The Adventures of Tom Sawyer  by Mark Twain

Huck Finn Quotes Scripture

T OM joined the new order of Cadets of Temperance, being attracted by the showy character of their "regalia." He promised to abstain from smoking, chewing, and profanity as long as he remained a member. Now he found out a new thing—namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing. Tom soon found himself tormented with a desire to drink and swear; the desire grew to be so intense that nothing but the hope of a chance to display himself in his red sash kept him from withdrawing from the order. Fourth of July was coming; but he soon gave that up—gave it up before he had worn his shackles over forty-eight hours—and fixed his hopes upon old Judge Frazer, justice of the peace, who was apparently on his deathbed and would have a big public funeral, since he was so high an official. During three days Tom was deeply concerned about the Judge's condition and hungry for news of it. Sometimes his hopes ran high—so high that he would venture to get out his regalia and practise before the looking-glass. But the Judge had a most discouraging way of fluctuating. At last he was pronounced upon the mend—and then convalescent. Tom was disgusted; and felt a sense of injury, too. He handed in his resignation at once—and that night the Judge suffered a relapse and died. Tom resolved that he would never trust a man like that again.

The funeral was a fine thing. The Cadets paraded in a style calculated to kill the late member with envy. Tom was a free boy again, however—there was something in that. He could drink and swear, now—but found to his surprise that he did not want to. The simple fact that he could took the desire away, and the charm of it.

Tom presently wondered to find that his coveted vacation was beginning to hang a little heavily on his hands.

He attempted a diary—but nothing happened during three days, and so he abandoned it.

The first of all the negro minstrel shows came to town, and made a sensation. Tom and Joe Harper got up a band of performers and were happy for two days.

Even the Glorious Fourth was in some sense a failure, for it rained hard, there was no procession in consequence, and the greatest man in the world (as Tom supposed), Mr. Benton, an actual United States Senator, proved an overwhelming disappointment—for he was not twenty-five feet high, nor even anywhere in the neighborhood of it.

A circus came. The boys played circus for three days afterward in tents made of rag carpeting—admission, three pins for boys, two for girls—and then circusing was abandoned.

A phrenologist and a mesmerizer came—and went again and left the village duller and drearier than ever.

There were some boys-and-girls' parties, but they were so few and so delightful that they only made the aching voids between ache the harder.

Becky Thatcher was gone to her Constantinople home to stay with her parents during vacation—so there was no bright side to life anywhere.

The dreadful secret of the murder was a chronic misery. It was a very cancer for permanency and pain.

Then came the measles.

During two long weeks Tom lay a prisoner, dead to the world and its happenings. He was very ill, he was interested in nothing. When he got upon his feet at last and moved feebly down-town, a melancholy change had come over everything and every creature. There had been a "revival," and everybody had "got religion," not only the adults, but even the boys and girls. Tom went about, hoping against hope for the sight of one blessed sinful face, but disappointment crossed him everywhere. He found Joe Harper studying a Testament, and turned sadly away from the depressing spectacle. He sought Ben Rogers, and found him visiting the poor with a basket of tracts. He hunted up Jim Hollis, who called his attention to the precious blessing of his late measles as a warning. Every boy he encountered added another ton to his depression; and when, in desperation, he flew for refuge at last to the bosom of Huckleberry Finn and was received with a Scriptural quotation, his heart broke and he crept home and to bed realizing that he alone of all the town was lost, forever and forever.

And that night there came on a terrific storm, with driving rain, awful claps of thunder and blinding sheets of lightning. He covered his head with the bedclothes and waited in a horror of suspense for his doom; for he had not the shadow of a doubt that all this hubbub was about him. He believed he had taxed the forbearance of the powers above to the extremity of endurance and that this was the result. It might have seemed to him a waste of pomp and ammunition to kill a bug with a battery of artillery, but there seemed nothing incongruous about the getting up such an expensive thunderstorm as this to knock the turf from under an insect like himself.

By and by the tempest spent itself and died without accomplishing its object. The boy's first impulse was to be grateful, and reform. His second was to wait—for there might not be any more storms.

