the Languid Youth, looking at him with his mild eyes, "but if I had energy enough to catch a bee I would be satisfied. Suppose you catch a lot for me."

"The subject is changed," said the Very Imp. "We are now about to visit the spacious chamber of the King of the Snap-dragons."

"That is a flower," said the Languid Youth.

"You will find him a gay old blossom," said the other. "When he has chased you round his room, and has blown sparks at you, and has snorted and howled, and cracked his tail, and snapped his jaws like a pair of anvils, your energies will be toned up higher than ever before in your life."

"No doubt of it," said the Languid Youth; "but I think I will begin with something a little milder."

"Well, then," said the other, "there is a flat-tailed Demon of the Gorge in here. He is generally asleep, and, if you say so, you can slip into the farthest corner of his cave, and I'll solder his tail to the opposite wall. Then he will rage and roar, but he can't get at you, for he doesn't reach all the way across his cave; I have measured him. It will tone you up wonderfully to sit there and watch him."

"Very likely," said the Languid Youth; "but I would rather stay outside and let you go up in the corner. The performance in that way will be more interesting to me."

"You are dreadfully hard to please," said the Very Imp. "I have offered them to you loose, and I offered them fastened to a wall, and now the best thing I can do is to give you a chance at one of them that can't move at all. It is the Ghastly Griffin, and is enchanted. He can't stir so much as the tip of his whiskers for a thousand years. You can go to his cave and examine him just as if he were stuffed, and then you can sit on his back and think how it would be if you should live to be a thousand years old, and he should wake up while you are sitting there. It would be easy to imagine a lot of horrible things he would do to you when you look at his open mouth with its awful fangs, his dreadful claws, and his horrible wings all covered with spikes."

"I think that might suit me," said the Languid Youth. "I would much rather imagine the exercises of these monsters than to see them really going on."

"Come on, then," said the Very Imp; and he led the way to the cave of the Ghastly Griffin.

The Bee-man went by himself through a great part of the mountain, and looked into many of its gloomy caves and recesses, recoiling in horror from most of the dreadful monsters who met his eyes. While he was wandering about, an awful roar was heard resounding through the passages of the mountain, and soon there came flapping along an enormous dragon, with body black as night, and wings and tail of fiery red. In his great fore-claws he bore a little baby.

"Horrible!" exclaimed the Bee-man. "He is taking that little creature to his cave to devour it."

He saw the dragon enter a cave not far away, and, following, looked in. The dragon was crouched upon the ground with the little baby lying before him. It did not seem to be hurt, but was frightened and crying. The monster was looking upon it with delight, as if he intended to make a dainty meal of it as soon as his appetite should be a little stronger.

"It is too bad!" thought the Bee-man. "Somebody ought to do something." And turning around, he ran away as fast as he could.

He ran through various passages until he came to the spot where he had left his bee-hive. Picking it up, he hurried back, carrying the hive in his two hands before him. When he reached the cave of the dragon, he looked in and saw the monster still crouched over the weeping child. Without a moment's hesitation, the Bee-man rushed into the cave and threw his hive straight into the face of the dragon. The bees, enraged by the shock, rushed upon the head, mouth, eyes, and nose of the dragon.

The great monster, astounded by this sudden attack, and driven almost wild by the numberless stings of the bees, sprang back to the farthest corner of his cave, still followed by the bees, at whom he flapped wildly with his great wings and struck with his paws. While the dragon was thus engaged with the bees, the Bee-man rushed forward, and seizing the child, he hurried away. He did not stop to pick up his doublet, but kept on until he saw the Very Imp hopping along on one leg, and rubbing his back and shoulders with his hands, and stopped to inquire what was the matter, and what had become of the Languid Youth.

"He is no kind of a fellow," said the Very Imp. "He disappointed me dreadfully. I took him up to the Ghastly Griffin, and told him the thing was enchanted, and that he might sit on its back and think about what it could do if it was awake; and when he came near it the wretched creature opened its eyes, and raised its head, and then you ought to have seen how mad that simpleton was. He made a dash at me and seized me by the ears; he kicked and beat me till I can scarcely move."

"His energies must have been toned up a good deal," said the Bee-man.

"Toned up! I should say so!" cried the other. "I raised a howl, and a Scissor-jawed Clipper came out of his hole, and got after him; but that lazy fool ran so fast that he could not be caught."

The Bee-man now ran on and soon overtook the Languid Youth.

"You need not be in a hurry now," said the latter, "for the rules of this institution don't allow the creatures inside to come out of this opening, or to hang around it. If they did, they would frighten away visitors. They go in and out of holes in the upper part of the mountain."

The two proceeded on their way.

"What are you going to do with that baby?" said the Languid Youth.

"I shall carry it along with me," said the Bee-man, "as I go on with my search, and perhaps I may find its mother. If I do not, I shall give it to somebody in that little village yonder. Anything would be better than leaving it to be devoured by that horrid dragon."

"Let me carry it, I feel quite strong enough now to carry a baby."

"Thank you," said the Bee-man; "but I can take it myself. I like to carry something, and I have now neither my hive nor my doublet."

"It is very well that you had to leave them behind," said the Youth, "for the bees would have stung the baby."

"My bees never sting babies," said the other.

"They probably never had a chance," remarked his companion.

They soon entered the village, and after walking a short distance the Youth exclaimed: "Do you see that woman over there sitting at the door of her house? She has beautiful hair, and she is tearing it all to pieces. She should not be allowed to do that."

"No," said the Bee-man. "Her friends should tie her hands."

"Perhaps she is the mother of this child," said the Youth, "and if you give it to her she will no longer think of tearing her hair."

"But," said the Bee-man, "you don't really think this is her child?"

"Suppose you go over and see," said the other.

The Bee-man hesitated a moment, and then he walked toward the woman. Hearing him coming, she raised her head, and when she saw the child she rushed toward it, snatched it into her arms, and screaming with joy she covered it with kisses. Then with happy tears she begged to know the story of the rescue of her child, whom she never expected to see again; and she loaded the Bee-man with thanks and blessings. The friends and neighbors gathered around, and there was great rejoicing. The mother urged the Bee-man and the Youth to stay with her, and rest and refresh themselves, which they were glad to do, as they were tired and hungry.

They remained at the cottage all night, and in the afternoon of the next day the Bee-man said to the Youth: "It may seem an odd thing to you, but never in all my life have I felt myself drawn toward any living being as I am drawn toward this baby. Therefore I believe that I have been transformed from a baby."

"Good!" cried the Youth. "It is my opinion that you have hit the truth. And now would you like to be changed back to your original form?"

"Indeed I would!" said the Bee-man. "I have the strongest yearning to be what I originally was."

The Youth, who had now lost every trace of languid feeling, took a great interest in the matter, and early the next morning started off to tell the Junior Sorcerer that the Bee-man had discovered what he had been transformed from, and desired to be changed back to it.

The Junior Sorcerer and his learned Masters were filled with delight when they heard this report, and they at once set out for the mother's cottage. And there by magic arts the Bee-man was changed back into a baby. The mother was so grateful for what the Bee-man had done for her that she agreed to take charge of this baby, and to bring it up as her own.

"It will be a grand thing for him," said the Junior Sorcerer, "and I am glad that I studied his case. He will now have a fresh start in life, and will have a chance to become something better than a miserable old man living in a wretched hut with no friends or companions but buzzing bees."

The Junior Sorcerer and his Masters then returned to their homes, happy in the success of their great performance; and the Youth went back to his home anxious to begin a life of activity and energy.

Years and years afterward, when the Junior Sorcerer had become a Senior and was very old indeed, he passed through the country of Orn, and noticed a small hut about which swarms of bees were flying. He approached it, and looking in at the door he saw an old man in a leathern doublet, sitting at a table, eating honey. By his magic art he knew this was the baby which had been transformed from the Bee-man.

"Upon my word!" exclaimed the Sorcerer, "he has grown into the same thing again!"

[E] From "The Bee-Man of Orn, and Other Fanciful Tales"; copyright, 1887, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Used by permission of the publishers.

THE POT OF GOLD[F]

BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN

The Flower family lived in a little house in a broad grassy meadow, which sloped a few rods from their front door down to a gentle, silvery river. Right across the river rose a lovely dark green mountain, and when there was a rainbow, as there frequently was, nothing could have looked more enchanting than it did rising from the opposite bank of the stream with the wet, shadowy mountain for a background. All the Flower family would invariably run to their front windows and their door to see it.

The Flower family numbered nine: Father and Mother Flower and seven children. Father Flower was an unappreciated poet, Mother Flower was very much like all mothers, and the seven children were very sweet and interesting. Their first names all matched beautifully with their last name, and with their personal appearance. For instance, the oldest girl, who had soft blue eyes and flaxen curls, was called Flax Flower: the little boy, who came next, and had very red cheeks and loved to sleep late in the morning, was called Poppy Flower, and so on. This charming suitableness of their names was owing to Father Flower. He had a theory that a great deal of the misery and discord in the world comes from things not matching properly as they should; and he thought there ought to be a certain correspondence between all things that were in juxtaposition to each other, just as there ought to be between the last two words of a couplet of poetry. But he found, very often, there was no correspondence at all, just as words in poetry do not always rhyme when they should. However, he did his best to remedy it. He saw that every one of his children's names was suitable and accorded with their personal characteristics; and in his flower-garden--for he raised flowers for the market--only those of complementary colors were allowed to grow in adjoining beds, and, as often as possible, they rhymed in their names. But that was a more difficult matter to manage, and very few flowers were rhymed, or, if they were, none rhymed correctly. He had a bed of box next to one of phlox, and a trellis of woodbine grew next to one of eglantine, and a thicket of elderblows was next to one of rose; but he was forced to let his violets and honeysuckles and many others go entirely unrhymed--this disturbed him considerably, but he reflected that it was not his fault, but that of the man who made the language and named the different flowers--he should have looked to it that those of complementary colors had names to rhyme with each other, then all would have been harmonious and as it should have been.

Father Flower had chosen this way of earning his livelihood when he realized that he was doomed to be an unappreciated poet, because it suited so well with his name; and if the flowers had only rhymed a little better he would have been very well contented. As it was, he never grumbled. He also saw to it that the furniture in his little house and the cooking utensils rhymed as nearly as possible, though that too was oftentimes a difficult matter to bring about, and required a vast deal of thought and hard study. The table always stood under the gable end of the roof, the foot-stool always stood where it was cool, and the big rocking-chair in a glare of sunlight; the lamp, too, he kept down cellar where it was damp. But all these were rather far-fetched, and sometimes quite inconvenient. Occasionally there would be an article that he could not rhyme until he had spent years of thought over it, and when he did it would disturb the comfort of the family greatly. There was the spider. He puzzled over that exceedingly, and when he rhymed it at last, Mother Flower or one of the little girls had always to take the spider beside her, when she sat down, which was of course quite troublesome. The kettle he rhymed first with nettle, and hung a bunch of nettle over it, till all the children got dreadfully stung. Then he tried settle, and hung the kettle over the settle. But that was no place for it; they had to go without their tea, and everybody who sat on the settle bumped his head against the kettle. At last it occurred to Father Flower that if he should make a slight change in the language the kettle could rhyme with the skillet, and sit beside it on the stove, as it ought, leaving harmony out of the question, to do. Accordingly all the children were instructed to call the skillet a skettle, and the kettle stood by its side on the stove ever afterward.

The house was a very pretty one, although it was quite rude and very simple. It was built of logs and had a thatched roof, which projected far out over the walls. But it was all overrun with the loveliest flowering vines imaginable, and, inside, nothing could have been more exquisitely neat and homelike; although there was only one room and a little garret over it. All around the house were the flower-beds and the vine-trellises and the blooming shrubs, and they were always in the most beautiful order. Now, although all this was very pretty to see, and seemingly very simple to bring to pass, yet there was a vast deal of labor in it for some one; for flowers do not look so trim and thriving without tending, and houses do not look so spotlessly clean without constant care. All the Flower family worked hard; even the littlest children had their daily tasks set them. The oldest girl, especially, little Flax Flower, was kept busy from morning till night taking care of her younger brothers and sisters, and weeding flowers. But for all that she was a very happy little girl, as indeed were the whole family, as they did not mind working, and loved each other dearly.

Father Flower, to be sure, felt a little sad sometimes; for, although his lot in life was a pleasant one, it was not exactly what he would have chosen. Once in a while he had a great longing for something different. He confided a great many of his feelings to Flax Flower; she was more like him than any of the other children, and could understand him even better than his wife, he thought.

One day, when there had been a heavy shower and a beautiful rainbow, he and Flax were out in the garden tying up some rose-bushes, which the rain had beaten down, and he said to her how he wished he could find the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow. Flax, if you will believe me, had never heard of it; so he had to tell her all about it, and also say a little poem he had made about it to her.

The poem ran something in this way:

O what is it shineth so golden-clear At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill? 'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still. And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray? For thee, Sweetheart, shouldst thou go that way.

Flax listened with her soft blue eyes very wide open. "I suppose if we should find that pot of gold it would make us very rich, wouldn't it, father?" said she.

"Yes," replied her father; "we could then have a grand house, and keep a gardener, and a maid to take care of the children, and we should no longer have to work so hard." He sighed as he spoke, and tears stood in his gentle blue eyes, which were very much like Flax's. "However, we shall never find it," he added.

"Why couldn't we run ever so fast when we saw the rainbow," inquired Flax, "and get the Pot of Gold?"

"Don't be foolish, child!" said her father; "you could not possibly reach it before the rainbow was quite faded away!"

"True," said Flax, but she fell to thinking as she tied up the dripping roses.

The next rainbow they had she eyed very closely, standing out on the front doorstep in the rain, and she saw that one end of it seemed to touch the ground at the foot of a pine-tree on the side of the mountain, which was quite conspicuous amongst its fellows, it was so tall. The other end had nothing especial to mark it.

"I will try the end where the tall pine-tree is first," said Flax to herself, "because that will be the easiest to find--if the Pot of Gold isn't there I will try to find the other end."

A few days after that it was very hot and sultry, and at noon the thunder heads were piled high all around the horizon.

"I don't doubt but we shall have showers this afternoon," said Father Flower, when he came in from the garden for his dinner.

After the dinner-dishes were washed up, and the baby rocked to sleep, Flax came to her mother with a petition.

"Mother," said she, "won't you give me a holiday this afternoon?"

"Why, where do you want to go, Flax?" said her mother.

"I want to go over on the mountain and hunt for wild flowers," replied Flax.

"But I think it is going to rain, child, and you will get wet."

"That won't hurt me any, mother," said Flax, laughing.

"Well, I don't know as I care," said her mother, hesitatingly. "You have been a very good industrious girl, and deserve a little holiday. Only don't go so far that you cannot soon run home if a shower should come up."

So Flax curled her flaxen hair and tied it up with a blue ribbon, and put on her blue and white checked dress. By the time she was ready to go the clouds over in the northwest were piled up very high and black, and it was quite late in the afternoon. Very likely her mother would not have let her go if she had been at home, but she had taken the baby, who had waked from his nap, and gone to call on her nearest neighbor, half a mile away. As for her father, he was busy in the garden, and all the other children were with him, and they did not notice Flax when she stole out of the front door. She crossed the river on a pretty arched stone bridge nearly opposite the house, and went directly into the woods on the side of the mountain.

Everything was very still and dark and solemn in the woods. They knew about the storm that was coming. Now and then Flax heard the leaves talking in queer little rustling voices. She inherited the ability to understand what they said from her father. They were talking to each other now in the words of her father's song. Very likely he had heard them saying it sometime, and that was how he happened to know it.

"O what is it shineth so golden-clear At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?"

Flax heard the maple-leaves inquire. And the pine-leaves answered back:

"'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still."

Then the maple-leaves asked:

"And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?"

And the pine-leaves answered:

"For thee, Sweetheart, shouldst thou go that way."

Flax did not exactly understand the sense of the last question and answer between maple and pine-leaves. But they kept on saying it over and over as she ran along. She was going straight to the tall pine-tree. She knew just where it was, for she had often been there. Now the rain-drops began to splash through the green boughs, and the thunder rolled along the sky. The leaves all tossed about in a strong wind and their soft rustles grew into a roar, and the branches and the whole tree caught it up and called out so loud, as they writhed and twisted about that Flax was almost deafened, the words of the song:

"O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"

Flax sped along through the wind and the rain and the thunder. She was very much afraid that she should not reach the tall pine which was quite a way distant before the sun shone out, and the rainbow came.

The sun was already breaking through the clouds when she came in sight of it, way up above her on a rock. The rain-drops on the trees began to shine like diamonds, and the words of the song rushed out from their midst, louder and sweeter:

"O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"

Flax climbed for dear life. Red and green and golden rays were already falling thick around her, and at the foot of the pine-tree something was shining wonderfully clear and bright.

At last she reached it, and just at that instant the rainbow became a perfect one, and there at the foot of the wonderful arch of glory was the Pot of Gold. Flax could see it brighter than all the brightness of the rainbow. She sank down beside it and put her hand on it, then she closed her eyes and sat still, bathed in red and green and violet light--that, and the golden light from the Pot, made her blind and dizzy. As she sat there with her hand on the Pot of Gold at the foot of the rainbow, she could hear the leaves over her singing louder and louder, till the tones fairly rushed like a wind through her ears. But this time they only sang the last words of the song:

"And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray? For thee, Sweetheart, shouldst thou go that way."

At last she ventured to open her eyes. The rainbow had faded almost entirely away, only a few tender rose and green shades were arching over her; but the Pot of Gold under her hand was still there, and shining brighter than ever. All the pine needles with which the ground around it was thickly spread, were turned to needles of gold, and some stray couplets of leaves which were springing up through them were all gilded.

Flax bent over it trembling and lifted the lid off the pot. She expected, of course, to find it full of gold pieces that would buy the grand house and the gardener and the maid that her father had spoken about. But to her astonishment, when she had lifted the lid off and bent over the Pot to look into it, the first thing she saw was the face of her mother looking out of it at her. It was smaller of course, but just the same loving, kindly face she had left at home. Then, as she looked longer, she saw her father smiling gently up at her, then came Poppy and the baby and all the rest of her dear little brothers and sisters smiling up at her out of the golden gloom inside the Pot. At last she actually saw the garden and her father in it tying up the roses, and the pretty little vine-covered house, and, finally, she could see right into the dear little room where her mother sat with the baby in her lap, and all the others around her.

Flax jumped up. "I will run home," said she, "it is late, and I do want to see them all dreadfully."

So she left the Golden Pot shining all alone under the pine-tree, and ran home as fast as she could.

When she reached the house it was almost twilight, but her father was still in the garden. Every rose and lily had to be tied up after the shower, and he was but just finishing. He had the tin milk pan hung on him like a shield, because it rhymed with man. It certainly was a beautiful rhyme, but it was very inconvenient. Poor Mother Flower was at her wits' end to know what to do without it, and it was very awkward for Father Flower to work with it fastened to him.

