One morning, just after breakfast, the father with several of his sons and slaves walked out into the country to oversee the men who farmed his land. The men who tended the land lived in rude but well-kept huts. The father went to the threshing floor, where they saw a servant driving a pair of oxen over the barley. Phœnix and Harold gathered up what was thrown to the side, for Phœnix might have this for his own planting. Harold became interested in a man who was using a pick to break up the ground, for the plows drawn by oxen were not much better than sharpened sticks and did not loosen the ground well. Laertes (for that was his name) spoke kindly to Harold, and pointed out his hut among the rest. He explained that the little bunch of wool which Harold noticed on Laertes' door told that a little girl baby had come to live in his home. He pointed out for Harold the road to the vineyards where the grapes were ripening, and let him pet the sheep whose coats were so carefully kept. The chariot of a nobleman, with four horses hitched abreast, passed by to the race-course; a soothsayer came muttering something about the flight of a flock of crows meaning bad luck to the olive crop; a traveler sat down to tie the cord of his sandal. The goats came up from the meadows, and the maidens came with earthen jars to milk them. Harold had had a lovely day in the country, but it was now evening and he bade farewell to Laertes and returned with the others to the town; for although he had been so interested in the home of Phœnix that he had not noticed other houses, he was really in a small city just beginning to grow up in a beautiful valley, for at this time in Greece there were many little independent towns. The houses in each town were far apart, and many families often lived in each one.

Early the next morning the men made ready to go to the market place. There, after seeing the onions, olives, fruits, beans and melons sold, they gathered in groups around the porticoes of the market place, and the boys listened to a heated discussion of the question of waging war against a neighboring valley. Among the people Harold noticed Laertes in his coat of lion skin and asked him what he was going to say; but Phœnix quickly drew Harold aside and said that Laertes would not be allowed to speak, for he was only a laborer, and that his father and brothers and others who were noblemen would decide what wars should be waged. Just then the soothsayer whom Harold had seen that day at the farm appeared. Taking a scepter in his hands as a sign of authority, he began to speak. He said he had dreamed of a returning army and many captives, fair women and strong men, of shields and plundered gold. All listened attentively, and it was decided to make war on a neighboring city, chiefly because they were jealous of its growth, for the people of the city had given no offense. Phœnix loved to hear of war, and said that when he was a man he would go with war-chariots to every valley and make the chiefs give up their gold and silver, that he would bring home their men and women as slaves, that he would gain the laurel crown in the race-course, and then he would be the greatest man in all Greece.

Presently there appeared in the market place a man with head slightly bent forward, with cautious step and intent face, who put his hands before him, and finding his harp, drew it to him. As his fingers moved gently over the strings, a deep silence fell all around him—it was Homer, the blind poet. "How delightful!" whispered Phœnix; "he is going to sing more about the beautiful Helen and the siege of Troy. About Achilles, the brave boy-hero, and Ajax the powerful, and wise old Nestor, and the wooden horse. We must listen, for he cannot be with us many years, and he who listens best now can best tell his sons the story. My father says many traditions have been lost because no one remembered them well enough to tell them to his sons." Harold thought they would remember because the story was so beautiful and so beautifully sung. Homer told only a part that day, and at evening the boys repeated at home parts of what they had heard.

While Phœnix was taking his lesson in music from one of the captive princes, and learning to repeat legends and wise sayings after a trusted slave, Harold stole away and watched the older boys and men at their contests in running and leaping. They had all been trained to be great athletes, and even the poorest seemed to Harold to be very good. They all did so well he wished everybody could be awarded an olive branch, which was given only to the victor.

He liked to play with Phœnix's little cart, and many a game of marbles and checkers they enjoyed together, while Penelope stood by with her kitten in her arms and Phœnix's little dog bit at the marbles.