The next day the doctors were back; Tom had relapsed. The three weeks he spent on his back this time seemed an entire age. When he got abroad at last he was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remembering how lonely was his estate, how companionless and forlorn he was. He drifted listlessly down the street and found Jim Hollis acting as judge in a juvenile court that was trying a cat for murder, in the presence of her victim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck Finn up an alley eating a stolen melon. Poor lads! they—like Tom—had suffered a relapse.

 

Heroes of the Middle Ages  by Eva March Tappan

Ferdinand Magellan

W hen the year 1519 had come, people knew much more about the world than had been known thirty years earlier. Other voyagers had followed Columbus. Vasco da Gama had sailed around Africa and shown that it was quite possible to reach India by that method. Several other bold mariners had crossed the Atlantic and explored different parts of the American coast. One had crossed the Isthmus of Darien and had seen the Pacific Ocean. It was known, therefore, that there was land from Labrador to Brazil, but no one guessed how far to the west it extended. Most people thought that the islands visited by Columbus and probably the lands north of them lay off the coast of China. No one had been around South America, but even those who thought it to be a great mass of land supposed that somewhere there was a strait leading through it to the Chinese waters. No one guessed that the wide Pacific Ocean lay between this land and China, for no one had yet carried out Columbus's plan of reaching India by sailing west.

This, however, was just what a bold navigator named Ferdinand Magellan was hoping to do. He was a Portuguese, but his own king would not send out the expedition he was planning; therefore he entered the service of the king of Spain. This daring sailor did not know any better than others how far South America might extend to the southward, but he promised the king that he would follow the coast until he came to some strait that led through the land to the Chinese seas. He was not going merely to make discoveries; he meant to bring home whole shiploads of spices. He knew how cheaply they could be bought of the natives, and he expected to make fortunes for the king and for himself. No one knew how long the voyage would take, but the ships were provisioned for two years. They carried also all kinds of weapons and vast quantities of bells and knives and red cloth and small looking-glasses, which they intended to exchange for spices with the natives.

Magellan

The vessels crossed the Atlantic and sailed into the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. Then everyone was hopeful. "This must be a strait," they thought, "and we are almost at our journey's end." They sailed cheerfully up stream for two days. Then their hopes fell, for the water grew more fresh every hour, and therefore they knew that they were in a river; so they turned back and continued their voyage along the coast. By and by they came to another opening; this might be the passage, and Magellan sent two of the ships to explore it. When they returned, there was rejoicing indeed, for the captains reported that at last a deep channel had been found. This was surely the passage to the seas of China. But the ships were shattered and food was scanty. Since the passage had been found, why not return to Spain? The following season they could set out with new, strong vessels and a good supply of food. So said some of the captains and pilots; but others felt that the hardest part of the voyage was over, China must be close at hand, and they might just as well go home with shiploads of cloves and other spices.

On Magellan went, through the straits later named after him, into the calm, blue ocean, so quiet that he called it the Pacific. He sailed on and on. When he entered this ocean, he had food for only three months, and two months had passed. Now the explorers had no choice about turning back, for they had not provisions for a homeward voyage, and their only hope was that by keeping on they might come to the shores of India. At length they did reach a little island, but it had neither water nor fruit. They came to a group of islands, and these they named the Ladrones, or thieves' islands, because the natives stole everything they could lay their hands upon. Then they landed at the Philippines, and here was plenty of fruit,—oranges, bananas, and cocoanuts. They were now in the land of cloves, but unfortunately Magellan agreed to help one native chief against his enemies, and in the fighting that followed, he was slain.

The little fleet had at first consisted of five vessels; but one had deserted, one had been wrecked, one had been burned as unseaworthy, and one had fallen into the hands of the Portuguese. The Victoria, the only one that remained, pressed on to the Moluccas; and when she sailed away, she had such a cargo as no vessel had brought before, for besides all that the men had bought for themselves, she carried twenty-six tons of cloves. From some of the other islands they took ginger and sandal wood. Then they crossed the Indian Ocean and rounded Africa. They stopped to buy food at the Cape Verde Islands, and here they were astounded to find that while they called the day Wednesday, the people on the Islands called it Thursday. They had travelled west with the sun, and so had lost a day. At length they reached Spain, and there they received a royal reception. After Magellan's death, Sebastian del Cano had become captain. The courage and perseverance that had made the voyage possible belonged to Magellan; but he was dead, and the rewards went to Del Cano. He was made a noble, and for a coat of arms he was given a globe with the motto, "You first encompassed me."