Flax ran breathlessly into the garden, and threw her arms around her father's neck and kissed him. She bumped her nose against the milk pan, but she did not mind that; she was so glad to see him again. Somehow, she never remembered being so glad to see him as she was now since she had seen his face in the Pot of Gold.

"Dear father," cried she, "how glad I am to see you! I found the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow!"

Her father stared at her in amazement.

"Yes, I did, truly, father," said she. "But it was not full of gold, after all. You were in it, and mother and the children and the house and garden and--everything."

"You were mistaken, dear," said her father, looking at her with his gentle, sorrowful eyes. "You could not have found the true end of the rainbow, nor the true Pot of Gold--that is surely full of the most beautiful gold pieces, with an angel stamped on every one."

"But I did, father," persisted Flax.

"You had better go into your mother, Flax," said her father; "she will be anxious to see you. I know better than you about the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow."

So Flax went sorrowfully into the house. There was the tea-kettle singing beside the "skettle," which had some nice smelling soup in it, the table was laid for supper, and there sat her mother with the baby in her lap and the others all around her--just as they had looked in the Pot of Gold.

Flax had never been so glad to see them before--and if she didn't hug and kiss them all!

"I found the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow, mother," cried she, "and it was not full of gold, at all; but you and father and the children looked out of it at me, and I saw the house and garden and everything in it."

Her mother looked at her lovingly. "Yes, Flax dear," said she.

"But father said I was mistaken," said Flax, "and did not find it."

"Well dear," said her mother, "your father is a poet, and very wise; we will say no more about it. You can sit down here and hold the baby now, while I make the tea."

Flax was perfectly ready to do that; and, as she sat there with her darling little baby brother crowing in her lap, and watched her pretty little brothers and sisters and her dear mother, she felt so happy that she did not care any longer whether she found the true Pot of Gold or not.

But, after all, do you know, I think her father was mistaken, and that she had.

[F] From "The Pot of Gold and Other Stories," by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company; used by special arrangement.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: VERSES ABOUT FAIRIES]

THE FAIRY THORN

_An Ulster Ballad_

BY SAMUEL FERGUSON

"Get up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning wheel, For your father's on the hill, and your mother is asleep: Come up above the crags, and we'll dance a Highland reel Around the fairy thorn on the steep."

At Anna Grace's door, 't was thus the maidens cried-- Three merry maidens fair, in kirtles of the green; And Anna laid the sock and the weary wheel aside-- The fairest of the four, I ween.

They're glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve, Away in milky wavings of the neck and ankle bare; The heavy-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave, And the crags in the ghostly air;

And linking hand in hand, and singing as they go, The maids along the hillside have ta'en their fearless way, Till they come to where the rowan trees in lonely beauty grow Beside the Fairy Hawthorn gray.

The Hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim, Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee; The rowan berries cluster o'er her low head, gray and dim, In ruddy kisses sweet to see.

The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row, Between each lovely couple a stately rowan stem; And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds, they go-- Oh, never carroled bird like them!

But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze, That drinks away their voices in echoless repose; And dreamily the evening has stilled the haunted braes, And dreamier the gloaming grows.

And sinking, one by one, like lark-notes from the sky, When the falcon's shadow saileth across the open shaw, Are hushed the maidens' voices, as cowering down they lie In the flutter of their sudden awe.

For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath, And from the mountain-ashes and the old white thorn between, A power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe, And they sink down together on the green.

They sink together silent, and stealing side by side, They fling their lovely arms o'er their drooping necks so fair; Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide, For their shrinking necks again are bare.

Thus clasped and prostrate all, with their heads together bowed, Soft o'er their bosoms beating--the only human sound-- They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy crowd, Like a river in the air, gliding round.

Nor scream can raise, nor prayer can any say, But wild, wild the terror of the speechless three; For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently away, By whom, they dare not look to see.

They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold, And the curls elastic falling, as her head withdraws; They feel her sliding arms from their tranced arms unfold, But they dare not look to see the cause.

For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies, Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze; And neither fear nor wonder can open their quivering eyes, Or their limbs from the cold ground raise.

Till out of night the earth has rolled her dewy side, With every haunted mountain and streamy vale below; When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow morning tide, The maidens' trance dissolveth so.

They fly, the ghastly three, as swiftly as they may, And told their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain-- They pined away and died within the year and day, And ne'er was Anna Grace seen again.

FAIRY DAYS

BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Beside the old hall fire, upon my nurse's knee, Of happy fairy days, what tales were told to me! I thought the world was once all peopled with princesses, And my heart would beat to hear their loves and their distresses. And many a quiet night, in slumber sweet and deep, The pretty fairy people would visit me in sleep.

I saw them in my dreams come flying east and west; With wondrous fairy gifts the newborn babe they blessed. One has brought a jewel, and one a crown of gold, And one has brought a curse, but she is wrinkled and old. The gentle queen turns pale to hear those words of sin, But the king, he only laughs, and bids the dance begin.

The babe has grown to be the fairest of the land, And rides the forest green, a hawk upon her hand, An ambling palfrey white, a golden robe and crown; I've seen her in my dreams riding up and down: And heard the ogre laugh, as she fell into his snare, At the tender little creature, who wept and tore her hair.

But ever when it seemed her need was at the sorest, A prince in shining mail comes prancing through the forest, A waving ostrich-plume, a buckler burnished bright; I've seen him in my dreams, good sooth! a gallant knight. His lips are coral red beneath a dark mustache; See how he waves his hand and how his blue eyes flash!

"Come forth, thou Paynim knight!" he shouts in accents clear. The giant and the maid, both tremble his voice to hear. Saint Mary guard him well! he draws his falchion keen, The giant and the knight are fighting on the green. I see them in my dreams, his blade gives stroke on stroke, The giant pants and reels, and tumbles like an oak!

With what a blushing grace he falls upon his knee And takes the lady's hand and whispers, "You are free." Ah! happy childish tales of knight and faerie! I waken from my dreams, but there's ne'er a knight for me; I waken from my dreams, and wish that I could be A child by the old hall-fire upon my nurse's knee!

[Illustration: A VISIT TO ELFLAND From the painting by F. Y. Cory]

THE FAIRY QUEEN

Come, follow, follow me-- You, fairy elves that be, Which circle on the green-- Come, follow Mab, your queen! Hand in hand let's dance around, For this place is fairy ground.

When mortals are at rest, And snoring in their nest, Unheard and unespied, Through keyholes we do glide; Over tables, stools, and shelves, We trip it with our fairy elves.

And if the house be foul With platter, dish, or bowl, Up stairs we nimbly creep, And find the sluts asleep; There we pinch their arms and thighs-- None escapes, nor none espies.

But if the house be swept, And from uncleanness kept, We praise the household maid, And duly she is paid; For we use, before we go, To drop a tester in her shoe.

Upon a mushroom's head, Our table cloth we spread; A grain of rye or wheat Is manchet, which we eat; Pearly drops of dew we drink, In acorn cups, filled to the brink.

The brains of nightingales, With unctuous fat of snails, Between two cockles stewed, Is meat that's easily chewed; Tails of worms, and marrow of mice, Do make a dish that's wondrous nice.

The grasshopper, gnat, and fly, Serve us for our minstrelsy; Grace said, we dance a while, And so the time beguile; And if the moon doth hide her head, The glow-worm lights us home to bed.

On tops of dewy grass So nimbly do we pass, The young and tender stalk Ne'er bends when we do walk; Yet in the morning may be seen Where we the night before have been.

THE SEA PRINCESS

In a palace of pearl and sea-weed, Set round with shining shells, Under the deeps of the ocean, The little Sea Princess dwells.

Sometimes she sees the shadows Of great whales passing by, Or white-winged vessels sailing Between the sea and sky.

And when through the waves she rises, Beyond the breakers' roar, She hears the shouts of the children At play on the sandy shore.

Or sees the ships' sides tower Above like a wet, black wall; Or shouts to the roaring breakers, And answers the sea-gull's call.

But, down in the quiet waters, Better she loves to play, Making a sea-weed garden-- Purple and green and gray;

Stringing with pearls a necklace, Or learning curious spells From the water-witch, gray and ancient, And hearing the tales she tells.

Out in the stable her sea-horse Champs in his crystal stall; And fishes with scales that glisten Come leaping forth at her call.

So the little Sea Princess Is busy and happy all day, Just as the human children Are busy and happy at play.

And when the darkness gathers Over the lonely deep, On a bed of velvet sea-weed The Princess is rocked to sleep.

LONG AGO

When the fairies used to live here, Long ago, There was never any dark, Or any snow; But the great big sun kept shining All the night, And the roses just kept blooming, Oh, so bright!

Then the little children never Teased their mothers; And little sisters always Loved their brothers. And they played so very gently-- But, you know, That was when the fairies lived here, Long ago.

THISTLE-TASSEL[G]

BY FLORENCE HARRISON

Thistle-Tassel, Thistle-Tassel, Dancing in the sunlight; Thistle-Tassel, Thistle-Tassel, With your silver wings, Will you come and live with me In my little nursery, Down beside a royal city, Where the river sings?

Little Lady, Little Lady, Stepping in the sunlight; Little Lady, Little Lady, Where the rivers run, What have you to give to me, In your pretty nursery, Fairer than a shady valley, Brighter than the sun?

Thistle-Tassel, Thistle-Tassel, Dancing in the twilight; Thistle-Tassel, Thistle-Tassel, With your yellow hair, You shall have a couch of down, You shall have a golden crown, And a little gown of silver Sewn for you to wear.

Little Lady, Little Lady, Stooping in the twilight; Little Lady, Little Lady, All so bonnie brown, Roses are a softer bed, Golden flowers crown my head, Finer than a robe o' silver Is a fairy gown.

Thistle-Tassel, Thistle-Tassel, Dancing in the starlight; Thistle-Tassel, Thistle-Tassel, With a bright penny You shall buy the sugar plums, And the honey when it comes, Very sweet, and golden-glowing As the honey bee.

Little Lady, Little Lady, Sighing in the starlight; Little Lady, Little Lady, In the heather curled, Fairy fruit is full and clear, And the honey bee is here: Never need have we of money In a fairy world.

Thistle-Tassel, Thistle-Tassel, Dancing in the moonlight; Thistle-Tassel, Thistle-Tassel, Queen of fairy ones, I will give you street and spire, Boat, and bridge, and beacon fire, And a sound of merry music Where the river runs.

Little Lady, Little Lady, Kneeling in the moonlight; Little Lady, Little Lady, In your yellow shoon: Where the boats and bridges be, Naught have you to give to me Fairer than a twilit valley, Brighter than the moon.

[G] From "Elfin Songs," by Florence Harrison; used by permission of the publishers, Blackie & Sons, Glasgow.

SONG OF THE FAIRY

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Over hill, over dale, Through bush, through brier, Over park, over pale, Through flood, through fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green; The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see: These be rubies, fairy favors-- In those freckles live their savors. I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

[Illustration: _From a Thistle Print, copyright by Detroit Publishing Company_ LITTLE OLD MAN OF THE WOODS FROM A PAINTING BY IRVING R. BACON]

THE FAIRIES

BY WILLIAM ALLINGHAM

Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together: Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather!

Down along the rocky shore Some make their home, They live on crispy pancakes Of yellow tide-foam; Some in the reeds Of the black mountain-lake, With frogs for their watch-dogs, All night awake.

High on the hill-top The old King sits; He is now so old and gray He's nigh lost his wits. With a bridge of white mist Columbkill he crosses, On his stately journeys From Slieveleague to Rosses; Or going up with music On cold starry nights, To sup with the Queen Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget For seven years long; When she came down again Her friends were all gone. They took her lightly back, Between the night and morrow, They thought that she was fast asleep, But she was dead with sorrow. They have kept her ever since Deep within the lake, On a bed of flag-leaves, Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side, Through the mosses bare, They have planted thorn-trees For pleasure here and there. Is any man so daring As dig them up in spite, He shall find their sharpest thorns In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather!

OH, WHERE DO FAIRIES HIDE THEIR HEADS?

BY THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY

Oh, where do fairies hide their heads When snow lies on the hills, When frost has spoiled their mossy beds, And crystallized their rills?

Beneath the moon they cannot trip In circles o'er the plain, And draughts of dew they cannot sip Till green leaves come again.

Perhaps, in small blue diving-bells They plunge beneath the waves-- Inhabiting the wreathed shells That lie in coral caves. Perhaps in red Vesuvius Carousal they maintain; And cheer their little spirits thus Till green leaves come again.

Or, maybe, in soft garments rolled, In hollow trees they lie, And sing, when nestled from the cold, To while the season by. There, while they sleep in pleasant trance, 'Neath mossy counterpane, In dreams they weave some fairy dance, Till green leaves come again.

When they return there will be mirth And music in the air, And fairy rings upon the earth, And mischief everywhere. The maids, to keep the elves aloof, Will bar the doors in vain; No key-hole will be fairy-proof, When green leaves come again.

[Illustration: MODERN FAIRY TALES]

THE ELF OF THE WOODLANDS

RETOLD FROM RICHARD HENGIST HORNE BY WILLIAM BYRON FORBUSH

One morning when the summer sun was still sleeping an Elf came up from below, tickling an oak-tree's foot, skipping like a flea, and whispering mischievously to himself.

"With little legs straddling, He dances about-- Pretends to be waddling-- Then leaps with a flout. Now he stops-- Now he hops-- Now cautiously trips On tiptoe And sliptoe He scuttles and skips; Along the grass gliding, Half dancing, half sliding."

There was a pretty white cottage on the edge of the wood, and, with everybody quiet within, it also seemed asleep. Toward this cottage skipped the Elf.

He was a little fellow, scarce five inches tall. His body was as brown as the bark of a tree, all mixed with green streaks and tarnished gold. You could hardly see him as he went stooping along against the green leaves and the brown branches.

When he got to the sleeping cottage he climbed up the lattice, and poked his sharp little nose into every crevice. He pulled open a loose shutter, tapped once or twice on the windows, and when he found a broken pane--in he went!

In this cottage lived a girl named Toody. She was not very big, as you can believe when I tell you that all the shrubs in the garden were taller than she, and all the flowers nodded over her head. In this same house lived Toody's cousins, Kitty, and Crocus, and Twig, and Tiny--only Tiny was a little dog, not a little boy. And here, too, lived Grandmother Grey.

"In spectacles, tucker and flower'd-chintz gown, Who always half smiled when trying to frown."

Grandmother Grey took care of them all. At five o'clock that morning she woke up. "What noise do I hear below?" she cried. "It is daylight, but nobody is up I know."

So Grandmother Grey threw off her skullcap and bandage, and nightcap with all its ribbons, bows and strings, and called out loudly: "Come, children, jump up quickly! There's a rat in the dairy! Come down with me."

Then Toody, and Crocus, and Kitty, and Twig, in their nightgowns and nightcaps, ran scrambling and laughing down stairs, with Tiny barking and tumbling about between their legs. They crept through the parlor, where all the shutters were closed but one. Like cautious Indians they went silently on, Dame Grey and the children in single file, each holding on to the one before by the tail of her nightgown.

Into the dairy they went, and stared about. Then they huddled together in fear, for behind a milk-jug, under the spout, they saw a quaint little figure.

"It was golden, and greenish, and earthy brown, With a perking nose and a pointed chin; It had very bright eyes and a funny frown, With a russet-apple's network skin."

They all started to run in terror, but brave Tiny sprang up and began to chase the Elf round a milkpan.

Oh, what a race was there! They ran so fast that the two small bodies were as one. They looked like the dark band on the humming-top when you spin it. And just as Tiny was about to catch him, the Elf leaped into a pan, swam across three pails of milk, climbed the wall and hid on a shelf.

"We've lost him; we've lost him!" cried all the children. But, just in time, Grandmother Grey seized her jelly-bag, swung it across the shelf, and into it was swept our little elfin friend.

"Now, children," said she, "Go up and dress."

The children did not know what the old dame was going to do next. She led the way into the parlor. "Tiny," said she, "I depend on you to keep watch for us." So Tiny stood like a soldier, with both ears cocked and his nose down bent, and watched every motion that was going on in the bag, which stood up now like a tent on the floor.

'Twas but a minute before the children were down again, all dressed. The tea-kettle was singing, and the hot rolls were on the table, and everybody was ringing the bell all at once for more eggs. But Tiny stood guard over the jelly-bag tent.

"I think the Elf is hungry and thirsty," said Toody. So she slipped a saucer of milk under the edge of the tent, and then, laughing, she rolled in an egg. They all listened for ten minutes, and then they plainly heard the crackling of the shell.

"Away with the tea things!" said Dame Grey to Martha, the maid. "And bring me my white wicker bird-cage."

So the bird-cage was brought, and Grandmother Grey took up the jelly-bag carefully, clapped its mouth to the open cage-door, shook it, and--pop! in went the Elf, and the cage door was made fast! Did he moan? Did he complain? Not he. With one spring and ten kicks he climbed to the pole and seated himself there, with his hands on the pole.

Toody ran close to the cage, and so did Crocus and Twig; and Kitty, a little farther off, stood staring and smiling. But the Elf was not a bit frightened. He sat swinging his little legs, with his tongue in his left cheek and his left eye looking down with a half-winking, impertinent air.

"Now," cried Dame Grey, "tell us who you are, little Sir, and what you are. Do you know that you have spoilt all my cream, and broken my best china-cup? Speak up now! What have you to say for yourself?"

The Elf was very angry, but it would never do to show it. So he tried to look as gentle as a good child reading a book. He rubbed some of the yellow of the egg off his chin, and stuck it on his leg like a buttercup. He shrugged his shoulders up in a bunch, and then, with a sneeze as if he had caught cold in the forest, he began:

"Nine white witches sat in a circle close, With their backs against a greenwood tree, As around the dead-nettle's summer stem Its woolly white blossoms you see. Then from hedges and ditches, these old lady-witches, Took bird-weed and rag-weed and spear-grass for me, And they wove me a bower, 'gainst the snow-storm or shower, In a dry old hollow beech tree. _Twangle tee!_ _Ri-rigdum, dingle shade-laugh, tingle dee!_"

"Nonsense!" said Grandmother Grey. "You can't fool me with your nettles, and nonsense, and hedges, and ditches. What do I care about all that? You know as well as I do that you came here to _steal cake_ and _drink cream_. Besides, you have broken my best china-cup!"

The Elf gave a sigh, and looked up in the air; then took a glance at Martha's broom, and as he looked down he thought he saw Toody winking at him. So he just smiled and said: "I declare, by the tom-tit's folly, and the mole's pin-hole eye, and the woodpecker's thorny tongue, that I have told you the truth."

Noticing that Toody was still winking at him he kept on, and told the following story:

"One day when I was loafing about in the wood I heard a strange noise in the bushes. I peeped over the edge, and there was a robin bathing in the brook. It ruffled its feathers with a spattering sound, made itself into a fussy ball, and threw up a shower of water; but what I most noticed was its eye--its eye!--"

"Its eye--its eye?" broke in all the children. "What about its eye?"