Seated after play on his beautifully shaped chair, he never tired of looking at the furniture of the doma. There were chairs, and wooden chests with ivory figures on the lids, couches, carpets and rugs, all of which had been made by hand. Near the hearth on the floor and hanging on the wall were all varieties of earthenware vessels and kettles of copper and bronze, for the Phœnicians had taught the Greeks how to make all these things. A large red earthenware vase was placed near the cupboard where the goblets stood. This vase was the prettiest in the room. It had around its top a picture of a hunter and his dogs—done in black. The figures looked rather stiff, but they were pretty, considering they had to be cut in the vase and then filled with black paint. The greatest beauty was in the shape of the vase, and in the handles, which were large and symmetrical. On the walls were great plates of brass ornamented with iron. On the great one that hung over the door to the thalium was the picture of a tower over the city wall. A woman, tall and graceful, stood there with a little baby in her arms. She was looking beseechingly into the face of a young warrior clad in armor from head to foot. Just showing beyond the wall on a hill was the army to which he seemed about to return. Harold looked so often at this picture that he would never forget it. There were many other pictures, and all interesting, and, like other pictures of ancient times, all made of metals. It is thought by many that at this time the Greeks had not yet learned to paint pictures.

On the day that the men were to start out to battle, all assembled in the doma and prepared to offer a sacrifice to Ares, the god of war. A strong ox, with a wreath of flowers around its neck, was led in and killed before the hearth. Part of it was put upon the hearth, which was their altar, and burned. By the manner of burning and the color of the smoke, the oracles tried to tell what would be the result of the battle. Prayers were made to Ares, and in the thalium sacrifice was offered to Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, and prayers were offered that she might protect the household. Then the men, clad in armor, with bows and arrows, and slings, and spears, and shields, marched away a few miles across the mountains to fight a neighboring city; for, as I told you, one thing the Greek cities never could learn was to be friends with one another.

But Harold and Phœnix remained at home, passing many days playing marbles, jack-stones and ball, very much as boys do now, till one morning several ox carts were drawn up before the outer gate and Phœnix and Harold were delighted when they were told they might go with a farm hand on a journey to the seashore to trade with the Phœnicians. In the first cart was placed the fine linen and woolen goods that Phœnix's mother and sisters had woven. In another was wool, and in another the finest of the olives that Laertes had brought in from the farm. Hirus, the brother of the dark-haired little slave girl, drove the oxen for Phœnix. As they lay that night on the soft wool, near the seashore, and looked up at the clear sky and the stars, Phœnix told Harold about the ships and the trade of the Phœnicians; and in the quiet night, after Phœnix was asleep, Hirus told Harold how he and his Phœnician kinsmen had once on the sea been taken captive and sold to Phœnix's father. He said they did the finest carving and work in metals, and that the Greeks were just beginning to learn to do that kind of work. Harold at last fell asleep listening to the dark-eyed slave's stories of the wonderful work of his people—of how other kings hired them to build their temples, of how they braved the roughest sea to get tin from distant lands, and of the rich palaces of their kings. The next morning they were busy trading at the coast. The Phœnicians were there in their ships, and everybody was busy. Phœnix traded the wool plucked from his own sheep for a silver cup. When the wagons went back the next day, they were loaded with shields and spears, chairs, tapestries and rugs from the countries about Babylon; jewels and wheat from Egypt, and purple dyes, cashmere shawls and metal looking-glasses from the land of Phœnicia. Thus Harold saw how the beautiful little country of Greece learned many of its first lessons about useful and beautiful things by trading with the Phœnicians, and how the Phœnicians gathered together the things made in the countries we studied about Palestine and Babylon—and brought them westward and traded them to people who had not yet learned to make things so useful and beautiful.

By the Greeks learning all that the Phœnicians had to teach them about the alphabet, about weights and measures, about purple dye for making hangings for palaces, and robes for kings, about how to tan skins by using the root of the evergreen oak of Greece, and how to make useful things of iron, copper and silver, they became more than the simple farmers which Harold saw as he took his trip through the country; for they soon learned to make ships like those which the Phœnicians used, and after a time became the greatest traders on the Mediterranean Sea.

But although the Greeks at this early time were very simple and plain, yet at this very time they wrote a book, which people read with as much delight now as they did thousands of years ago. It is one of the greatest books ever written, telling us most of what we now know of early Greece, with her brave heroes and beautiful women. The book is made up of the songs of Homer, and it is called the "Iliad." and in this way, although Greece died thousands of years ago, the best things the Greeks wrote still live as fresh as ever in the life of every good scholar.