During the two hundred years when Europe was making especially rapid progress in learning and in discovery, some of the noblest painters that the world has ever known, lived in Italy. One of these died while Magellan was slowly making his way around the southern point of South America. This was Raphael. His most famous picture is the Sistine Madonna, now in the Dresden Gallery, the Mother of Christ with the Holy Child in her arms. Raphael is said to have thanked God that he was born in the times of Michel Angelo, a brother artist. Angelo was painter and poet, but greatest of all as sculptor. His most famous statue is that of Moses. This is so wonderfully life-like that one feels as if it must be alive. It is easy to believe that, when it was completed, the artist gazed upon it and cried, "Speak, for thou canst." Angelo lived to be an old man, but till almost the last day of his life he was occupied with some work of art of such rare excellence that every one who loves beautiful things is glad of its existence.

 

Alice Cary

Work

Down and up, and up and down, Over and over and over; Turn in the little seed, dry and brown, Turn out the bright red clover. Work and the sun your work shall share, And the rain in its time shall fall; For Nature, she worketh everywhere, And the grace of God through all. With hand on the spade and heart in the sky, Dress the ground and till it; Turn in the little seed, brown and dry, Turn out the golden millet. Work and your house shall be duly fed; Work and rest shall be won; I hold that a man had better be dead Than alive, when his work is done! Down and up, and up and down, On the hilltop, low in the valley; Turn in the little seed, dry and brown, Turn out the rose and the lily. Work with a plan, or without a plan, And your ends, they shall be shaped true; Work, and learn at first hand, like a man, The best way to know is to do! Down and up till life shall close, Ceasing not your praises; Turn in the wild white winter snows, Turn out the sweet spring daisies. Work and the sun your work shall share And the rain in its time shall fall; For Nature, she worketh everywhere, And the grace of God through all.

 

Our Island Story  by H. E. Marshall

The Story of a Sad Day in a Highland Glen

T HE friends of James were called Jacobites, from Jacobus  which is Latin for James. There were many Jacobites in the north of Scotland. They rose under Claverhouse, the man who had treated the Covenanters so badly, and a battle was fought at Killiecrankie Pass. The Jacobites won the day, but their leader was killed, so, although many of the clans continued to be discontented, they were without a leader and could do little.

The discontent and rebellion went on for a year or two, and at last William determined to put an end to it. He proclaimed that he would forgive all those who had rebelled, if they would take an oath, before 1st January 1692 A.D., acknowledging him as King, and promising to live quietly and peacefully under his rule. Those who did not take the oath would be punished.

All the Highland chieftains, except the chief of the Macdonalds of Glencoe, took the oath. This chief was very unwilling to own William as King, and he could not bring himself to do so until the very last day. Then he started off from his lonely glen and went to the nearest town, where he expected to find one of the King's officers to whom he could swear the oath. But to his dismay he found that he had come to the wrong town, and that there was no one there who could receive his oath.

He started off again, as quickly as he could, to go to the right town. But it was deep winter, and traveling was very slow in those days, and he was six days late when he arrived. However, his oath was accepted, and he went home feeling safe and happy.

But a man called the Master of Stair, who was governing Scotland for William and Mary, hated all Highlanders, and the Campbells, another clan, hated the Macdonalds. So the Campbells and the Master of Stair decided that, as the chief had been a few days late in swearing to obey William, they had a good excuse for killing all the Macdonalds.

William was not told that Macdonald had sworn. He was made to believe that he had not done so, and that the whole clan was a set of robbers, and he signed an order for them to be destroyed. Although it is said that William did not know what he was doing when he signed this order, he ought to have known, and the Massacre of Glencoe, as it is called, is the darkest spot on his reign.