The Elf glanced again at Toody, and he saw that this time she gave him a quiet nod, as much as to say, "I'll find you a chance." So the Elf gave a downward squint at the closed cage-door, just for a hint. Then he scratched his cheek, jumped down on the floor of the cage, and began to act out a "robin," just as if he were on the stage.

"Its eye--its eye? Well, just as soon as it caught a glimpse of me it bobbed--took wing--and was out of sight. Then back it came again, as if angry. It looked like an alderman lecturing the poor, but meaning really to--_unlock the cage!_ I mean--to try to fool me. See! How high it flies. Clear up to the tip-top of the tree. Look at its large bright eye! There! There! See how it bobs--makes a quick bow, just as I am doing--points down its tail and up its nose--and off it goes!"

And out and off went the Elf!

"Run, Tiny, run! Oh, Kitty! Twig! The little rascal is gone! Run, Toody, run! Ah, I caught you; you are the one who loosened the cage-door. Run, Tiny! Oh, Kitty, Twig, and Crocus, that robin redbreast story was only meant to fool us!" Thus cried Grandmother Grey, till she was breathless.

"Off they all ran trooping, And hallooing and whooping, Beneath the low boughs stooping, Right through the wood, For Grandmama Grey, Like an old duck, led the way, When a string of ducks trudge to a flood. Then came Kitty, side by side With Toody, who oft cried; 'Oh, Kitty dear, was ever such rare fun, fun, fun!' And Crocus close to Twig, Both scampered in a jig, For they knew the Elf his freedom-race had won, won, won! As for him, the roguish Elf, He took good care of himself; His mites of legs they twinkled as he fled, fled, fled. He was scarcely seen, indeed, He so glistened with his speed, And his hair streamed out like silver grass behind his head."

So Dame Grey and the children chased the Elf till they were hot and tired, and till the sun went down; and by and by they gave up, and all went home to let Martha wash their soiled hands and faces.

It was a warm and pleasant night, and before very long all the children were fast asleep.

"Within a very little nook, Toody always slept alone, Its strip of window stole a look Over the lawn and hayrick-cone.

Within the open lattice crept Some jasmine from the cottage wall, And to the breathing of her sleep, Softly swayed, with rise and fall.

But something else comes creeping in, As softly, from the starry night-- The Elf!--'tis he!--first peeping in, Now like a moth doth he alight.

He trips up to the little bed, And near it hangs a full-blown rose; Then in the middle of the flower Places a light that gleams and glows.

It is a glowworm from the lea, And lighting up the rose's heart, A fairy grot it seems to be, Where dream-thoughts live and ne'er depart.

And now the Elf once more is gone Into the woodlands wild, Leaving his blessing thus to shine Upon the sleeping child."

PRINCESS FINOLA AND THE DWARF[H]

BY EDMUND LEAMY

A long, long time ago there lived in a little hut in the midst of a bare, brown, lonely moor an old woman and a young girl. The old woman was withered, sour-tempered, and dumb. The young girl was as sweet and as fresh as an opening rosebud, and her voice was as musical as the whisper of a stream in the woods in the hot days of summer. The little hut, made of branches woven closely together, was shaped like a bee-hive. In the center of the hut a fire burned night and day from year's end to year's end, though it was never touched or tended by human hand. In the cold days and nights of winter it gave out light and heat that made the hut cozy and warm, but in the summer nights and days it gave out light only. With their heads to the wall of the hut and their feet toward the fire were two sleeping-couches--one of plain woodwork, in which slept the old woman; the other was Finola's. It was of bog-oak, polished as a looking-glass, and on it were carved flowers and birds of all kinds that gleamed and shone in the light of the fire. This couch was fit for a Princess, and a Princess Finola was, though she did not know it herself.

Outside the hut the bare, brown, lonely moor stretched for miles on every side, but toward the east it was bounded by a range of mountains that looked to Finola blue in the daytime, but which put on a hundred changing colors as the sun went down. Nowhere was a house to be seen, nor a tree, nor a flower, nor sign of any living thing. From morning till night, nor hum of bee, nor song of bird, nor voice of man, nor any sound fell on Finola's ear. When the storm was in the air the great waves thundered on the shore beyond the mountains, and the wind shouted in the glens; but when it sped across the moor it lost its voice, and passed as silently as the dead. At first the silence frightened Finola, but she got used to it after a time, and often broke it by talking to herself and singing.

The only other person beside the old woman Finola ever saw was a dumb Dwarf who, mounted on a broken-down horse, came once a month to the hut, bringing with him a sack of corn for the old woman and Finola. Although he couldn't speak to her, Finola was always glad to see the Dwarf and his old horse, and she used to give them cake made with her own white hands. As for the Dwarf he would have died for the little Princess, he was so much in love with her, and often and often his heart was heavy and sad as he thought of her pining away in the lonely moor.

It chanced that he came one day, and she did not, as usual, come out to greet him. He made signs to the old woman, but she took up a stick and struck him, and beat his horse and drove him away; but as he was leaving he caught a glimpse of Finola at the door of the hut, and saw that she was crying. This sight made him so very miserable that he could think of nothing else but her sad face, that he had always seen so bright; and he allowed the old horse to go on without minding where he was going. Suddenly he heard a voice saying: "It is time for you to come."

The Dwarf looked, and right before him, at the foot of a green hill, was a little man not half as big as himself, dressed in a green jacket with brass buttons, and a red cap and tassel.

"It is time for you to come," he said the second time; "but you are welcome, anyhow. Get off your horse and come in with me, that I may touch your lips with the wand of speech, that we may have a talk together."

The Dwarf got off his horse and followed the little man through a hole in the side of a green hill. The hole was so small that he had to go on his hands and knees to pass through it, and when he was able to stand he was only the same height as the little Fairyman. After walking three or four steps they were in a splendid room, as bright as day. Diamonds sparkled in the roof as stars sparkle in the sky when the night is without a cloud. The roof rested on golden pillars, and between the pillars were silver lamps, but their light was dimmed by that of the diamonds. In the middle of the room was a table, on which were two golden plates and two silver knives and forks, and a brass bell as big as a hazelnut, and beside the table were two little chairs.

"Take a chair," said the Fairy, "and I will ring for the wand of speech."

The Dwarf sat down, and the Fairyman rang the little brass bell, and in came a little weeny Dwarf no bigger than your hand.

"Bring me the wand of speech," said the Fairy, and the weeny Dwarf bowed three times and walked out backward, and in a minute he returned, carrying a little black wand with a red berry at the top of it, and, giving it to the Fairy, he bowed three times and walked out backward as he had done before.

The little man waved the rod three times over the Dwarf, and struck him once on the right shoulder and once on the left shoulder, and then touched his lips with the red berry, and said: "Speak!"

The Dwarf spoke, and he was so rejoiced at hearing the sound of his own voice that he danced about the room.

"Who are you at all, at all?" said he to the Fairy.

"Who is yourself?" said the Fairy. "But come, before we have any talk let us have something to eat, for I am sure you are hungry."

Then they sat down to table, and the Fairy rang the little brass bell twice, and the weeny Dwarf brought in two boiled snails in their shells, and when they had eaten the snails he brought in a dormouse, and when they had eaten the dormouse he brought in two wrens, and when they had eaten the wrens he brought in two nuts full of wine, and they became very merry, and the Fairyman sang "Cooleen Dhas," and the Dwarf sang "The Little Blackbird of the Glen."

"Did you ever hear the 'Foggy Dew'?" said the Fairy.

"No," said the Dwarf.

"Well, then, I'll give it to you; but we must have some more wine."

And the wine was brought, and he sang the "Foggy Dew," and the Dwarf said it was the sweetest song he had ever heard, and that the Fairyman's voice would coax the birds off the bushes!

"You asked me who I am?" said the Fairy.

"I did," said the Dwarf.

"And I asked you who is yourself?"

"You did," said the Dwarf.

"And who are you, then?"

"Well, to tell the truth, I don't know," said the Dwarf, and he blushed like a rose.

"Well, tell me what you know about yourself."

"I remember nothing at all," said the Dwarf, "before the day I found myself going along with a crowd of all sorts of people to the great fair of the Liffey. We had to pass by the King's palace on our way, and as we were passing the King sent for a band of jugglers to come and show their tricks before him. I followed the jugglers to look on, and when the play was over the King called me to him, and asked me who I was and where I came from. I was dumb then, and couldn't answer; but even if I could speak I could not tell him what he wanted to know, for I remembered nothing of myself before that day. Then the King asked the jugglers, but they knew nothing about me, and no one knew anything, and then the King said he would take me into his service; and the only work I have to do is to go once a month with a bag of corn to the hut in the lonely moor."

"And there you fell in love with the little Princess," said the Fairy, winking at the Dwarf.

The poor Dwarf blushed twice as much as he had done before.

"You need not blush," said the Fairy; "it is a good man's case. And now tell me, truly, do you love the Princess, and what would you give to free her from the spell of enchantment that is over her?"

"I would give my life," said the Dwarf.

"Well, then, listen to me," said the Fairy. "The Princess Finola was banished to the lonely moor by the King, your master. He killed her father, who was the rightful King, and would have killed Finola, only he was told by an old sorceress that if he killed her he would die himself on the same day, and she advised him to banish her to the lonely moor, and she said she would fling a spell of enchantment over it, and that until the spell was broken Finola could not leave the moor. And the sorceress also promised that she would send an old woman to watch over the Princess by night and by day, so that no harm should come to her; but she told the King that he himself should select a messenger to take food to the hut, and that he should look out for someone who had never seen or heard of the Princess, and whom he could trust never to tell anyone anything about her; and that is the reason he selected you."

"Since you know so much," said the Dwarf, "can you tell me who I am, and where I came from?"

"You will know that time enough," said the Fairy. "I have given you back your speech. It will depend solely on yourself whether you will get back your memory of who and what you were before the day you entered the King's service. But are you really willing to try and break the spell of enchantment and free the Princess?"

"I am," said the Dwarf.

"Whatever it will cost you?"

"Yes, if it cost me my life," said the Dwarf; "but tell me, how can the spell be broken?"

"Oh, it is easy enough to break the spell if you have the weapons," said the Fairy.

"And what are they, and where are they?" said the Dwarf.

"The spear of the shining haft and the dark blue blade and the silver shield," said the Fairy. "They are on the farther bank of the Mystic Lake in the Island of the Western Seas. They are there for the man who is bold enough to seek them. If you are the man who will bring them back to the lonely moor you will only have to strike the shield three times with the haft, and three times with the blade of the spear, and the silence of the moor will be broken forever, the spell of enchantment will be removed, and the Princess will be free."

"I will set out at once," said the Dwarf, jumping from his chair.

"And whatever it cost you," said the Fairy, "will you pay the price?"

"I will," said the Dwarf.

"Well, then, mount your horse, give him his head, and he will take you to the shore opposite the Island of the Mystic Lake. You must cross to the island on his back, and make your way through the water-steeds that swim around the island night and day to guard it; but woe betide you if you attempt to cross without paying the price, for if you do the angry water-steeds will rend you and your horse to pieces. And when you come to the Mystic Lake you must wait until the waters are as red as wine, and then swim your horse across it, and on the farther side you will find the spear and shield; but woe betide you if you attempt to cross the lake before you pay the price, for if you do, the black Cormorants of the Western Seas will pick the flesh from your bones."

"What is the price?" said the Dwarf.

"You will know that time enough," said the Fairy; "but now go, and good luck go with you."

The Dwarf thanked the Fairy, and said good-by. He then threw the reins on his horse's neck, and started up the hill, that seemed to grow bigger and bigger as he ascended, and the Dwarf soon found that what he took for a hill was a great mountain. After traveling all the day, toiling up by steep crags and heathery passes, he reached the top as the sun was setting in the ocean, and he saw far below him out in the waters the island of the Mystic Lake.

He began his descent to the shore, but long before he reached it the sun had set, and darkness, unpierced by a single star, dropped upon the sea. The old horse, worn out by his long and painful journey, sank beneath him, and the Dwarf was so tired that he rolled off his back and fell asleep by his side.

He awoke at the breaking of the morning, and saw that he was almost at the water's edge. He looked out to sea, and saw the island, but nowhere could he see the water-steeds, and he began to fear he must have taken a wrong course in the night, and that the island before him was not the one he was in search of. But even while he was so thinking he heard fierce and angry snortings, and, coming swiftly from the island to the shore, he saw the swimming and prancing steeds. Sometimes their heads and manes only were visible, and sometimes, rearing, they rose half out of the water, and, striking it with their hoofs, churned it into foam, and tossed the white spray to the skies. As they approached nearer and nearer their snortings became more terrible, and their nostrils shot forth clouds of vapor. The Dwarf trembled at the sight and sound, and his old horse, quivering in every limb, moaned piteously, as if in pain. On came the steeds, until they almost touched the shore, then rearing, they seemed about to spring on to it.

The frightened Dwarf turned his head to fly, and as he did so he heard the twang of a golden harp, and right before him whom should he see but the little man of the hills, holding a harp in one hand and striking the strings with the other.

"Are you ready to pay the price?" said he, nodding gayly to the Dwarf.

As he asked the question, the listening water-steeds snorted more furiously than ever.

"Are you ready to pay the price?" said the little man a second time.

A shower of spray, tossed on shore by the angry steeds, drenched the Dwarf to the skin, and sent a cold shiver to his bones, and he was so terrified that he could not answer.

"For the third and last time, are you ready to pay the price?" asked the Fairy, as he flung the harp behind him and turned to depart.

When the Dwarf saw him going he thought of the little Princess in the lonely moor, and his courage came back, and he answered bravely:

"Yes, I am ready."

The water-steeds, hearing his answer, and snorting with rage, struck the shore with their pounding hoofs.

"Back to your waves!" cried the little harper; and as he ran his fingers across his lyre, the frightened steeds drew back into the waters.

"What is the price?" asked the Dwarf.

"Your right eye," said the Fairy; and before the Dwarf could say a word, the Fairy scooped out the eye with his finger, and put it into his pocket.

The Dwarf suffered most terrible agony; but he resolved to bear it for the sake of the little Princess. Then the Fairy sat down on a rock at the edge of the sea, and, after striking a few notes, he began to play the "Strains of Slumber."

The sound crept along the waters, and the steeds, so ferocious a moment before, became perfectly still. They had no longer any motion of their own, and they floated on the top of the tide like foam before a breeze.

"Now," said the Fairy, as he led the Dwarf's horse to the edge of the tide.

The Dwarf urged the horse into the water, and once out of his depth, the old horse struck out boldly for the island. The sleeping water-steeds drifted helplessly against him, and in a short time he reached the island safely, and he neighed joyously as his hoofs touched solid ground.

The Dwarf rode on and on, until he came to a bridle-path, and following this, it led him up through winding lanes, bordered with golden furze that filled the air with fragrance, and brought him to the summit of the green hills that girdled and looked down on the Mystic Lake. Here the horse stopped of his own accord, and the Dwarf's heart beat quickly as his eye rested on the lake, that, clipped round by the ring of hills, seemed in the breezeless and sunlit air--

"As still as death. And as bright as life can be."

After gazing at it for a long time, he dismounted, and lay at his ease in the pleasant grass. Hour after hour passed, but no change came over the face of the waters; and when the night fell, sleep closed the eyelids of the Dwarf.

The song of the lark awoke him in the early morning, and, starting up, he looked at the lake, but its waters were as bright as they had been the day before.

Toward midday he beheld what he thought was a black cloud sailing across the sky from east to west. It seemed to grow larger as it came nearer and nearer, and when it was high above the lake he saw it was a huge bird, the shadow of whose outstretched wings darkened the waters of the lake; and the Dwarf knew it was one of the Cormorants of the Western Seas. As it descended slowly, he saw that it held in one of its claws a branch of a tree larger than a full-grown oak, and laden with clusters of ripe red berries. It alighted at some distance from the Dwarf, and, after resting for a time, it began to eat the berries and to throw the stones into the lake, and wherever a stone fell a bright red stain appeared in the water. As he looked more closely at the bird the Dwarf saw that it had all the signs of old age, and he could not help wondering how it was able to carry such a heavy tree.

Later in the day, two other birds, as large as the first, but younger, came up from the west and settled down beside him. They also ate the berries, and throwing the stones into the lake it was soon as red as wine.

When they had eaten all the berries, the young birds began to pick the decayed feathers off the old bird and to smooth his plumage. As soon as they had completed their task, he rose slowly from the hill and sailed out over the lake, and dropping down on the waters dived beneath them. In a moment he came to the surface, and shot up into the air with a joyous cry, and flew off to the west in all the vigor of renewed youth, followed by the other birds.

When they had gone so far that they were like specks in the sky, the Dwarf mounted his horse and descended toward the lake.

He was almost at the margin, and in another minute would have plunged in, when he heard a fierce screaming in the air, and before he had time to look up, the three birds were hovering over the lake.

The Dwarf drew back frightened.

The birds wheeled over his head, and then, swooping down, they flew close to the water, covering it with their wings, and uttering harsh cries.

Then, rising to a great height, they folded their wings and dropped headlong, like three rocks, on the lake, crashing its surface, and scattering a wine-red shower upon the hills.

Then the Dwarf remembered what the Fairy told him, that if he attempted to swim the lake, without paying the price, the three Cormorants of the Western Seas would pick the flesh off his bones. He knew not what to do, and was about to turn away, when he heard once more the twang of the golden harp, and the little fairy of the hills stood before him.

"Faint heart never won fair lady," said the little harper. "Are you ready to pay the price? The spear and shield are on the opposite bank, and the Princess Finola is crying this moment in the lonely moor."

At the mention of Finola's name the Dwarf's heart grew strong.

"Yes," he said; "I am ready--win or die. What is the price?"

"Your left eye," said the Fairy. And as soon as said he scooped out the eye, and put it in his pocket.

The poor blind Dwarf almost fainted with pain.

"It's your last trial," said the Fairy, "and now do what I tell you. Twist your horse's mane round your right hand, and I will lead him to the water. Plunge in, and fear not. I gave you back your speech. When you reach the opposite bank you will get back your memory, and you will know who and what you are."

Then the Fairy led the horse to the margin of the lake.

"In with you now, and good luck go with you," said the Fairy.

The Dwarf urged the horse. He plunged into the lake, and went down and down until his feet struck the bottom. Then he began to ascend, and as he came near the surface of the water the Dwarf thought he saw a glimmering light, and when he rose above the water he saw the bright sun shining and the green hills before him, and he shouted with joy at finding his sight restored.

But he saw more. Instead of the old horse he had ridden into the lake he was bestride a noble steed, and as the steed swam to the bank the Dwarf felt a change coming over himself, and an unknown vigor in his limbs.

When the steed touched the shore he galloped up the hillside, and on the top of the hill was a silver shield, bright as the sun, resting against a spear standing upright in the ground.

The Dwarf jumped off, and, running toward the shield, he saw himself as in a looking-glass.

He was no longer a dwarf, but a gallant knight. At that moment his memory came back to him, and he knew he was Conal, one of the Knights of the Red Branch, and he remembered now that the spell of dumbness and deformity had been cast upon him by the Witch of the Palace of the Quicken Trees.

Slinging his shield upon his left arm, he plucked the spear from the ground and leaped on to his horse. With a light heart he swam back over the lake, and nowhere could he see the black Cormorants of the Western Seas, but three white swans floating abreast followed him to the bank. When he reached the bank he galloped down to the sea, and crossed to the shore.

Then he flung the reins upon his horse's neck, and swifter than the wind the gallant horse swept on and on, and it was not long until he was bounding over the enchanted moor. Wherever his hoofs struck the ground, grass and flowers sprang up, and great trees with leafy branches rose on every side.

At last the knight reached the little hut. Three times he struck the shield with the haft and three times with the blade of his spear. At the last blow the hut disappeared, and standing before him was the little Princess.

The knight took her in his arms and kissed her; then he lifted her on to the horse, and, leaping up before her, he turned toward the north, to the palace of the Red Branch Knights; and as they rode on beneath the leafy trees, from every tree the birds sang out, for the spell of deathly silence over the lonely moor was broken forever.

[H] From "The Golden Spear," by Edmund Leamy; used by permission of the publisher, Desmond Fitzgerald, New York.

THE STRAW OX

_A Russian Tale_

An old man and an old woman lived in an old house on the edge of the forest. The old man worked in the field all day and the woman spun flax. But for all of their hard work they were very poor--never one penny could they save. One day the old man said to the old woman:

"I would like to give you something to please you, but I have nothing to give."

"Never mind that," said the old woman, "make me a straw ox."

"A straw ox!" cried the old man. "What will you do with that?"

"Never mind that," said the old woman.

So the old man made a straw ox.

"Smear it all over with tar," said the old woman.

"Why should I smear it with tar?" asked the old man.

"Never mind that," said the old woman.

So the old man smeared the straw ox all over with tar.

The next morning when the old woman went out into the field to gather flax she took the straw ox with her and left it standing alone near the edge of the forest.

A bear came out of the woods, and said to the ox: "Who are you?"

"I am an ox all smeared with tar, And filled with straw, as oxen are,"

replied the ox.

"Oh," said the bear. "I need some straw to mend my coat, and the tar will keep it in place. Give me some straw and some tar."

"Help yourself," said the ox.

So the bear began to tear at the ox, and his great paws stuck fast, and he pulled and he tugged, and he tugged and he pulled, and the more he pulled and tugged, the faster he stuck, and he could not get away.

Then the ox dragged the bear to the old house on the edge of the forest.

When the old woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the straw ox had gone she ran home as fast as she could. There stood the ox with the bear stuck fast to him.

"Husband, husband! Come here at once," she cried. "The ox has brought home a bear; what shall we do?"

So the old man came as fast as he could, pulled the bear off the ox, tied him up, and threw him into the cellar.

The next morning when the old woman went into the field to gather flax she again took the straw ox with her, and again she left him standing alone near the edge of the forest.

A wolf came out of the woods, and said to the ox: "Who are you?"

"I am an ox all smeared with tar, And filled with straw, as oxen are,"

replied the ox.

"Oh," said the wolf, "I need some tar to smear my coat so that the dogs cannot catch me."

"Help yourself," said the ox.

The wolf put up his paws to take the tar and his paws stuck fast. He pulled and he tugged, and he tugged and he pulled, and the more he pulled and tugged, the faster he stuck and he could not get away.

Then the ox dragged the wolf to the old house on the edge of the forest.

When the old woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the straw ox had gone she ran home as fast as she could. There stood the ox in the yard with the wolf stuck fast to him.

[Illustration: "THEN CAME THE FOX, WITH MANY GEESE RUNNING BEFORE HIM"]

"Husband, husband! Come here at once!" she cried. "The ox has brought home a wolf; what shall we do?"

So the old man came as fast as he could, pulled the wolf off the ox, tied him up, and threw him into the cellar.

The next morning when the old woman went out into the field to gather flax she again took the straw ox with her, and again she left it standing alone near the edge of the forest.

A fox came out of the woods, and said to the ox: "Who are you?"

"I am an ox all smeared with tar, And filled with straw, as oxen are,"

replied the ox.

"Oh," said the fox, "I need some tar to smear my coat so that the dogs cannot catch me."

"Help yourself," said the ox.

The fox put up his paws to take the tar, and his paws stuck fast. He pulled and he tugged, and he tugged and he pulled, and the more he pulled and tugged, the faster he stuck, and he could not get away.

Then the ox dragged the fox to the old house on the edge of the forest.

When the old woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the straw ox had gone she ran home as fast as she could. There stood the ox with the fox stuck fast to him.

"Husband, husband! Come here at once!" she cried. "The ox has brought home a fox; what shall we do?"

So the old man came as fast as he could, pulled the fox off the ox, tied him up, and threw him into the cellar.

The next morning when the woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the ox had gone and she had run home as fast as she could, there stood the ox with a rabbit stuck fast to him.

And the old man threw the rabbit into the cellar.

The next morning the old man said:

"Now we will see what will come of all of this."

So he took his knife and sat down by the cellar door and began to make the knife sharp and bright.

"What are you doing, old man?" asked the bear.

"I am making my knife sharp and bright so as to cut up your coat and make a nice warm jacket for the old woman to keep her warm this winter."

"Oh," said the bear. "Do not cut up my coat. Let me go, and I will bring you some nice, sweet honey to eat."

"Very well," said the old man, "see to it that you do."

So the old man let the bear go.

Then he sat down again and began to make his knife sharp and bright.

"What are you doing, old man?" asked the wolf.

"I am making my knife sharp and bright so as to cut up your coat to make me a fine fur cap," said the old man.

"Oh," said the wolf. "Do not cut up my coat. Let me go and I will bring you some sheep."

"Very well," said the old man, "see to it that you do."

So the old man let the wolf go.

Then he sat down again with his knife in his hand.

"What are you doing, old man?" asked the fox.

"I am making my knife sharp and bright so as to cut up your coat to make me a nice fur collar."

"Oh," said the fox, "do not cut up my coat. Let me go and I will bring you some geese."

"Very well," said the old man, "see to it that you do."

And in the same way he let the rabbit loose, who said that he would bring some cabbage and some turnips and some carrots.

The next morning early the old woman woke up and said:

"Some one is knocking at the door."

So the old man got up and went to the door and opened it.

"See," said the bear, "I have brought you a jar full of honey."

"Very well," said the old man, and he gave the jar to the old woman who put it on the shelf.

Then came the wolf driving a flock of sheep into the yard.

"See," said the wolf, "I have brought you a flock of sheep."

"Very well," said the old man, and he drove the sheep into the pasture.

Then came the fox, with many geese running before him, and the old man drove them into the pen; and then came the rabbit with cabbages and turnips and carrots and other good things, and the old woman took them and put them into the pot and cooked them.

And the old man said to the old woman, "Now we have sheep in the pasture and many geese in the pen, and we are rich, and I can give you something to please you."

THE LITTLE PRINCESS OF THE FEARLESS HEART

BY B. J. DASKAM

Once upon a time the great, yellow stork carried a baby Princess to the Queen of that country which lies next to fairy-land.

All throughout the kingdom the bells rang, the people shouted, and the King declared a holiday for a whole year. But the Queen was very anxious, for she knew that the fairies are a queer lot, and their borders were very close indeed.

"We must be very careful to slight none of them at the christening," she said, "for goodness knows what they might do, if we did!"

So the wise-men drew up the lists, and when the day for the christening arrived, the fairies were all there, and everything went as smoothly as a frosted cake.

But the Queen said to the Lady-in-waiting:

"The first fairy godmother gave her nothing but a kiss! I don't call that much of a gift!"

"'Sh!" whispered the Lady-in-waiting. "The fairies hear everything!"

And indeed, the fairy heard her well enough, and very angry she was about it, too. For she was so old that she knew all about it, from beginning to end, and she was sure that the Wizard with Three Dragons was sitting in the Black Forest, watching the whole matter in his crystal globe. So she had whispered her gift--which was nothing more nor less than a Fearless Heart--into the ear of the Little Princess. But the Queen thought she had only kissed her.

So, when the clock was on the hour of four (which, as every one knows, is the end of christenings and fairy gifts) the first godmother went up to the golden cradle.

"Since my first gift was not satisfactory to every one," she said, angrily, "I will give the Little Princess another. And that is, that when the time comes she shall marry the Prince of the Black Heart!"

Then the clock struck four, while the Queen wept on the bosom of the Lady-in-waiting.

And that was the end of the christening.

Then the King called the wise-men together, and for forty days and nights they read the books and studied the stars.

In the end, they laid out a Garden, with a wall so high that the sun could not shine over it until noon, and so broad that it was a day's journey for a swift horse to cross it. One tiny door there was: but the first gate was of iron, and five-and-twenty men-at-arms stood before it, day and night, with drawn swords; the second gate was of beaten copper, and before that were fifty archers, with arrows on the string; the third gate was of triple brass, and before it a hundred knights, in full armor, rode without ceasing.

Into the Garden went the Little Princess, and the Queen, and all her ladies; but no man might pass the gates, save the King himself. And there the Princess dwelt until her seventeenth birthday, without seeing any more of the world than the inside of the wall.

Now it happened that, some time before, a young Prince had ridden out of the west and set about his travels. For the wise-man on the hill had come to him and said:

"In the kingdom which lies next to fairyland dwells a Little Princess who has a Fearless Heart. There is a wall which will not be easy to climb, but the Princess is more beautiful than anything else in the world!"

And that was enough for the Prince, so he girded on his sword, and set out, singing as he went for pure lightness of heart.

But it is not so easy to find fairyland as it is to eat a ripe apple, and the Prince could have told you that, before he was through. For in some places it is so broad that it takes in the whole world, and in others so narrow that a flea could cross it in two jumps. So that some people never leave it all their lives long, but others cross at a single step, and never see it at all.

Finally, the Prince came to the place where all roads meet, and they were as much alike as the hairs on a dog's back. But it was all one to him, so he rode straight ahead and lost himself in fairyland.

When the first fairy godmother saw him, she laughed to herself and flew away, straight over his head, to the wall around the Garden. But you may be sure that she did not trouble the guards at the triple gates: for, if one has wings, what is the use of stairs? So over the wall she flew to the room where the Little Princess lay sleeping.

You may readily believe that the Princess was astonished when she awoke to find the fairy beside her bed, but she was not in the least alarmed, for, you see, she did not know that there was anything in the world to be afraid of.

"My dear," said the old lady, "I am your first fairy godmother."

"How do you do, Godmother?" said the Princess, and she sat up in bed and courtesied. Which is a very difficult trick, indeed, and it is not every Princess who can do it.

Her godmother was so delighted that she leaned over and kissed her.

"That is the second time I have kissed you," she said. "When I go, I will kiss you again, and you had better save the three of them, for they will be useful when you go out into the world. And, my dear, it is high time that you were going out."

Then the Little Princess was overjoyed, but she only nodded her head wisely and said:

"I know, the world is as big as the whole Garden, and wider than the wall. But I can never go out, for the gates are always locked."

"If you do not go now," said the fairy, "you will have to go later, and that might not be so well. And you should not argue with me, for I am older than you will ever be, and your godmother, besides. Now kiss me, for I must be going."

So she flew away, about her other affairs, for she was a very busy old lady indeed.

In the morning the Princess went to breakfast with the King and the Queen.

"Mother," she said, "it is high time that I went out into the world!"

The Queen was so startled that she dropped her egg on the floor and the King was red as a beet with anger.

"Tut! Tut!" he shouted. "What nonsense is this?"

"My fairy godmother was here last night," said the Princess, "and she told me all about it. I will go this morning, please, if I may."

"Nonsense!" roared the King.

"You will do no such thing!" wailed the Queen.

"There could have been no one here," said the King, "for the gates were all locked."

"Who told you that you had a fairy godmother?" asked the Queen.

And there was an end of that.

But that night, after the Princess had said her prayers and crept into bed, she heard her godmother calling to her from the Garden, so she slipped on her cloak and stole out into the moonlight. There was no one to be seen, so she pattered along in her little bare feet until she came to the gate in the wall.

While she was hesitating whether or not to run back to her little white bed, the gates of triple brass opened as easily as if her godmother had oiled them, and the Little Princess passed through the copper gates, and the iron gate, and out into fairyland.

But if you ask me why she saw the guards at the gates no more than they saw her, I can only tell you that I do not know, and you will have to be satisfied with that.

As for the Princess, she was as happy as a duck in a puddle. As she danced along through the forests, the flowers broke from their stems to join her, the trees dropped golden fruit into her very hands, and the little brook which runs through fairyland left its course, and followed her, singing.

And all the while, her godmother was coming down behind her, close at hand, to see that she came to no harm; but the Princess did not know that.

At last she came to the place where the Prince from the west lay sleeping. He was dreaming that he had climbed the wall and had found the Princess, so that he smiled in his sleep and she knelt above him, wondering, for she had never seen a man before, save her father, the King, and the Prince was very fair. So she bent closer and closer, until her breath was on his cheek, and as he opened his eyes, she kissed him.

As for the Prince, he thought that he was still asleep, till he saw that she was many times more beautiful than in his dreams, and he knew that he had found her at last.

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS AND THE FAIRY]

"You are more beautiful than anything else in the world," he said, "and I love you better than my life!"

"And I love you with all my heart!" said the Little Princess.

"Will you marry me," asked the Prince, "and live with me forever and ever?"

"That I will," said the Princess, "and gladly, if my father, the King, and my mother, the Queen, will let me leave the Garden."

And she told the Prince all about the wall with the triple gates.

The Prince saw that it would be no easy task to win the consent of the King and the Queen, so nothing would do but that he must travel back to the west and return with a proper retinue behind him.

So he bade the Princess good-by and rode bravely off toward the west.

The Princess went slowly back through fairyland, till she came to the wall, just as the sun was breaking in the east. As every one knows, White Magic is not of very much use in the daytime, outside of fairyland, and if you ask why this is not so at christenings, I will send you to Peter Knowall, who keeps the Big Red Book.

So the guards at the triple gates saw the Princess, and they raised such a hub-bub, that the King and the Queen rushed out to see what all the noise was about. You can easily believe that they were in a great way when they saw the Little Princess, who they thought was safe asleep in her bed.

They lost no time in bundling her through the gates, and then they fell to kissing her, and scolding her, and shaking her, and hugging her, all in the same breath.

But the Princess said, "I have been out into the world, and I am going to marry the Prince!"

Then perhaps there was not a great to-do about the Garden!

They bullied and coaxed and scolded and wept, but the Princess only said,

"I love him with all my heart and when the time comes I will go to him, if I have to beg my way from door to door!"

At that the King flew into a towering rage.

"Very well, Miss!" he shouted. "But when you go, you may stay forever! I will cut your name off the records, and any one who speaks it will be beheaded, if it is the High Lord Chancellor, himself!"

Then it was the turn of the Princess to weep, for she loved her parents dearly, but she could not promise to forget the Prince.

So matters went from pence to ha'pennies, as the saying goes, till finally the Princess could bear it no longer, so she found her cloak and stole down to the triple gates.

Everything went very much as it had before, save that there was no Prince asleep under the tree where she had first found him. Then the Princess would have turned back, but the little brook which followed at her heel had swollen out into a broad, deep river, and there was nothing to do but go ahead, till she came to a cottage among the trees, and before the door sat an old, old woman, spinning gold thread out of moonlight. And by that any one could have told that she was a fairy, but the Princess thought it was always done that way in the world.

"Oh, Mother," she cried, "how shall I find my way out of the forest?"

But the old woman went on spinning, and the Princess thought that she had never seen anything fly so fast as the shuttle.

"Where were you wanting to go?" she asked.

"I am searching for the Prince from the west," said the Princess sadly. "Can you tell me where to find him?"

The fairy shook her head and went on with her spinning, so fast that you could not see the shuttle at all.

But the Princess begged so prettily that finally she said,

"If I were looking for a Prince, I would follow my nose until I came to the Black Forest, and then I would ask the Wizard with Three Dragons, who knows all about it, and more, too! That is, unless I thought that I would be afraid in the Black Forest."

"What is afraid?" asked the Little Princess. "I do not know that."

And no more she did, so the fairy laughed, for she saw trouble coming for the Wizard. She stopped her wheel with a click, but for all her fast spinning, there was only enough gold thread to go around the second finger of the Princess's left hand.

As for the Princess, she thanked the old lady very kindly, and set bravely off toward the Black Forest.

But the Wizard with Three Dragons only laughed as he gazed into his crystal globe, for in it he could see everything that was happening in any place in the world, and I do not need Jacob Wise-man to tell me that a globe like that is worth having!

Now, when the Prince had left the Princess in fairyland, he lost no time in riding back to the west. The old King, his father, was overjoyed when he heard of the Little Princess, and he gave the Prince a retinue that stretched for a mile behind him.

[Illustration: THE WIZARD WITH THE THREE DRAGONS, AND HIS CRYSTAL GLOBE]

But when they came to the place where all roads meet, the Prince was greatly perplexed, for this time, you see, he knew where he wanted to go. In the end, he trusted to chance and rode ahead, but they had not gone far before they came to the castle of the Wizard with Three Dragons, in the middle of the Black Forest.

In the great hall sat the Wizard, himself, waiting for them, and he was as soft as butter.

Yes, yes, he knew the Princess well enough, but it was too late to go further that night. So the Prince and all his train had best come into the castle and wait till morning.

That was what the Wizard said, and the Prince was glad enough to listen to him, for he was beginning to fear that he would never find the Princess again. But hardly had the last bowman come within the doors than the Wizard blew upon his crystal globe, and muttered a spell.

At that, the Prince and his entire train were changed to solid stone, in the twinkling of an eye, and there they remained till, at the proper time, the Little Princess of the Fearless Heart came up the great stone steps of the castle.

The Wizard was sitting on his throne with his Dragons behind his shoulder, staring into his crystal globe as it spun in the air, hanging on nothing at all.

He never took his eyes away when the Princess came up to the throne, and she was far too polite to interrupt him when he was so busy. So for a long, long time she stood there waiting, and the Wizard chuckled to himself, for he thought that she was too frightened to speak. So he breathed upon his crystal globe and muttered a spell.

But of course, nothing happened, for the Little Princess had a Fearless Heart!

Then the Wizard grew black as night, for he saw that the matter was not so easy as plucking wild flowers, so he turned away from the crystal globe and stared at the Princess. His eyes burned like two hot coals, so that she drew her cloak closer about her, but you cannot hide your heart from a Wizard with Three Dragons, unless your cloak is woven of sunlight, and the Little Black Dwarf has the only one of those in the whole world, stowed away in an old chest in the garret.