The Master of Stair had the King's order, but he did not do his work openly. He sent Campbell and his men to live in Glencoe for nearly a fortnight, so that Macdonald should suspect nothing. The old chief received the men kindly, and treated as his guests those who were ready to betray and murder him.

At five o'clock one dark winter's morning, the Campbells crept silently out of the houses and along the snow-covered paths to the scattered cottages. A few minutes later the glen was awake with the sounds of shots and screams. Campbell and his soldiers were at their work. Without mercy men were killed almost in their sleep. Those, who were able, fled through the darkness and the snow with their wives and children, many of them only to die of cold and hunger among the lonely mountains and glens. The soldiers murdered all they could, then they set fire to the empty houses and marched away, driving before them the cattle and horses belonging to the Macdonalds. And when the sun rose high over the valley of Glencoe, it shone only on blood-stained snow and blackened, smoking ruins, where peaceful homes had been but a few hours before.

For some time Britain and France had been at war, for the French King hated William, and would not acknowledge him as King of Britain. William spent a part of every year abroad directing this war and ruling Holland. While he was gone, Mary ruled in England. She governed so well, and was so sweet and gentle, that the people loved her dearly. They loved her far more than they loved William, who was so quiet and stern as to seem almost sullen.

But in 1694 A.D., Mary became ill of a very dreadful disease called smallpox, and died in a few days. William had loved her very much, and he was very sad when she died. "I was the happiest man on earth," he said to one of his friends, "now I am the most miserable. She had no fault, none; you knew her well, but you could not know, nobody but myself could know, her goodness." And if the King sorrowed, the whole country sorrowed with him.

After the death of Mary, William ruled alone.

At last the King of France made peace with William, perhaps because he was tired of fighting, perhaps because he was a little tired of helping James, who was really very dull and stupid. By this peace the French King consented to acknowledge William as the rightful King of Britain, and to give back the lands he had wrongfully taken from Germany and the other countries he had been fighting against.

A few years later James died, and Louis XIV., the French King, forgot the promise he had made to William. He proclaimed the son of James to be King of Britain under the title of James III. This made the British very angry, although it really did not matter much. A French King might call James King of Britain, but that could not make him so truly. However, William wanted to go to war with France again for another reason, and this act of the French King decided the people to do so. This other reason was that the King of Spain had died, and Louis wanted to make his own grandson King of Spain, so that France and Spain should in time come to be one kingdom. But some of the Kings in Europe thought that it would be most dangerous to allow this, as then the King of France might become too powerful, and want more than ever to take lands which did not belong to him. So William and the other Kings of Europe formed what was called the Grand Alliance, and the war which now began was called the War of the Spanish Succession, because the quarrel was about who should succeed to the throne of Spain.

But before war was declared, William died. He had always been rather ill although, in spite of that, he had both thought and worked hard, and for some time now he had been very unwell. One day when he was out riding he was thrown from his horse, and broke his collar-bone. This might not have hurt a strong man, but William was not strong, and a few days later, 8th March 1702 A.D., he died.

William was a great and brave man. He did much for Britain, yet he was never loved by the people. They felt that he was a Dutchman, and that he cared more for Holland than for his kingdom of Britain, and that made it difficult for them to love him.

 

Summer  by Dallas Lore Sharp

Riding the Rim Rock

F ROM P Ranch to Winnemucca is a seventeen-day drive through a desert of rim rock and greasewood and sage, which, under the most favorable of conditions, is beset with difficulty; but which, in the dry season, and with a herd of anything like four thousand, becomes an unbroken hazard. More than anything else on such a drive is feared the wild herd-spirit, the quick black temper of the cattle, that by one sign or another ever threatens to break the spell of the rider's power and sweep the maddened or terrorized herd to destruction. The handling of the herd to keep this spirit sleeping is ofttimes a thrilling experience.

Some time before my visit to P Ranch, in Harney County, southeastern Oregon, in the summer of 1912, the riders had taken out a herd of four thousand steers on what proved to be one of the most difficult drives ever made to Winnemucca, the shipping station in northern Nevada.