So the Wizard saw at once that the Little Princess had a Fearless Heart, and his voice was soft as rain-water.

"Oh, Little Princess," he said. "What is it that you want of me in the Black Forest?"

"I am looking for the Prince from the west," said the Princess, eagerly. "Can you tell me where to find him?"

"Yes," said the Wizard. "I can tell you that, and perhaps some other things, besides. But what will you give me for my trouble?"

Then the Little Princess hung her head, for she had nothing about her that was worth so much as a bone button, and the Wizard knew that as well as you and I. So he said, very softly, "Will you give me your Fearless Heart?"

And there was the whole matter in a nutshell!

But the Princess stamped her foot on the stone floor. "Of course I will not give you my heart," she said. "And if you will not tell me for kindness, I will be going on, for I have nothing with which to pay you!"

"Not so fast!" cried the Wizard--for he was as wise as a rat in a library--"If you will not give me your heart, just let me have a kiss and I will call it a bargain!"

Then the Princess remembered her godmother's three kisses, and she thought that this was the place for them, if they were ever to be used at all, although she liked the thought of kissing the Wizard about as much as she liked sour wine. She crept up to the throne, and, with her eyes tight closed, gave the Wizard the first of the three kisses.

At that the whole Black Forest shook with the force of the Magic, hissing through the trees, and the Wizard, with his Three Dragons turned into solid stone!

The crystal globe spun around in the air, humming like a hive full of bees and sank slowly to the foot of the throne.

Hardly had it touched the ground than the whole castle rent and split into a thousand pieces, and I would not like to have been there, unless I had a bit of gold thread spun out of moonlight around my finger, for the huge rocks were falling as thick as peas in a pan!

But the Princess hardly noticed the rocks at all, for, as the sun rose over the Black Forest, she recognized the marble figure of the Prince, standing among the ruins. You may be sure that she was heartbroken as she went up to him, weeping very bitterly and calling and calling on his name. Then in her sorrow she reached up and kissed the cold stone face with the second magic kiss.

Then suddenly she felt the marble grow soft and warm beneath her touch, and the Prince came back to life and took her in his arms.

When he recognized the silent figures of his gay train, he was sad as death, and the Princess wept with him. But suddenly they saw an old, old woman picking her way among the fallen stones.

"Oh," said the Little Princess, "that is the old woman whom I met in the forest, spinning!"

At that the fairy laughed so hard that her hair tumbled down about her feet, and it turned from gray to silver, and silver to gold. The years fell from her like a cloak, until she was more beautiful than the thought of man could conceive!

"Ah! I know you now!" cried the Little Princess. "You are my first fairy godmother!"

And that was the way of it, so she kissed them both for pure joy. But when they asked her as to which of the stone figures should have the third magic kiss, she shook her head,

"None of them at all!" she said. "But give me back that bit of gold thread, for you will have no further use for it."

Then she stretched the thread between her two hands until it was so fine that you could not see it at all, and laid it on the ground around the Wizard and his Dragons, and tied a magic knot, just behind the crystal globe.

"Now give the third kiss to the crystal globe," she said, "and see what will happen!"

So the Little Princess kissed the globe, and from the place where her lips touched it, a stream of water trickled down. As it touched the feet of each statue, the marble softened to flesh and blood, and the breath came back to it until all of the Prince's train were alive again; but as for the Wizard, the water could not pass the gold thread, so there he sits until this day--unless some busybody has untied the magic knot. Then the fairy flew away, singing a low, happy song.

When the Prince and the Princess came to the Garden, there was a wedding which lasted a month, and then they rode off toward the west.

After they had gone, the Queen whispered to the Lady-in-waiting,

"You see what careful parents can do! The first fairy godmother was quite wrong about the Prince of the Black Heart!"

But at that very moment, the Prince had bared his arm to pluck a water-flower, as they rested beside the way.

"What is that black mark on your arm?" asked the Princess.

"Oh," said the Prince, laughing, "that is just a scar I have borne from birth. It is in the shape of a heart, and so, for a jest, my people call me the Prince of the Black Heart."

"Black Heart, indeed!" cried the Little Princess, angrily.

And that is the end of the story, for if you have no fear in your heart, black magic is no such great thing after all.

But if any old fogy should wag his gray beard and say there is not a word of truth in it, you may be very sure that he came to fairyland at the narrow place, and never saw it at all. So you may just smile at him, for there is one thing, at least, that you know more about than he does!

[Illustration]

MOPSA THE FAIRY

RETOLD FROM JEAN INGELOW

"_For he that hath his own world Hath many worlds more._"

A boy, whom I knew very well, was once going through a meadow which was full of buttercups. He sat down by an old hawthorn hedge which was covered with blossoms, and took out a slice of plum-cake for his lunch. While the boy was eating, he observed that this hedge was very high and thick, and that there was a great hollow in the trunk of the old thorn-tree, and he heard a twittering as if there was a nest somewhere inside. So he thrust his head in, twisted himself around, and looked up. After getting used to the dim light in the hollow of the tree, he saw, a good way above his head, a curious nest. It was about three times as large as a goldfinch's. Just then he thought he heard some little voices cry, "Jack, Jack!"

"I must get near," said the boy. So he began to wriggle and twist himself up, and just as he reached the top three heads which had been peeking over the edge of the nest suddenly popped down again.

"Those heads had no beaks, and the things have no feathers," said Jack, as he stood on tip-toe and poked in one of his fingers.

When he snatched one of them out of the nest, it gave a loud squeak, and Jack was so frightened that he lost his footing, dropped it, and slipped down himself. Luckily, he was not hurt, nor the "thing" either. It was creeping about like an old baby, and had on a little frock and pinafore.

THE FAIRY BABY'S LUNCH

"It's a fairy!" exclaimed Jack, "and this must be a fairies' nest."

The young Fairy climbed up the side of the hollow and scrambled again into her nest, and Jack followed. Upon which all the nestlings popped up their heads, and showing their pretty white teeth pointed at the slice of cake.

"It's a small piece, and I may not have anything more to eat for a long time," said Jack; "but your mouths are very small, so you shall each have a piece."

The young fairies were a long time munching the cake, and before they had finished it began to be rather dark, because a thunder-storm was coming up. The wind rose and made the old tree rock, and creak, and tremble. The little Fairies were so frightened that they got out of the nest and crept into Jack's pockets.

After the storm was over, Jack pulled one of the Fairies out of his waistcoat pocket and said to her: "It is time for supper. Where are we going to get it?" Then in the light of the moon he looked at her very attentively. "When I first saw you in the nest," said he, "you had a pinafore on, and now you have a smart little apron with lace around it."

"That is because I am much older now," said the Fairy. "We never take such a long time to grow up as you do. Put me into your pocket again, and whistle as loudly as you can."

THE GREAT WHITE BIRD

So Jack whistled loudly; and suddenly without hearing anything, he felt something take hold of his legs and give him a jerk which hoisted him on to its back, where he sat astride. It was a large white bird, and presently he found that they were rising up through the trees and out into the moonlight, with Jack on the bird's back and all the fairies in his pockets.

"And so we are going to Fairy-land," exclaimed Jack; "how delightful!"

As the evening grew dark the great white bird began to light up. She did it in this way. First, one of her eyes began to beam with a beautiful green light, and then when it was as bright as a lamp, the other eye began to shine, and the light of that eye was red. So they sailed through the darkness, Jack reminding the bird once in a while that he was very hungry.

TO THE FAIR CITY

They were sailing over the ocean by this time, and there were boats and vessels. The great white bird hovered among them, making choice of one to take Jack and the Fairies up the wonderful river which leads to Fairy-land. Finally she set him down in a beautiful little open boat, with a great carved figure-head to it. The bird said: "Lie down in the bottom of the boat and go to sleep. You will dream that you have some roast fowl, some new potatoes, and an apple pie. Mind you, don't eat too much in your dream, or you will be sorry for it when you wake." Jack put his arms around the neck of the bird and hugged her; then she spread her wings and sailed slowly away. Then Jack fell asleep in the rocking boat, and dreamed as the bird promised, and when he woke up he was not hungry any more!

[Illustration: IT WAS A LARGE WHITE BIRD FROM A DRAWING BY HARRY ROUNTREE]

Morning came, and the Fairies were still asleep in his pocket. The boat moved on through the night, and now he found himself in the outlet of the wonderful river, the shores of which were guarded, not by real soldiers, but by rose-colored flamingoes.

Now that he had fairies in his pockets, he could understand bird talk, and so he heard many wise words from the birds of that country which guided him on his way.

It was not long before he came to the city that was the capital. It was a fair day, and the city square was full of white canopies, lined with splendid flutings of pink. It was impossible to be sure whether they were real tents, or gigantic mushrooms. Each one of the people who sold in these tents had a little high cap on his head shaped just like a bee-hive made of straw. In fact, Jack soon saw bees flying in and out, and it was evident that these folks had their honey made on the premises.

THE LITTLE OLD FAIRY WOMAN

After Jack had visited the fairy city, he went back to the river. The water was so delightfully clear that he thought he would have a swim, so he took off his clothes and folded them very carefully so as not to hurt the Fairies, and laid them beside a hay-cock. When he came out he saw a little old woman with spectacles on, knitting beside his clothes. She smiled upon him pleasantly.

"I will give you some breakfast out of my basket," said she. So she took out a saucerful of honey, a roll of bread, and a cup of milk.

"Thank you," said Jack, "but I am not a beggar boy, so I can buy this breakfast. You look very poor."

It seems that the old woman was very poor; in fact, she was a slave, and on that very day they were about to sell her in the slave market in the city square. So Jack went along into the city again with her, and when she was put up for sale, he bought her from her cruel master, although it took a half-crown, the biggest piece of money that he had. His next largest piece he gave to the little woman, and told her to buy some clothes with it. She came back to the boat where Jack was, with her hands empty, but her face full of satisfaction.

THE WONDERFUL PURPLE ROBE

"Why, you have not bought any new clothes," said Jack.

"I have bought what I wanted," said the Fairy Woman; and she took out of her pocket a little tiny piece of purple ribbon, with a gold-colored satin edge, and a very small tortoise-shell comb.

She took the piece of ribbon and pulled and pulled it until it was as large as a handkerchief. Then she pulled and pulled it again, and the silk stretched until it nearly filled the boat. Next, the little old woman pulled off her ragged gown and put on the silk. It was now a most beautiful robe of purple, with a gold border, and it just fitted her. Then she took out the little tortoise-shell comb, pulled off her cap and threw it into the river. As she combed her hair, it grew much longer and thicker, until it fell in waves all about her body. It all turned gold color, and she was so covered with it that you could not see one bit of her except her eyes, which peeped out and were very bright.

Then she began to gather up her lovely locks and said: "Master, look at me now!" So she threw back the hair from her face, and it was a beautiful young face, and she looked so happy that Jack was glad he had bought her with his half-crown.

THE MAGIC KISS

Then instantly the little Fairies awoke and sprang out of Jack's pockets. One of them had a green velvet cap and sword; the second had a white spangled robe, and lovely rubies and emeralds around her neck; but the third one, who sat down on Jack's knee, had a white frock and a blue sash, was very little, and she had a face just like that of a sweet little child.

"How comes it that you are not like the others?" asked Jack. She answered: "It is because you kissed me."

"Somehow," Jack explained to the former Fairy Slave, "she was my favorite."

"Then you will have to let her sit on your knee, master, sometimes," she explained; "and you must take special care of her, for she cannot now take the same care of herself that others can. The love of a mortal works changes indeed to the life of a fairy."

"I don't want to have a slave," said Jack to the little lady. "Can't you find some way to be wholly free again?"

"Yes, master, I can be free if you can think of anything that you really like better than the half-crown that you paid for me."

"I would like going up this river to Fairy-land much better," said Jack. So suddenly the river became full of thousands of little people coming down the stream in rafts. They had come to take the Fairy Woman away with them.

THE FAIRY WOMAN'S PARTING GIFT

"What gift may I give you before I go?" she asked.

"I should like," said Jack, "to have a little tiny bit of that purple gown of yours with the gold border."

So she told Jack to lend her his knife, and with it she cut off a very small piece of the skirt of her robe and gave it to him. "Now I advise you," she said, "never to stretch this unless you want to make something particular out of it."

"Will ye step aboard, my dearest?" sang the Fairy Woman as she sailed away.

"Will ye step aboard, my dearest? for the high seas lie before us. So I sailed adown the river in those days without alloy. We are launched! But when, I wonder, shall a sweeter sound float o'er us Than yon 'pull'e haul'e, pull'e haul'e, yoy! heave, hoy!'"

All Jack had to do to make his magic boat go wherever he wished was to give it a command, so he ordered it to float up the river to Fairy-land.

It was not long before the towers of the castle of the Queen of Fairy-land could be seen in the distance; and soon the castle, with its beautiful gardens, was close beside them along the river bank. But Jack did not dare to enter the castle until he was sure of a shelter of his own. So he pulled and pulled at the piece of purple silk, until it became large enough to make a splendid canopy like a tent. It roofed in all the after-part of the boat, so now he had a delightful little home of his own, and there was no fear of its being blown away, for no wind ever blows in Fairy-land.

TO THE PALACE

When the Fairy Woman went back to her people she took all of the fairy children with her, and left only Mopsa with Jack. Now, Jack carefully washed her face, and put a beautiful clean white frock on her.

"We will go into the Queen's palace together," said he.

The Queen greeted Mopsa and Jack very kindly; and every day they went up to the palace, and every night back again to the tent on the little boat.

One song which they liked to sing made Jack rather uncomfortable:

"And all the knights shall woo again, And all the doves shall coo again, And all the dreams come true again, And Jack shall go home."

Every evening Jack noticed that Mopsa was a little taller, and had grown-up to a higher button on his coat. She looked much wiser, too. "You must learn to read," said he; and as she made no objection, he arranged daisies and buttercups into the forms of the letters, and she learned nearly all of them in one evening, while crowds of the fairies from the castle looked on, hanging from the boughs and shouting out the names of the letters as Mopsa said them. They were very polite to Jack, for they gathered up all the flowers for him, and emptied them from their little caps at his feet as fast as he wanted them.

MOPSA IS TO BE A QUEEN

Now it seems that as soon as Mopsa was full grown she was destined to be Queen herself. One day, just before dusk, she said to Jack: "Jack, will you give me your little purse that has the silver fourpence in it?"

Now this purse was lined with a nice piece of pale green silk; and when Jack gave it to her, she pulled the silk out and stretched it, just as the fairy woman had done, and it became a most lovely cloak. Then she twisted up her long hair into a coil, fastened it around her head, and called to the fireflies, which were beginning to glitter on the trees; and they came and alighted in a row upon the coil, and turned into diamonds directly! So now Mopsa had a crown and a robe. She was so beautiful that Jack thought he would never be tired of looking at her.

The next morning Jack found that his fairy boat had floated away. He called to it, but it would not return. "Never mind," said Mopsa, "my country is still waiting for me beyond the purple mountains. I shall never be happy unless we go there, and we can go together on foot."

So they walked toward the purple mountains hand-in-hand. When night came, and they were too tired to walk any further, the shooting stars began to appear in all directions; and at Mopsa's command they brought a little cushion, and Jack and Mopsa sat upon it, and the stars carried the two over the paths of the mountains and half-way down the other side. When they awoke the next morning, there spread before them the loveliest garden one ever saw, and among the trees and woods was a most beautiful castle.

[Illustration: QUEEN MOPSA FLIES TO HER KINGDOM FROM A DRAWING BY FLORENCE MARY ANDERSON]

"Oh, Jack!" said Mopsa, "I am sure that castle is the place I am to live in. I shall soon be Queen and there I shall reign."

"And I shall be King there," said Jack. "Shall I?"

"Yes, if you can," answered Mopsa; "and in Fairy-land, of course, whatever you can do, you may do."

It was a long way to the castle; and at last Jack and Mopsa were so tired that they sat down, and Mopsa began to cry.

"Remember," said Jack, "that you are nearly a Queen, and you can never reach your castle by sitting still."

All of a sudden they heard the sweetest sound in the world; it was the castle clock, and it was striking twelve at noon. As it finished striking, they came out at the farther edge of a great bed of reeds, and here was the castle straight before them.

Inside the castle lived a lovely lady, and when she saw Mopsa she took her to her arms. "Who are you?" asked the lovely lady.

"I am a Queen," said Mopsa.

"Yes, my sweet Queen," answered the lady, "I know you are."

"Do you promise that you will be kind to me until I grow up?" inquired Mopsa. "Will you love me and teach me how to reign? I am only ten years old, and the throne is too big for me to sit upon, but I am Queen."

"Yes," answered the lady, "and I will love you just as if I were your mother."

QUEEN MOPSA

When Mopsa ran through the castle door it shut suddenly behind her, and Jack was left behind. After great difficulty he succeeded in climbing the walls, and crept through a window; and when he got inside he saw a very wonderful sight. There was Mopsa in the great audience-room, dressed superbly in a white satin gown, with a long train of crimson velvet, which was glittering with diamonds. It reached almost from one end of the gallery to the other, and had hundreds of fairies to hold it to keep it in its place; but in her hair were no jewels, only a little crown made of daisies, and on her shoulders her robe was fastened with a little golden image of a boat. These things were to show the land she had come from and the vessel she had come in. At one side of Mopsa stood the lovely lady; and on the other, to Jack's amazement, a little boy of his own size, who looked exactly like himself.

"I will go in," said Jack. "There is nothing to prevent me." He set his foot on the step, and while he hesitated Mopsa came out to meet him. He looked at her earnestly, because her lovely eyes were not looking at him, but far away toward the west.

"Jack lives there," she said, as if speaking to herself. "He will play there again, in his father's garden."

Then she brought her eyes down slowly from the rose-flush in the cloud and looked at him and said, "Jack."

"Yes," said Jack, "here I am. What is it that you wish to say?"

She answered, "I am come to give you back your kiss."

GOOD-BY TO MOPSA

So she stooped forward as she stood on her step and kissed him, and her tears fell on his cheek.

"Farewell," she said; and she turned and went up the steps into the great hall. Jack gazed at her as she entered, and would fain have followed, but could not stir, the great doors closed together again, and he was left outside. Then he knew, without having been told, that he should never enter them any more.

Suddenly he perceived that reeds were growing up between him and the great doors, and he walked on among them toward the west. Then, as the rosy sky turned gold color, all on a sudden he came to the edge of the reed-bed and walked out upon a rising ground. Jack ran up it, looking for the castle. At last he saw it, lying so far, so very far off that all its clear outlines were lost; and very soon, as it grew dark, they seemed to mingle with the shapes of the hill and the forest.

He looked up into the rosy sky, and held out his arms, and called: "Come! Oh, come!" In a minute or two he saw a little black mark overhead, a small speck, that grew larger and larger. In another instant he saw a red light and a green light; then he heard the winnowing noise of a bird's great wings, and suddenly the great white bird alighted at his feet and said: "Here I am."