For the first two days on the trail the cattle were strange to each other, having been gathered from widely distant grazing-grounds,—from the Double O and the Home ranches,—and were somewhat clannish and restive under the driving. At the beginning of the third day signs of real ugliness appeared. The hot weather and a shortage of water began to tell on the temper of the herd.

The third day was long and exceedingly hot. The line started forward at dawn and all day long kept moving, with the sun cooking the bitter smell of sage into the air, and with the sixteen thousand hoofs kicking up a still bitterer smother of alkali dust that inflamed eyes and nostrils and coated the very lungs of the cattle. The fierce desert thirst was upon the herd long before it reached the creek where it was to bed for the night. The heat and the dust had made slow work of the driving, and it was already late when they reached the creek—only to find it dry.

This was bad. The men were tired. But, worse, the cattle were thirsty, and Wade, the "boss of the buckaroos," pushed the herd on toward the next rim rock, hoping to get down to the plain below to water before the end of the slow desert twilight. Anything for the night but a dry camp.

They had hardly started on when a whole flank of the herd, as if by prearrangement, suddenly breaking away and dividing about two of the riders, tore off through the brush. The horses were as tired as the men, and before the chase was over the twilight was gray in the sage and it became necessary to halt at once and make camp where they were. They would have to go without water.

The runaways were brought up and the herd closed in till it formed a circle nearly a mile around. This was as close as it could be drawn, for the cattle would not bed—lie down. They wanted water more than they wanted rest. Their eyes were red, their tongues raspy with thirst. The situation was a serious one.

But camp was made. Two of the riders were sent back along the trail to bring up the "drags," while Wade with his other men circled the uneasy cattle, closing them in, quieting them, and doing everything possible to make them bed.

But they were thirsty, and, instead of bedding, the herd began to "growl"—a distant mutter of throats, low, rumbling, ominous, as when faint thunder rolls behind the hills. Every plainsman fears the growl, for it usually is a prelude to the "milling," as it proved to be now, when the whole vast herd began to stir, slowly, singly, and without direction, till at length it moved together, round and round, a great compact circle, the multitude of clicking hoofs, of clashing horns, and chafing sides like the sound of rushing rain across a field of corn.

Nothing could be worse for the cattle. The cooler twilight was falling, but, mingling with it, rose and thickened and spread the choking dust from their feet that soon covered them and shut out all but the dark wall of the herd from sight.

Slowly, evenly swung the wall, round and round without a break. Only one who has watched a milling herd can know its suppressed excitement. To keep that excitement in check was the problem of Wade and his men. And the night had not yet begun.

When the riders had brought in the drags and the chuck-wagon had lumbered up with supper, Wade set the first watch.

Along with the wagon had come the fresh horses—and Peroxide Jim, a supple, powerful, clean-limbed buckskin, that had, I think, as fine and intelligent an animal-face as any I ever saw. And why should he not have been saved fresh for just such a need as this? Are there not superior horses to match superior men—a Peroxide Jim to complement a Wade and so combine a real centaur, noble physical power controlled by noble intelligence? At any rate, the horse understood the situation, and though there was nothing like sentiment about the boss of the P Ranch riders, his faith in Peroxide Jim was complete.

The other night horses were saddled and tied to the wheels of the wagon. It was Wade's custom to take his turn with the second watch; but, shifting his saddle to Peroxide Jim, he rode out with the four of the first watch, who, evenly spaced, were quietly circling the herd.

The night, for this part of the desert, was unusually warm; it was close, silent, and without a sky. The near thick darkness blotted out the stars. There is usually a breeze at night over these highest rim-rock plains that, no matter how hot the day, crowds the cattle together for warmth. To-night not a breath stirred the sage as Wade wound in and out among the bushes, the hot dust stinging his eyes and caking rough on his skin.

Round and round moved the weaving, shifting forms, out of the dark and into the dark, a gray spectral line like a procession of ghosts, or some slow morris of the desert's sheeted dead. But it was not a line, it was a sea of forms; not a procession, but the even surging of a maelstrom of hoofs a mile around.

Wade galloped out on the plain for a breath of air and a look at the sky. A quick cold rain would quiet them; but there was no feel of rain in the darkness, no smell of it in the air. Only the powdery taste of bitter sage.