"I wish to go home," said Jack.

"That is well," answered the bird.

As Jack flew through the darkness he thought once again of the little boy who looked just like himself, who lived in the far castle; and he did not feel sure whether he himself was upon the back of the bird or within the castle with Queen Mopsa. Then he fell asleep, and did not dream at all, nor know anything more until the great bird woke him.

"Wake up, now, Jack," she said, "we are at home."

As they flew toward the earth Jack saw the church, and the wood, and his father's house, which seemed to be starting up to meet him. In two seconds he stepped down into the deep grass of his father's meadow.

"Good-by," said the great bird. "Make haste and run in, for the dews are falling." And before he could ask her one question, or even thank her, she made a wide sweep over the grass, beat her magnificent wings and soared away.

JACK COMES HOME

Jack opened the little gate that led into the garden, stole through the shrubbery and came up to the drawing-room window and peeped in. His father and mother were sitting there, his mother sat with her back to the open window, but a candle was burning, and she was reading aloud about a Shepherd Lady and a Lord.

At last his father noticed him, and beckoned him to come in. So Jack did, and got upon his father's knee, and laid his head on his father's waistcoat, and wondered what he would think if he should tell him about the fairies that had been in somebody else's waistcoat pocket. He thought, besides, what a great thing a man is. He had never seen anything so large in Fairy-land, nor so important; so, on the whole, he was glad that he had come back and felt very happy.

"I think," said his father, "it must be time this man of ours was in bed."

So his mother kissed him good-night, and he went up into his own room and said his prayers. He got into his little white bed and comfortably fell asleep.

THE LINE OF GOLDEN LIGHT, OR THE LITTLE BLIND SISTER[I]

BY ELIZABETH HARRISON

Once upon a time there lived a child whose name was Avilla; she was sweet and loving, and fair to look upon, with everything in the world to make her happy--but she had a little blind sister, and Avilla could not be perfectly happy as long as her sister's eyes were closed so that she could not see God's beautiful world, nor enjoy His bright sunshine. Little Avilla kept wondering if there was not something that she could do which would open this blind sister's eyes.

At last, one day, she heard of an old, old woman, nobody knew how old, who had lived for hundreds of years in a dark cave, not many miles away. This queer, old woman knew a secret enchantment, by means of which the blind could receive their sight. The child Avilla asked her parents' permission to make a journey to the cave, in order that she might try to persuade the old woman to tell her this secret. "Then," exclaimed she, joyfully, "my dear sister need sit no longer in darkness." Her parents gave a somewhat unwilling consent, as they heard many strange and wicked stories about the old woman. At last, however, one fine spring morning, Avilla started on her journey. She had a long distance to walk, but the happy thoughts in her heart made the time pass quickly, and the soft, cool breeze seemed to be whispering a song to her all the way.

When she came to the mouth of the cave, it looked so dark and forbidding that she almost feared to enter it, but the thought of her little blind sister gave her courage, and she walked in. At first she could see nothing, for all the sunshine was shut out by the frowning rocks that guarded the entrance. Soon, however, she discerned the old woman sitting on a stone chair, spinning a pile of flax into a fine, fine thread. She seemed bent nearly double with age, and her face wore a look of worry and care, which made her appear older.

The child Avilla came close to her side, and thought, she is so aged that she must be hard of hearing. The old woman did not turn her head, nor stop her spinning. Avilla waited a moment, and then took fresh courage, and said, "I have come to ask you if you will tell me how I can cure my blind sister?" The strange creature turned and stared at her as if she were very much surprised; she then spoke in a deep, hollow voice, so hollow that it sounded as if she had not spoken for a very long time. "Oh," said she with a sneer, "I can tell you well enough, but you'll not do it. People who can see, trouble themselves very little about those who are blind!" This last was said with a sigh, and then she scowled at Avilla until the child's heart began to beat very fast. But the thought of her little blind sister made her brave again, and she cried out, "Oh please tell me. I will do anything to help my dear sister!" The old woman looked long and earnestly at her this time. She then stooped down and searched in the heap of the fine-spun thread which lay at her side until she found the end of it. This she held out to the child, saying, "Take this and carry it all around the world, and when you have done that, come to me and I will show you how your blind sister may be cured." Little Avilla thanked her and eagerly seized the tiny thread, and wrapping it carefully around her hand that she might not lose it, turned and hastened out of the close, damp cave.

[Illustration: "AVILLA RAN FORWARD AND CRIED: 'NOW GIVE SIGHT TO MY SISTER'"]

She had not traveled far before she looked back to be sure the thread had not broken, it was so thin. Imagine her surprise to see that instead of its being a gray thread of spun flax, it was a thread of golden light, that glittered and shone in the sunlight, as if it were made of the most precious stuff on earth. She felt sure now that it must be a magic thread, and that it somehow would help her to cure her blind sister. So she hastened on, glad and happy.

Soon, however, she approached a dark, dense forest. No ray of sunlight seemed ever to have fallen on the trunks of its trees. In the distance she thought she could hear the growl of bears and the roar of lions. Her heart almost stopped beating. "Oh, I can never go through that gloomy forest," said she to herself, and her eyes filled with tears. She turned to retrace her steps, when the soft breeze which still accompanied her whispered: "Look at the thread you have been carrying! Look at the golden thread!" She looked back, and the bright, tiny line of light seemed to be actually smiling at her, as it stretched across the soft greensward, far into the distance, and, strange to say, each tiny blade of grass which it had touched, had blossomed into a flower. So, as the little girl looked back, she saw a flowery path with a glittering line of golden light running through it. "How beautiful!" she exclaimed. "I did not notice the flowers as I came along, but the enchanted thread will make the next traveler see them."

This thought filled her with such joy that she pushed forward into the dark woods. Sometimes she knocked her head against a tree which stood in her way; sometimes she almost feared she was lost, but every now and then she would look back and the sight of the tiny thread of golden light always renewed her courage. Once in a while she felt quite sure that she could see the nose of some wild beast poking out in front of her, but when she came nearer it proved to be the joint in a tree trunk, or some strange fungus which had grown on a low branch. Then she would laugh at her own fear and go on. One of the wonderful things about the mysterious little thread which she carried in her hand was, that it seemed to open a path behind it, so that one could easily follow in her footsteps without stumbling over fallen trees, or bumping against living ones. Every now and then a gray squirrel would frisk by her in a friendly fashion, as if to assure her that she was not alone, even in the twilight of the dark woods. By and by she came to the part of the forest where the trees were less dense, and soon she was out in the glad sunshine again.

But now a new difficulty faced her. As far as she could see stretched a low, swampy marsh of wet land. The mud and slime did not look very inviting, but the thought of her little blind sister came to her again, and she bravely plunged into the mire. The dirty, dripping mud clung to her dress and made her feet so heavy that she grew weary lifting them out of it. Sometimes she seemed to be stuck fast, and it was only with a great effort that she could pull out, first one foot, and then the other. A lively green frog hopped along beside her, and seemed to say, in his funny, croaking voice, "Never mind the mud, you'll soon be through it." When she had at last reached the end of the slippery, sticky marsh, and stood once more on firm ground, she looked back at the tiny thread of golden light which trailed along after her. What do you think had happened? Wherever the mysterious and beautiful thread had touched the mud, the water had dried up, and the earth had become firm and hard, so that any other person who might wish to cross the swampy place could walk on firm ground. This made the child Avilla so happy that she began to sing softly to herself.

Soon, however, her singing ceased. As the day advanced, the air grew hotter and hotter. The trees had long ago disappeared, and now the grass became parched and dry, until at last she found herself in the midst of a dreary desert. For miles and miles the scorching sand stretched on every side. She could not even find a friendly rock in whose shadow she might rest for a time. The blazing sun hurt her eyes and made her head ache, and the hot sand burned her feet. Still she toiled on, cheered by a swarm of yellow butterflies that fluttered just ahead of her. At last the end of the desert was reached, just as the sun disappeared behind a crimson cloud. Dusty and weary, the child Avilla was about to throw herself down on the ground to rest. As she did so, her eyes turned to look once more at the golden thread which had trailed behind her all day on the hot sand. Lo, and behold! What did she see? Tall shade trees had sprung up along the path she had traveled, and each tiny grain of sand that the wonderful thread had touched was now changed into a diamond, or ruby, or emerald, or some other precious stone. On one side the pathway across the desert shone and glittered, while on the other the graceful trees cast a cool and refreshing shade.

Little Avilla stood amazed as she looked at the beautiful trees and the sparkling gems. All feeling of weariness was gone. The air now seemed mild and refreshing, and she thought that she could hear in the distance some birds singing their evening songs. One by one the bright stars came out in the quiet sky above her head, as if to keep guard while she slept through the night.

The next morning she started forward on her long journey round the world. She traveled quite pleasantly for a while, thinking of how cool and shady the desert path would now be for any one who might have to travel it, and of the precious jewels she had left for some one else to gather up. She could not stop for them herself, she was too anxious to press forward and finish her task, in order that her little blind sister might the sooner see.

After a time she came to some rough rocks tumbled about in great confusion, as if angry giants had hurled them at each other. Soon the path grew steeper and steeper, and the rocks sharper and sharper, until they cut her feet. Before her she could see nothing but more rocks until they piled themselves into a great mountain, which frowned down upon her, as much as to say, "How dare you attempt to climb to my summit?" The brave child hesitated. Just then two strong eagles with outspread wings rose from their nest of sticks on the side of a steep cliff near by, and soared majestically and slowly aloft. As they passed far above her head they uttered a loud cry which seemed to say, "Be brave and strong and you shall meet us at the mountain-top."

Sometimes the ragged edges of the rocks tore her dress, and sometimes they caught the tiny golden thread, and tangled it so that she had to turn back and loosen it from their hold. The road was very steep and she was compelled to sit down every few minutes and get her breath. Still she climbed on, keeping the soaring eagles always in sight. As she neared the top, she turned and looked back at the enchanted thread of golden light which she had carried through all the long, strange journey. Another marvelous thing had happened! The rugged path of sharp, broken rocks had changed into broad and beautiful white marble steps, over which trailed the shining thread of light. She knew that she had made a pathway up this difficult mountain and her heart rejoiced.

She turned again to proceed on her journey, when, only a short distance in front of her, she saw the dark cave in which lived the strange old woman who had bidden her carry the line of light around the world. She hastened forward, and on entering the cave, she saw the old creature, almost bent double, still spinning the mysterious thread. Avilla ran forward and cried out, "I have done all you told me to do, now give sight to my sister." The old woman sprang to her feet, seized the thread of golden light and exclaimed, "At last! at last! I am freed! The spell has now been broken."

Then came so strange and wonderful a change that Avilla could hardly believe her own eyes. Instead of the ugly, cross-looking old crone, there stood a beautiful princess, with long golden hair, and tender blue eyes, her face radiant with joy. Her story was soon told. Hundreds of years ago she had been changed into the bent old woman, and shut up in the dark cave on the mountain-side, because she, a daughter of the King, had been selfish and idle, thinking only of herself, and her punishment had been that she must remain thus disguised and separated from all companions and friends until she could find someone who would be generous and brave enough to take the long, dangerous journey around the world for the sake of others. Her mother had been a fairy princess and had taught her many things which we mortals have yet to learn. She showed the child Avilla how, by dipping the golden thread into a spring of ordinary water, she could change the water into golden water, which glittered and sparkled like liquid sunshine. Filling a pitcher with this they hastened together to where the little blind sister sat in darkness waiting for some one to come and lead her home. The beautiful princess told Avilla to dip her hands into the bowl of enchanted water, and then press them upon the closed eyes of her sister. They opened! And the little blind girl could see!

After that the fairy princess came and lived with little Avilla and her sister, and taught them how to do many wonderful things, of which I have not time to tell you to-day.

[I] From "In Story-Land," by Elizabeth Harrison; used by permission of the publishers, the National Kindergarten and Elementary College, 2944 Michigan Boulevard, Chicago, Ill.

[Illustration]

A FAIRY STORY ABOUT A PHILOSOPHER'S STONE WHICH WAS LOST

BY M. BOWLEY

The Mermaids and the Sea-gulls were collected in crowds upon the shore. There was hardly a sound except the monotonous splash of little waves breaking, and the rippling rattle of the shingle as it followed the water returning. Thousands of eyes were fixed upon the piece of rocky land that jutted out into the sea, where the Philosopher's magnificent castle stood, or _had_ stood, for there was now very little of it left. No wonder the Mermaids and the Mer-babies and the Sea-gulls were astonished. Even the sea was speckled with fish who were putting their heads out of the water to watch. For the Philosopher's castle was fading away, melting like mist before the sun!

The Philosopher himself could be seen rushing about, tearing his scanty white hair. That was another equally astonishing thing, for only yesterday the Philosopher had been young and handsome, as well as the richest and greatest man in all the land--so rich and great that he was to have married the Princess very soon.

Now he was old and wild and gaunt. A tattered brown cloak with rents and holes in it hung from his thin shoulders, flapping as he ran about, and all his dingy dress was dirty and ragged. He looked like a wandering peddler. What had become of his many servants? Where were his horses and chariots, and the strange beasts from foreign lands which had wandered in the beautiful gardens--the gardens with the pavilions, where all the flowers had been in bloom for the Princess?

There was only one tower standing now, and the top of that was growing more and more flimsy. Presently, through the walls, rooms could be seen. In one of them there stood a golden cage, and in it was a Parrot.

Very soon the bars of the cage were like cobwebs, and the Parrot began to tear them apart. Then he spread his wings with a joyful scream, and flew on to the rocks, above the heads of the crowds upon the shore.

Immediately every one called a different question to the Parrot, who smoothed his feathers and took no notice until, when the noise and excitement were rather less, an old Sea-gull spoke for them all. Then the new-comer consented to tell what he knew of the events of the day.

It was due, he said, to the Philosopher's having lost the Magic Stone. Upon this stone his youthful appearance, and everything that he owned, had depended.

Early that morning a great tumult had suddenly arisen. The Philosopher went out walking. Soon an old man had rushed in, crying that he had lost the Magic Stone. He commanded every slave in the castle instantly to leave whatever work he was doing, and help to find it. At first no one heeded him, for they could not any of them be persuaded that he was their master. Then the confusion had grown rapidly worse, for each one found he was fading away, growing every moment more pale and thin. As the hours passed all the servants became white ghosts, and they floated away in companies together.

[Illustration: "EVERYONE CALLED A DIFFERENT QUESTION TO THE PARROT"]

The furniture was melting now in the same manner. The tables were sinking down, and all the vessels used for cooking, and what not, were falling softly and noiselessly upon the floors--where there were any floors to hold them. Everything was blowing gently about, so that the air seemed filled with bits of cloud. Presently the remnants would be swept into the sea by the passing breezes.

"And how have you escaped?" asked the Sea-gull.

The Parrot raised his crest and looked very much offended.

"Because _I_ am real," he said with dignity. "I was the only real thing in the castle. The Philosopher stole me at the same time that he stole the Magic Stone."

"Stole it?" cried the Mermaids and the Mer-babies and the Sea-gulls.

"Yes," said the Parrot; "he stole it in a far-off land, and he stole me. I was to be a present to the Princess; for he thought of marrying the Princess even at that time, and the Philosopher knew there was not in all the world another parrot like me."

He opened his wings and puffed up every feather. He certainly was a magnificent creature. The grown-up Sea-gulls felt quite ashamed of their homely dresses of black and white; but the young ones only gaped, and crowded open-mouthed to the front to look.

The Parrot's snowy coat shaded different colors like opals when he moved, and each feather was edged with gold. The crest upon his head sparkled as if there were diamonds in it, and under his wings he was rose-red.

"But I am free!" he cried, as the diamonds glittered and flashed,--"free to go home where the palm-trees grow, and the sun shines as it never shines in this chilly land! Look well at me while you can, for you will never see me again."

With that he poised a moment above them, then sailed away to the South, like a gorgeous monster butterfly. And they never did see him again.

When they had watched him out of sight, and turned again, there was nothing remaining of the castle, and the Philosopher, too, had disappeared. The sun was setting, and the Mermaids and the Mer-babies went to their homes in the sea, while the Sea-gulls put their little gulls to bed in the nests among the rocks high above the restless waves.

* * *

Now all the talk was of the Philosopher's Magic Stone, and who should find it. And at court every one was discussing how this unexpected turn of events would affect the Princess's marriage. It was to have taken place in a very short time. The King was very angry. He considered that a slight had been cast upon the Princess and upon himself by the carelessness of the Philosopher. He was not well pleased, either, to know that the great wealth of the man who was to have been his son-in-law was all due to magic influences. Neither did he like what he heard of the Philosopher's appearance when last he was seen. He announced that the Princess's wedding would take place at the time fixed, and that she should be married to the first Prince, or other suitable candidate, who arrived on that day. And even the Philosopher might take his chance of being the first, if he were then in a position to support the Princess in the luxury to which she had been accustomed.

[Illustration: "DO YOU THINK THE PHILOSOPHER WILL FIND THE STONE?" SHE ASKED OF THE ELDEST LADY-IN-WAITING.]

As for the Princess herself, what did she think of it all? No one knew, for she did not say. She sat at her palace window, and looked out over the distant mountains, and dreamed of her wedding day.

"Do you think the Philosopher will find the Stone?" she asked of the Eldest Lady-in-Waiting, who was in attendance.

"We may well hope so, your Royal Highness," said the Eldest Lady. "He is a great man and wise. I hear, too, that he had been walking only a short distance from the castle when he lost the Stone. It can hardly fail to be found very soon."

The Princess sat still and looked over toward the mountains.

"Do you think the Philosopher will find the Stone?" she asked presently of the Youngest and Favorite Lady-in-Waiting.

"Alas! your Royal Highness, I fear it is not likely," said the Favorite Lady. "All the Sea-people have been searching day and night, I hear, and nothing has been heard of it yet."

The Princess smiled. She still sat and smiled when the Favorite Lady wrapped a cloak about herself, and took a letter that lay by the Princess's hand. Then, without permission or instruction, she set out toward the mountains. The Princess rested her elbows on the window-ledge, and watched her out of sight, and perhaps wondered who would be the earliest to arrive, and so fill the place of bridegroom, on her wedding-day.

And all this time, as the Lady-in-Waiting had said, the Sea-people had been searching day and night.

The Mer-babies and the little Sea-gulls were quite neglected, and did no lessons; for every one was too busy to attend to them. They played about and romped on the shore when they grew tired of hunting for the Philosopher's Stone. The Sea-gulls had told the land-birds, who were searching the woods and the fields, while the fresh-water fish knew of it from their relatives in the sea, and they were searching the lakes and the rivers. Then the Sea-gulls determined to consult the Great Albatross of the Southern Seas, the King among all sea-fowl. They arrived one sunny morning, and found him expecting them, for he had heard what had happened--in the first place from the Parrot, who had passed that way. So he was prepared with his answer. It did not satisfy the Sea-gulls at all. They went away very much disappointed, for the Albatross was in a bad temper, and said only:

"Go home and attend to the children."