The desert, where the herd had camped, was one of the highest of a series of tablelands, or benches, that lay as level as a floor, and rimmed by a sheer wall of rock over which it dropped to the bench of sage below. The herd had been headed for a pass, and was now halted within a mile of the rim rock on the east, where there was about three hundred feet of perpendicular fall.

It was the last place an experienced plainsman would have chosen for a camp; and every time Wade circled the herd and came in between the cattle and the rim, he felt its nearness. The darkness helped to bring it near. The height of his horse brought it near—he seemed to look down from his saddle over it, into its dark depths. The herd in its milling was surely warping slowly in the direction of the precipice. But this was all fancy—the trick of the dark and of nerves, if a plainsman has nerves.

At twelve o'clock the first guard came in and woke the second watch. Wade had been in his saddle since dawn, but this was his regular watch. More than that, his trained ear had timed the milling hoofs. The movement of the herd had quickened.

If now he could keep them going and could prevent their taking any sudden fright! They must not stop until they stopped from utter weariness. Safety lay in their continued motion. So Wade, with the fresh riders, flanked them closely, paced them, and urged them quietly on. They must be kept milling, and they must be kept from fright.

In the taut silence of the starless desert night, with the tension of the cattle at the snapping-point, any quick, unwonted sight or sound would stampede the herd—the sneezing of a horse, the flare of a match, enough to send the whole four thousand headlong—blind, frenzied, tramping—till spent and scattered over the plain.

And so, as he rode, Wade began to sing. The rider ahead of him took up the air and passed it on, until, above the stepping stir of the hoofs, rose the faint voices of the men, and all the herd was bound about by the slow, plaintive measure of some old song. It was not to soothe their savage breasts that the riders sang to the cattle, but to prevent the shock of any loud or sudden noise.

So they sang and rode, and the night wore on to one o'clock, when Wade, coming up on the rim-rock side, felt a cool breeze fan his face, and caught a breath of fresh, moist wind with the taste of water in it.

He checked his horse instantly, listening as the wind swept past him over the cattle. But they must already have smelled it, for they had ceased their milling. The whole herd stood motionless, the indistinct forms nearest him showing, in the dark, their bald faces lifted to drink the sweet wet breath that came over the rim. Then they started again, but faster, and with a rumbling from their hoarse throats that tightened Wade's grip on his reins.

The sound seemed to come out of the earth, a low, rumbling mumble, as deep as the night and as wide as the plain, a thick, inarticulate bellow that stood every rider stiff in his stirrups.

The breeze caught the dust and carried it back from the gray-coated, ghostly shapes, and Wade saw that they were still moving in a circle. If only he could keep them going! He touched his horse to ride on with them, when across the black sky flashed a vivid streak of lightning.

There was a snort from the steers, a quick clap of horns and hoofs from within the herd, a tremor of the plain, a roar, a surging mass—and Wade was riding the flank of a wild stampede. Before him, behind him, beside him, pressing hard upon his horse, galloped the frenzied steers, and beyond them a multitude, borne on, and bearing him on, by the heave of the galloping herd.

Wade was riding for his life. He knew it. His horse knew it. He was riding to turn the herd, too,—back from the rim,—as the horse also knew. The cattle were after water—water-mad—and would go over the precipice to get it, carrying horse and rider with them.

Wade was the only rider between the herd and the rim. It was black as death. He could see nothing in the sage, could scarcely discern the pounding, panting shadows at his side; but he knew by the swish of the brush and the plunging of the horse that the ground was growing stonier, that they were nearing the rocks.

To outrun the cattle seemed his only chance. If he could come up with the leaders he might yet head them off upon the plain and save the herd. There were cattle still ahead of him,—how many, what part of the herd, he could not tell. But the horse knew. The reins hung on his straight neck, while Wade, yelling and firing into the air, gave him the race to win, to lose.

Suddenly they veered and went high in the air, as a steer plunged headlong into a draw almost beneath his feet. They cleared the narrow ravine, landed on bare rock, and reeled on.