They waited about until late, but he would say nothing more. So they were obliged to return and confess their want of success to the Mermaids, who sympathized with them, and agreed that it was very ill-natured of the Albatross. They proposed to go to the Sea-serpent and ask his advice, which the Sea-gulls thought a good plan. They set off at once for the deep seas, where he lived, inquiring of the fish they met whether any news had been heard. But the fish had nothing to tell, and the Mermaids came to the Sea-serpent's home.

He was curled on his great rock throne, with giant seaweeds of all colors waving round him, and the stars of the anemones gleaming out from dark corners.

[Illustration: CONSULTING THE WISE WHITE BEAR]

The Sea-serpent listened to the request of the Mermaids; but they met with no better luck than the Sea-gulls, for he said exactly the same: "Go home and attend to the children."

Then he retired into the great caves, and would not come out again.

So the Mermaids went home disconsolate. They began to think they might have to give up the hope of finding the Magic Stone.

Of course the Mer-babies heard all that was going on. They discussed the situation, as usual. They did not mean to be left behind in this business, though they were not considered to be of any consequence. It was evidently correct to consult somebody who lived at a distance, and they thought of the Wise White Bear. He was farther off, too, than either the Albatross or the Sea-serpent, for he lived at the north pole; but when he was mentioned the very young Mer-babies for once suggested that it was nearly bedtime, and they found that they were sleepy. Some one whispered that the White Bear ate the poor seals, and the youngest Mer-babies crept into holes in the rocks to rest, they said, while the little Sea-gulls went walking home, one behind the other, right across the sands, without having been called. But the older Mer-babies set off for the north pole.

They arrived home next morning, very tired and very cross. When the sleepy ones who had stayed behind asked what the Wise Bear had said, they would not tell, and for the first time the Mer-babies quarreled. They declared in the end that they would none of them look for the "Philosopher's ugly Stone ever any more."

So if the Princess really wanted to marry the Philosopher, that day she lost some of her helpers. But no one knew what she wished, for she never mentioned him. She sat at her window that looked out over the mountains, and she gazed ever outward.

It was the night before her wedding. She had been there all day, and for many days. It was very quiet, and the lamps were lighted. The Eldest Lady-in-Waiting spread out the lovely robes, ready for the morrow, where the Princess might see them; but she never moved nor spoke. As midnight approached she leaned out and let the soft wind blow upon her face.

The hour of midnight was striking from all the belfries, when a great clatter sounded down below in the courtyard. Horses neighed, and men ran about. The Princess leaned more forward, and listened. Then a horseman, whose jewels sparkled in the moonlight, looked up and kissed a hand to her, and she kissed hers to him. It was one minute past midnight, and the morning of her wedding-day! She dropped the curtains and turned to greet the Favorite Lady-in-Waiting, who had come in. The Princess threw her arms round her Lady's neck to welcome her back, she was so glad and happy.

So it came about that the Prince of the City Over the Mountains was the first to arrive on that eventful morning; for, though through all the rest of the night, and up to the very hour of the wedding, noble Princes and their retinues were received in state by the King, all of them had to be told that they were too late, and most of them rode off again at once. Some who had never seen the Princess, but who had been attracted by reports of her beauty and her stateliness, waited to attend her marriage feast, and to regret that they had not hurried themselves a little more.

As for the Philosopher, who should have been one of the chief persons of interest on that important occasion, no one even thought of him, unless the Princess did. But she looked too well pleased for any one to suppose she missed him--which was fortunate, for he was never heard of any more.

When the eventful day was past, the Mermaids and the Sea-gulls covered the shore once again, talking it over, and the Mer-babies and the little Sea-gulls stood around listening.

Presently the Mer-mothers said: "No more holidays. Lessons to-morrow!" and the Mer-babies sighed, and the little Sea-gulls looked gloomy.

One of the Mer-babies stepped forward, holding something.

"Please take care of our pretty ball for us," she said, "until holidays come again."

As she was speaking the Mermaids sprang up, and they and all the grown-up Sea-gulls cried with one accord:

"The Philosopher's Stone!"

And, sure enough, it was. It lay in the Mermaid's hand, all glowing with its magic blue, pale and dark by turns, its wonderful veins panting as if it were a living thing, its threads of gold moving and twining underneath, round the red heart burning deep in the midst of it.

"That!" cried every one of the Mer-babies and every one of the little Sea-gulls. "Why, we have had _that_ all the time! We found it on the sand, and we have played with it every day since!"

Then the Sea-gulls remembered what the Albatross had said, and the Mermaids remembered what the Sea-serpent had said, and the Mer-babies remembered what the Wise White Bear had said, and they all looked at one another.

Now arose the question, What should be done with the Stone?

It needed no long discussion to settle. Every one agreed that it should be given to the Youngest Lady-in-Waiting; for she had done for the Princess what no one else had thought of doing, in carrying her letter to her true love so that he might be in time to win her. The happy day just past was entirely owing to her devotion.

The Stone was duly presented to her, and, accordingly, she became the richest and most beautiful woman in the land, as she was already the kindest, while the Sea-folks generally, and the Mer-babies in particular, gained great fame and distinction; for had they not found the Magic Stone when it was lost, and given it to the nation's favorite? And they do say that the Favorite Lady-in-Waiting married a charming Prince almost (but not quite!) as captivating as the husband of the Princess.

[Illustration: "IT WAS ONE MINUTE PAST MIDNIGHT, AND THE MORNING OF HER WEDDING DAY!"]

[Illustration: THE BAD TEMPER OF THE PRINCESS]

By Marian Burton

1

Once upon a time, in a dainty little kingdom all parks and rivers and cottages and flowers, there lived a jolly, red-faced king named Rudolpho. Every one of his subjects loved him, the surrounding kings were his loyal friends, and the neighboring kingdoms were on the best of terms with him. Indeed, they had a happy way, these old kings, of exchanging thrones for a week now and then, just as some preachers nowadays exchange pulpits--to prove, I suppose, how very good their own is, after all. This king about whom I am telling you was fat, of course, and looked very like our good friend Santa Claus.

Yet, strange as it may seem, with all these blessings--a rich kingdom, faithful subjects, and a loving wife--this good king was not happy. There was one cloud, a very pretty silver-edged cloud, but yet a cloud, which hung just in front of the sun of his happiness and cast a great big shadow.

The king had a daughter, the Princess Madge, his only child; and though she was obedient in everything else, she just wouldn't, _wouldn't_, marry. Now the king was very anxious for her to marry and settle down on the throne, because he was growing old. Every morning for three weeks, just before breakfast, he had had three separate twinges of pain. The queen said it was because of his rheumatism, but he knew better; he was sure that it was old age, and it made him very eager to have the kingdom in the hands of the new son-in-law king before he died.

Of course there were plenty of princes and dukes and barons and lords who would gladly have wedded the pretty princess for her own sweet sake alone, to say nothing of the prospect of being king some day, but she wouldn't have one of them. There was not a man in the kingdom nor in any of the surrounding kingdoms who suited her capricious fancy. Princes of haughty mien, princes of gentle manner, handsome princes, ugly princes, tall princes, short princes, fat princes, lean princes, had been introduced at the court, had been encouraged by the king and queen, and had sought to gain her favor. She had been showered with gifts of rare flowers and precious stones, and had received thousands of little letters smelling of perfume; but from prince, from jewels, and from written vows of love she turned away with the same cheerful determination.

A princess is a lonely little body, you know, and custom was so rigid in the time of the Princess Madge that she had no one to talk to excepting Pussy Willow, the royal kitten. She had no brother, no sister, no cousin, and no dearest friend. She didn't even have a chance to speak freely to her own father and mother. It is true, she took breakfast with them every morning at eleven in the great breakfast-room, but the butlers and waiters and pages and flunkies were always standing about, with their ears pricked up and their eyes bulging out, so that no one dared whisper a secret or have even the jolliest little family quarrel. It is true her royal mama came at precisely ten o'clock to kiss her good night every evening, but there were always a dozen maids and ladies in waiting, and it was impossible to have a real good talk. But Pussy Willow was her constant companion, and to Pussy she told everything. That friendly cat was the only living thing in the whole kingdom that really knew that the princess intended to marry sometime. That was what worried the king and queen so much; Madge made them believe that she would never marry any one, never, _never_, NEVER, but would live alone to the end of her days and leave the kingdom to any one who wished for it.

[Illustration: "Came at precisely ten o'clock to kiss her good-night"]

"Pussy, I wouldn't tell a story to the king and queen for the world, but isn't it fun to see them take on so? If I really thought that papa was ill and likely to die, I would be as good as gold; but those little pains of his are only rheumatism, I am sure, so I don't mind teasing him just a little. You know, Pussy, that when my ideal comes--oh, you needn't look up and blink in such surprise, for I really have an ideal, and I will tell you all about him!" Whereupon Pussy shook her head till her gold-bell necklace tinkled loudly, then she yawned a little and began to wash her face. She looked very wise as she sat there stroking her whiskers and thumping thoughtfully on the floor with her bunchy tail. After thinking thus seriously for a few minutes, she suddenly began a sympathetic little purr-song which seemed to say:

"Go on, little mistress; I am all ready to listen, and I'll not tell a soul." Then Princess Madge continued:

"I don't care whether he is prince or pauper, high or low, handsome or plain; but he must in any case be contented. You know what contented means, Pussy--satisfied with what he has until he deserves and can get something better. If he is like that he will always be unselfish and happy. Oh, yes, and I shall be happy, too. Now I am going to write a letter to papa and tell him that I will marry if he will find me a contented man."

Quick as thought, the princess opened her rose-wood and gold desk, drew out some paper with her crest on it and a jeweled pen, and wrote daintily and carefully. It took her a very long time, Pussy Willow thought.

"Now, kitty, listen; I will read it to you:

"To his Majesty the King, from her Royal Highness, the Princess Madge.

"DEAR OLD PAPA: I have at last decided to be married if you can find a man to suit me. Now read, my dear papa, and remember that this decision is final. I will marry the first contented man you can find, no matter who he is. Read this little poem; it is my guiding star at this very serious time:

"'There is a jewel which no Indian mine can buy, No chemic art can counterfeit. It makes men rich in greatest poverty, Makes water wine, turns wooden cups to gold. Seldom it comes, to few from heaven sent, That much in little, all in naught--_content_.'

"What I have written, I have written.

"Your own MADGE.

"That sounds very well, doesn't it, Pussy? I am going to fold it so, and so, then cut off a strand of my hair--see, Pussy, it is nearly a yard long, and it will go around and around this letter and tie in a great golden knot. When the king sees that he will know it is very important. Now I will go to the door and tell the page to run with this to papa, and then--oh, I wonder what he will say!"

She ran to the door, spoke a few words to the page who stood just outside, then returned to the great cushioned chair by the window. Pussy climbed into her lap. They both winked a few times and blinked a few times and then fell fast asleep.

II

Half an hour later the king, with his crown comfortably pushed back on his head, and a smile very much all over his ruddy face, burst into the queen's sitting-room. He held a tangle of golden hair in one hand and a sheet of blue note-paper in the other.

"My dear, my dear, what do you think has happened? Here, written by her own hand, the hand of the Princess Madge, are the happy words which drive away all our fears. She will marry, my dear, she will marry; and listen: she cares not what may be his rank or age or condition--he must be a _contented_ man, that is all. Oh, what a child, what a child!"

"Oh, Rudolpho, my love, is it true? Why, why, I am so happy! Is it really true? Do give me my fan. Yes, thank you. Fan me, dear; a little faster. It quite took my breath away. Just to think of that! Now go at once and issue a royal edict summoning every contented man in this kingdom and in all the surrounding kingdoms to a grand feast here in the palace. After the feast we will hold a trial, and the Princess Madge shall be the judge."

Away rushed the king, the pages in waiting outside the door vainly trying to catch the end of his fluttering robe.

The next day a cavalcade of heralds set out from the palace gates, bearing posters which were hung in the market-place of every village for leagues about. In blue letters on a gold ground were these words:

Ho, ye! Hear, ye! Ho, ye!

On the twenty-third day of the month now present, every _contented_ man throughout the universe is summoned to the court of King Rudolpho for a feast and a trial for the hand of the Princess Madge. He among you all who is absolutely contented shall have the princess's hand in marriage, together with half the kingdom. Every man will be tried by the princess herself. Every man who falls short and stands not the test shall never again enter King Rudolpho's court.

My hand + My seal +. RUDOLPHO, _Rex_.

The day dawned, brilliant and glorious. How the contented men jostled each other, and frowned at each other, and scolded each other as they thronged through the palace gates! They all gathered in the banquet-hall, where a wonderful feast was spread--a roasted ox, with wild boar and lamb and turkey and peacock, and a hundred kinds of fruit, and fifty kinds of ice-water; but as a dinner-party it was not a success. Conversation was dull, each man glowered at his neighbor, and all seemed eager to finish the feast and begin the trial.

Finally it was over, and five hundred and fifty contented men assembled in the royal court-room. The king and queen were seated on their thrones, but the princess was nowhere to be seen. There was a moment of breathless waiting--then suddenly a door at the side of the court-room opened and the Princess Madge, carrying Pussy Willow, entered and was followed by her train-bearers and maids of honor. She wore a wonderful gown all white and gold down the front, with the foamiest of sea-foam green trains hanging from her shoulders away out behind her. Slowly, majestically, she walked across the room, and stopped before a table on which lay a golden gavel. A quick tap of the gavel silenced the little murmur that had arisen at her entrance. The king glanced at the queen, and they both smiled with pride in their stately daughter. The princess tapped again and began:

"Princes, baronets, honorables, commons of this kingdom and our neighboring kingdoms, I bid you welcome. You have come to sue for my hand and my fortune. I know full well, my noble men, that if I asked it you would gladly give me some great proof of your bravery and goodness--but I ask you to take no risk and make no sacrifice. I merely wish to know whether I can find in any of you that secret of all true courage and happiness--contentment. Now let every man of you who is contented, _thoroughly contented_, rise. Remember, there are no degrees in contentment; it is absolute."

The black-robed throng arose--some eagerly, some impatiently, some disdainfully, some few slowly and thoughtfully, but they all stood and waited in utter silence.

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS MADGE ENTERS]

"As I put the test question, if there is any one who cannot answer it, let him go quietly out through yonder door and never again show his discontented face in this court. You say you are contented--happy, unselfish, and satisfied with what the gods have given you. Answer me this! Why, then, do you scowl and jostle one another? Why do you want to marry any one--least of all, a princess with half the riches of a great kingdom as a dowry, to spoil your happiness? Greedy fortune-hunters! Do you call that contentment?"

The contented men stood a moment in baffled silence, then turned, one and all, and slowly marched out of the room. As the door closed upon the last one of the disappointed suitors, the princess picked up her pretty kitten and, turning to her father and mother, said:

"Would you have me marry one of _those_? Why, they aren't half so contented as a common, everyday pussy-cat. Good-by!" And she laughed a merry laugh, threw a kiss at the astonished king and queen, and ran from the room.

III

At luncheon one day many months after the dismissal of the discontented suitors, the prime minister entered the dining-room and announced to the king that a man had been found within the palace gates without a royal permit, and had been immediately put in the dungeon. He was a handsome fellow, the prime minister said, but very poorly clad. He made no resistance when he was taken prisoner, but earnestly requested that his trial might come off as soon as possible, as he rather wanted to make a sketch of the palace and gardens, and he couldn't see very well from the slit in the top of the dungeon; but he begged them not to put themselves nor the king to any inconvenience, as he could just as well remain where he was and write poems.

"In sooth, your Majesty," said the prime minister, in conclusion, "from all we have heard and seen, it seemeth that at last we have found a contented man."

As soon as the king finished his royal repast he disguised himself in the long cloak and hat of a soldier and went with the prime minister and the turnkey to catch a glimpse of the prisoner. As they approached the dungeon they heard a rich bass voice singing:

"Let the world slide, let the world go! A fig for care, and a fig for woe. If I must stay, why, I can't go, And love makes equal the high and low."

The king drew nearer, stooped, and peeped through the keyhole. Just opposite the door, on a three-legged stool, sat the prisoner. His head was thrown back and he was looking at the sky through the bars in the top of his cell. The song had ceased and he was talking softly to himself. The king, in a whisper, told the prime minister to bring the princess and have her remain hidden just outside the door. Then he motioned to the turnkey to throw back the bolts, and he entered the dungeon alone.

"Why are you talking to yourself, man?" he asked. The man answered:

"Because, soldier, I like to talk to a sensible man, and I like to hear a sensible man talk."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the king. "Pretty good, pret-ty good! They tell me that all things please you. Is it true?"

"I think I can safely say yes, soldier."

"But why are you so poorly clad?"

"The care of fine clothes is too much of a burden--I have long ago refused to be fashion's slave."

"But where are your friends?"

"Of those that I have had, the good are dead, and happier so than here; the evil ones have left me and are befriending some one else, for which I say, 'Joy go with them.'"

"And is there nothing that you want?" As the king asked this question he looked at the man in a peculiarly eager way, nor did the answer disappoint him.

"I have all of the necessities of life and many of the luxuries. I am perfectly content. I know I have neither land nor money, but is not the whole world mine? Can even the king himself take from me my delight in the green trees and the greener fields, in that dainty little cloud flecking heaven's blue up yonder like a bit of foam on a sunlit sea? Oh, no! I am rich enough, for all nature is mine--"

"And _I_ am yours," said a sweet young voice. The man looked up in surprise, and there before him, holding out her pretty hands toward him, stood the Princess Madge, who had slipped into the cell unnoticed.

The man sprang to his feet, clasped the little hands in his, and said:

"I know not what you mean, sweet lady, when you say that you are mine; but oh, you are passing beautiful!"

"Papa," called the princess, "this is quite dreadful. Quick, take off that ugly soldier's coat and tell him who we are and all about it!"

The king, starting as if from a dream, threw off the rough coat and hat and stepped forth into the beam of sunlight, resplendent in gold and ermine.

"Thou dost not know me, my man? I am the king. Hast thou not read our last proclamation?"

"No, your Majesty; I never do read proclamations."

[Illustration: I am Perfectly Content]

"Then thou didst not know that the hand of the princess is offered to the first contented man who enters the palace?"

"No, your Majesty; I knew it not."

"Then know it now, and know, too, that thou art the man. To thee I give my daughter, together with half my kingdom. No, no--not a word. Thou deservest her. May you be happy!"

The prisoner, almost dumb with astonishment, almost dazed with joy, knelt and kissed the princess's white hands, then looked into her eyes and said:

"Ah, well it is for me that I saw you not until now, for I should have been miserably discontented until you were mine!"

THE FLYING SHIP

_A Russian Tale_

Once upon a time there was a Princess who was always wanting something new and strange. She would not look at the princes who came to woo her from the kingdoms round about, because, she said, they all came in the same way, in carriages which had four wheels and were drawn by four horses. "Why could not one come in a carriage with five wheels?" she exclaimed petulantly, one day, "or why come in a carriage at all?" She added: "If one came in a flying ship I would wed him!"

So the King made proclamation that whoever came to the palace in a flying ship should wed the Princess, and succeed to the kingdom. As the Princess was very beautiful and the kingdom very rich, men everywhere began to try to build ships that would fly. But that was not so easy. They could build ships that would sail--but flying was quite another thing!

On the far edge of the kingdom dwelt a widow with three sons. The two elder, hearing the proclamation, said that they wanted to go to the city and build each a flying ship. So the mother, who was very proud of these sons, and quite convinced that should the Princess see one of them it would not be necessary for him to have a flying ship, laid out their best clothes and gave each a satchel containing a lunch of white bread and jam and fruit, and wished them good luck on their journeys.

Now the third son was called Simple, because he did not do as his brothers did, and cared nothing for fine clothes and fine airs, but liked to wander off in the woods by himself. When Simple saw his brothers starting off all so grandly he said: "Give me a lunch, and I will go and build a flying ship."

The truth was that the idea of a flying ship very much appealed to Simple, though he did not give much thought to the Princess.

But his mother said: "Go back into the woods, Simple, that is the place for you."

But Simple persisted, and at last she gave him a satchel containing a lunch of black bread without any jam, and a flask of water.

As Simple neared the woods he met a Manikin who asked him for something to eat. Simple was ashamed to open his satchel with the black bread and water in it. "But," he reflected, "if one is hungry black bread is better than no bread." The Manikin certainly looked hungry, so Simple put his hand into the satchel and took out the roll of bread--and lo--it was not black at all, but white, made of the finest flour, and spread with rich, golden butter. The flask, too, when he took it out, was not as it had been when his mother put it in, but was filled with red wine.

So Simple and the Manikin sat down by the roadside and ate together. Then the Manikin asked Simple where he was going, and Simple told him that he was going to build a flying ship. He almost forgot about the Princess, but remembered, as an afterthought, and he told the Manikin that when the ship was done he would fly in it to the palace and marry the Princess.

"Well," said the Manikin, "if you want to do that take this ax with you and the first tree that you come to strike it three times with the ax, then bow before it three times, and then kneel down with your face hidden until you are told to get up. There will be a flying ship before you. Climb into it and fly to the palace of the Princess, and if you meet anybody along the way take them along."

So Simple took the ax and went into the wood, and the first tree that he came to he struck three times with the ax, then bowed three times before it, then knelt down and hid his face. By-and-by he felt someone touch his shoulder and he looked up, and there was a ship with wings outspread, all ready to fly. So he climbed into it and bade it fly away to the city of the Princess.

As he flew over a clearing in the woods Simple saw a man with his ear to the ground, listening.

"Ho!" he cried, "you below! What are you doing?"

"I am listening to the sounds of the world," said the man.

"Well," said Simple, "come up into the ship. Maybe you can hear more up here."

So the man climbed up into the ship, and they flew on. As they passed over a field they saw a man hopping on one leg, with the other strapped up behind his ear.

"Ho!" cried Simple, "You below! Why do you hop on one leg, with the other bound up?"

"Because," said the man, "if I were to unbind the other I would step so far that I would be at the end of the world in a minute."

"Well," said Simple, "come up into the ship, that will be less tiresome than hopping so far."

So the man came up into the ship and they flew on. As they passed a clear lake of cold water they saw a man standing beside it looking so disconsolately at the water that Simple called out, "Ho, you below! Why do you look at the water so sadly?"

"Because," said the man, "I am very thirsty."

"Well," called Simple, "why don't you take a drink? There is water enough!"

"No," said the man, "it is not right that I should drink here, for I am so thirsty that I would drink all of this at one gulp, and there would be no lake, and I would still be thirsty."

"Well," said Simple, "come up into the ship. Maybe we can find water enough for you somewhere."

So the man climbed up into the ship and they flew on. As they passed over a village they met a man carrying a great basket of bread. "Ho!" cried Simple, "you below! Where are you going?"

"I am going to the baker's at the other end of the village to buy some bread for my breakfast," replied the man.

"But you have a big basketful of bread now," said Simple.

"Oh," said the man, "that is not enough for the first morsel. I shall eat that up in one bite. There are not bakers enough in this village to keep me supplied, and I am always hungry."

"Well," said Simple, "come up into the ship. Maybe we shall find some bread in the city."

So the man climbed up into the ship and they flew on. As they passed over a meadow they saw a man carefully carrying a bundle of straw.

"Ho!" cried Simple, "you below! Why do you carry that straw so carefully, when there is straw all about you in the meadow?"

"But this is no ordinary straw," said the man. "It has a magic power, and when it is scattered about it will make the hottest place as cold as ice."

"Well," said Simple, "bring it along and come up into the ship. It may be hot in the city."

So the man climbed up into the ship and they flew on. As they passed over a wooded park they saw a man carrying a bundle of sticks.

"Ho!" cried Simple, "you below! Why do you carry those sticks so carefully when all the woods about you are full of sticks?"

"But these are not ordinary sticks," said the man. "If I were to throw them on the ground they would become soldiers, armed and ready for a battle."

"Well," said Simple, "they are wonderful sticks indeed! Bring them up into the ship. There may be a need for soldiers in the city."

So the man climbed up into the ship and they flew on. Soon they came to the city, where the word soon went about that a ship was flying over, and men and women came out into the streets and on to the roofs of the houses to see what it might be like. And the King came out on his balcony and saw Simple and his strange crew flying straight toward the palace.

"Now, now," said the King, "what sort of a fellow is this? I cannot have him marry my daughter. He has not a knight in his train--and as for him--!" the King had no words in which to express his thought.

The Princess, too, looking out and seeing the flying ship with Simple in the bow and the other strange folk behind him, repented of her rash word, and said: "You must give this fellow some impossible task to do, so that he will fail, for it is certain that I cannot wed him."

So the King sent for his courtiers, and bade them wait upon the man in the flying ship and say to him that before his daughter could be given in marriage a flask of water must be brought this day from a spring at the end of the world.

The man with the wonderful hearing had his ear to the deck of the ship, and he heard this order, and reported it to Simple, who lamented, and said: "How can I bring a flask of water from the end of the world? It may take me a year to go there and back--perhaps even the rest of my life."

But the man with the bound leg said: "You forget that I am here. When the summons comes I will take the flask and go for the water."

So when the messenger came Simple answered quietly that the order would be obeyed at once.

The man with the bound leg unfastened his leg from behind his ear and started off to the end of the world, and when he came there he filled the flask and came back with it, and Simple went with it to the palace, arriving just as the King and the Princess were finishing their dinner.

"That is all very well," said the King, "but we cannot have this fellow wed the Princess. We will prepare a feast, and tell him that it must be eaten at once. Let forty oxen be killed, and five hundred loaves be prepared and five hundred cakes be baked, and all of these must this fellow and his followers eat."

The man with the wonderful hearing having his ear to the deck of the ship reported this conversation to Simple, who lamented and said: "How can we eat forty oxen, and five hundred loaves and five hundred cakes! It will take us a year to eat so much, or maybe all of the rest of our lives."

"Oh," said the hungry man, who had long since eaten the few loaves from his basket, "you forget that I am here. Perhaps now for the first time in my life I shall have enough to eat."

So when the feast was served they all sat down to it, and ate as they wished; then the hungry man ate the remainder of the forty oxen and the five hundred loaves and the five hundred cakes and there was not a crumb left. When he had quite finished he said that he could have eaten at least two more oxen and another hundred cakes, but that he was not quite so hungry as he had been.

When the King's messengers told him that the feast was all eaten that same night he said: "That is all very well, but we cannot have this fellow wed the Princess. We will prepare a drinking, and serve five hundred flagons of wine, and tell him that it must all be drunken that same night, or he cannot wed the Princess. Let the flagons of wine be prepared and served to him, and all of them must this fellow and his followers drink."

The man with the wonderful hearing having his ear to the deck of the ship reported this to Simple, who lamented and said: "How can we drink five hundred flagons of wine? It will take us a year to do so, or maybe all of the rest of our lives."

But the thirsty man said, "You forget that I am here. Perhaps now for the first time in my life I shall have enough to drink."

So when the wine was served they all gathered around the table and drank as much as they wanted of it; then the thirsty man picked up flagon after flagon and drank them off until all were empty. And at the end he said that he could have drunken at least fifty flagons more, but that he was not so thirsty as he had been.

When the messengers of the King reported that the wine was all drunken, the King said: "Now are we put to it, for we cannot have this fellow wed the Princess." So he sent his messengers to the ship bidding Simple come to the palace and make ready for the wedding, and prepared a bath for him. And when Simple entered the room for the bath he found that it was heated so hot that the walls burned his hands when he touched them, and the floors were like red-hot iron. But the man with the straw had come in behind him, warned by the man with the wonderful hearing, and seeing what was afoot, scattered his straw all about the bathroom, and at once it became as cold as one could wish, and, the door having been locked, Simple climbed up on the stove and went to sleep, and there they found him in the morning, wrapped in a blanket.

When this was reported to the King he was very angry, and he said, "This fellow is evidently very smart, but for all of that we cannot have him wed the Princess. I will give him an impossible task. Go you to him," he said to the messenger, "and tell him that he must come to me at to-morrow's sunrise with an army fitting the rank of one who would wed the Princess."

When the man with the wonderful hearing reported this to Simple he was in despair, and lamented and said: "Now at last am I beaten, though, after all, I have a flying ship, even if I do not wed the Princess. It will take me a year to raise an army, perhaps it would take all the rest of my life."

But the man with the sticks said: "You forget that I am here. Now all of these others have proven that they could help you to win the Princess, let me at least do my share."

So at dawn they flew out over the parade ground, and the man with the sticks threw them down upon the ground, and immediately there sprung up soldiers, in platoons and regiments, with armor, and captains and colonels and generals to command them. And the King and his courtiers had never seen such an army, and the Princess, standing on the balcony beside her father, as they rode by the palace, seeing Simple riding at the head of the band, with the generals paying him homage, said: "This man must be a very great prince indeed, and, now that I look at him he is not so uncomely, after all."

And Simple, riding at the head of his army, looking up at the balcony and seeing the Princess there said to himself: "A flying ship is all very well, but the Princess is very beautiful, and to wed her will be the most wonderful thing in the world."

So Simple and the Princess were married, and the crew of the flying ship were at the wedding, and all of the captains and the colonels and the generals of his army, and never had there been such a wedding in the kingdom. And by and by the King died, and Simple became the King, and the Princess became the Queen, and they lived happily ever after.

ROBIN OF THE LOVING HEART

BY EMMA ENDICOTT MAREAN

"_Please, Mother, tell us a story. Have him a wood-chopper boy this time. Please, Mother, quick, for Elizabeth is sleepy already. Oh, Mother, hurry!_"

_So here is the story._

* * *

Once upon a time there was a little boy who lived all alone with his parents in the heart of a deep wood. His father was a wood-chopper who worked hard in the forest all day, while the mother kept everything tidy at home and took care of Robin. Robin was an obliging, sunny-hearted little fellow who chopped the kindling as sturdily as his father chopped the dead trees and broken branches, and then he brought the water and turned the spit for his mother.

As there were no other children in the great forest, he made friends with the animals and learned to understand their talk. In the spring the mother robin, for whom he thought he was named, called him to see the blue eggs in her nest, and in the autumn the squirrels chattered with him and brought him nuts. But his four dearest friends were the Owl, who came to his window evenings and gave him wise counsel; the Hare, who played hide-and-seek with him around the bushes; the Eagle, who brought him strange pebbles and shells from the distant seashore; and the Lion, who, for friendship's sake, had quite reformed his habits and his appetite, so that he lapped milk from Robin's bowl and simply adored breakfast foods.

Suddenly all the happiness in the little cottage was turned to mourning, when the good wood-chopper was taken ill, and the mother was at her wits' end to take care of him and to provide bread and milk. Robin's heart burned within him to do something to help, but he could not swing an ax with his little hands.

"Ah," he said that night to his friend the Owl, "if I were a great knight, perhaps I could ride to the city and win the Prize for Good Luck."

"And what is the Prize for Good Luck?" asked the Owl, who knew everything in the world except that.

[Illustration: "THE OWL CALLED A COUNCIL OF ROBIN'S BEST FRIENDS"]

Then Robin explained that the lovely princess, whose hair was like spun gold and whose eyes were like the blue forget-me-nots by the brook, had lost her precious amulet, given to her by her godmother, which kept her, as long as it lay on her neck, healthy and beautiful and happy. One day, when she was playing in the flower-garden, the little gold chain snapped and the amulet rolled away. Everybody in the palace had searched, the soldiers had been called out to help, and all the small boys had been organized into an amulet brigade, for what they cannot see is usually not worth seeing at all. But no one could find it, and in the meantime the princess grew pale, and, truth to tell, rather cross. Her hair dulled a little, and her eyes looked like forget-me-nots drowned in the brook. When the court philosopher reasoned the matter out and discovered that the amulet had been carried far away, perhaps outside the kingdom, the king offered the Prize for Good Luck for its return.

"Now, if I could win the Prize for Good Luck," said Robin, "we should have bread and milk all the time, and Mother need not work so hard."

Then the Owl in her wisdom called a council of Robin's best friends, and asked them what they were going to do about it. They waited respectfully for her advice; and this was her wonderful plan:

"Robin could win the Prize for Good Luck," declared the Owl, "if only he were wise and swift and clear-sighted and strong enough. Now I will lend him my wisdom, the Hare shall lend his swiftness, the Eagle shall lend his eyesight, and the Lion shall lend his strength." And thus it was agreed.

Then the Owl went back to little Robin's window and explained the plan.

"You must remember," she said warningly, "time is precious. It is almost morning now. I cannot long spare my wisdom, for who would guide the feathered folk? If the Hare cannot run, how can he escape the fox? If the Eagle cannot see, he will dash himself into the cliff if he flies, and he will starve to death if he sits still. If the Lion's strength is gone, the wolves will be the first to know it. Return, then, without delay. At the stroke of nine o'clock to-morrow night, we shall await you here. Now go quickly, for rather would I die than live like the feather-brained blue jay."

Immediately Robin felt himself so strong and so brave that he hesitated not a minute. Swift as a hare he hastened to the palace, and at daybreak he blew the mighty horn that announced the coming of one who would seek for the amulet. The king groaned when he saw him, sure that it would be a vain quest for such a little fellow. The truth was that the court philosopher feared the amulet had been stolen by the Ogre of Ogre Castle, but no one dared to mention the fact, much less to ask the Ogre to return it. The princess, however, immediately sat up and took notice, charmed by the brave light in Robin's eyes and his merry smile.

Robin asked to be taken up into the highest tower of the palace, and there, looking leagues and leagues away to Ogre Castle, he saw with his Eagle sight the amulet, glowing like sunlight imprisoned in a ruby.

The Ogre was turning it over and over in his hand, muttering to himself, in the stupid way ogres always have: "It must be a nut, for I can see something good inside." Robin could not hear him, but he was sure, by the help of the Owl's wisdom, that it was the amulet.

[Illustration: "AT DAYBREAK ROBIN BLEW THE MIGHTY HORN"]

In a thrice--that means while you count three--Robin was speeding away with the Hare's swiftness toward Ogre Castle, and in a few minutes he was demanding the amulet from the Ogre.

Now usually the Ogre was not at all a disagreeable fellow, and the Owl's wisdom would have easily sufficed to enable Robin to secure the amulet without trouble, but he had just tried to crack the amulet with his teeth. It broke off the very best tooth he had in his head, and his poor jaws ached so that he was in a very bad temper. He turned fiercely, and for a few minutes Robin needed all the strength the Lion had given him.

[Illustration: "THE PRINCESS WAVED HER LILY HAND TO ROBIN"]

After all, the Ogre was one of the pneumatic-tire, hot-water-bag kind of giants, who flat out if you stick a pin into them and lie perfectly limp until they are bandaged up and set going once more. That is really a secret, but Robin knew it by the help of the Owl's wisdom, and he was not the least little bit afraid.

So Robin managed to get the amulet away without too much difficulty, and the Hare's swiftness quickly took him back to the palace. When the princess, who was watching from the tower window, saw the rosy light of the amulet in the distance, pinkness came back to her cheeks, and her eyes shone like stars, and she waved her lily hand to Robin in perfect happiness.

Ah, such a merrymaking as they planned for that evening! Robin was to receive the Prize for Good Luck, so much gold coin that it would take three carts and six mules to carry it back to the cottage. The king counted out money all the afternoon, and the queen put up tarts and jars of honey for Robin to take to his mother, and the princess gave him her photograph.

Now comes the sad part. It had taken so much time to reach the palace, to explain to the king, to ascend the tower and find the amulet, to conquer the Ogre of Ogre Castle, and to return to the palace, that it was almost night before Robin realized it. When the money had been counted out and the tarts wrapped in paraffin paper and the pots of honey packed in excelsior, it was seven o'clock.

Now the party was to begin at nine, for the princess had to have her white satin frock sent home from the dressmaker, and her hair had to be curled. The Punch and Judy was to come at ten, and the ice-cream was to be served at eleven, for in palaces people keep terribly late hours, not at all good for them. Just as Robin had dressed himself in a beautiful blue velvet suit, thinking how fine it was that he should open the dance with the princess and how lucky it was that he had the strength of a lion, so that he could dance at all after his busy day, he suddenly remembered his promise to the Owl.

It was such a shock that, in spite of the Lion's strength, he nearly fainted. Then he went quickly to the king and told him that he must go away at once. The king was very angry and bade him have done with such nonsense.

"Faith, you must stay," he said crossly. "There would be no living with the princess if her party is spoiled. Besides, you will lose the Prize for Good Luck, for the people have been promised that they shall see it presented to somebody to-night and we must not disappoint them."

[Illustration: "THE SAUCY BLUE JAY MOCKED THE FLUTTERING OWL"]

Poor Robin's heart was heavy. How could he lose all that he had gained and go away as poor as when he came? That wasn't all nor half of all. To lose the money would be bad, but he had much more to lose than that. For one day he had enjoyed the fun of being stronger and wiser and swifter and keener-sighted than anybody else. Isn't that better than money and all the prizes for good luck? Yes, indeed, his heart answered over and over again. How could he go back and give up the wisdom and the swiftness and the clear sight and the strength, even if he could give up the money?

"I know now," he thought bitterly, "how the Owl felt when she said she would not be a feather-brain like the blue jay. And it is much more important for a boy to be strong than for a common old lion, who is pretty old anyway. And there are lots of hares in the forest and eagles on the mountain."

Then Robin slowly climbed the stairs to the tower, for he thought he would see what the Owl and the Hare and the Eagle and the Lion were doing in the forest. He looked over to the cottage, leagues and leagues away. There, under a big oak, lay the Owl, her feathers all a-flutter. She had had no more sense than to go out in the brilliant sunshine, and