They were riding the rim. Close on their left bore down the flank of the herd, and on their right, under their very feet, was the precipice, so close that they felt its blackness—its three hundred feet of fall.

A piercing, half-human bawl of terror told where a steer had been crowded over. Would the next leap crowd them over too? Then Wade found himself racing neck and neck with a big white steer, which the horse, with marvelous instinct, seemed to pick from a bunch, and to cling to, forcing him gradually ahead, till, cutting him free from the bunch entirely, he bore him off into the sage.

Neck and neck with a big white steer.

The group coming on behind followed the leader, and after them swung others. The tide was turning. Within a short time the whole herd had veered, and, bearing off from the cliffs, was pounding over the open plains.

Whose race was it? It was Peroxide Jim's, according to Wade, for not by word or by touch of hand or knee had he been directed in the run. From the flash of the lightning the horse had taken the bit, had covered an indescribably perilous path at top speed, had outrun the herd and turned it from the edge of the rim rock, without a false step or a shaken nerve.

Bred on the desert, broken in at the round-up, trained to think steer as the rider thinks it, the horse knew, as swiftly, as clearly as his rider, the work before him. But that he kept himself from fright, that none of the wild herd-madness passed into him, is a thing for great wonder. He was as thirsty as any of the herd; he knew his own peril, I believe, as none of the herd had ever known anything, and yet such coolness, courage, wisdom, and power!

Was it training? Superior intelligence? More intimate association with the man on his back, and so a farther remove from the wild thing that domestication does not seem to touch? Or was it all by suggestion, the superior intelligence above him riding, not only the flesh, but the spirit?

Not all suggestion, I believe. Perhaps a herd of horses could not be stampeded so easily as these P Ranch cattle. In this race, however, nothing of the wild herd-spirit touched the horse. Had the cattle been horses, would Peroxide Jim have been able to keep himself outside the stampede and above the spirit of the herd?

 

The Story Book of Science  by Jean Henri Fabre

The Experiment with the Cat

T HE wind blew cold and dry. The storm of the day before had brought it on. Uncle Paul took this pretext to have the kitchen stove lighted in spite of Mother Ambroisine's remarks, who cried out at the unseasonableness of making a fire.

"Light up the stove in summer!" said she; "did one ever see the like? No one but our master would have such a notion. We shall be roasted."

Uncle Paul let her talk; he had his own idea. They sat down at the table. After eating its supper the big cat, never too warm, settled itself on a chair by the side of the stove, and soon, with its back turned to the warm sheet-iron, began to purr with happiness. All was going as desired; Uncle Paul's projects were taking an excellent turn. There was some complaint of the heat, but he took no notice.

"Ah! do you think it is for you the stove is lighted?" said he to the children. "Undeceive yourselves, my little friends: it is for the cat, the cat alone. It is so chilly, poor thing; see how happy it is on its chair."

Emile was on the point of laughing at his uncle's kindly attentions to the tom-cat, but Claire, who suspected serious designs, nudged him with her elbow. Claire's suspicious were well founded. When they had finished supper they resumed the subject of thunder. Uncle Paul began:

"This morning I promised to show you, with the cat's help, some very curious things. The time has come for keeping my word, provided Puss is agreeable."

He look the cat, whose hair was burning hot, and put it on his knees. The children drew near.

"Jules, put out the lamp; we must be in the dark."

The lamp put out, Uncle Paul passed and repassed his hand over the tom-cat's back. Oh! oh! wonderful! The beast's hair is streaming with bright beads; little flashes of white light appear, crackle, and disappear as the hand rubs; you would have said that sparks of fireworks were bursting out from the fur. All looked on in wonder at the tom-cat's splendor.

"That puts the finishing touch! Here is our cat making fire!" cried Mother Ambroisine.

"Does that fire burn, Uncle?" asked Jules. "The cat does not cry out, and you stroke him without being afraid."

"Those sparks are not fire," replied Uncle Paul. "You all remember the stick of sealing wax which, after being rubbed on cloth, attracts little pieces of straw and paper. I told you that electricity, aroused by friction, is what makes the paper draw to the wax. Well, in rubbing the cat's back with my hand I produce electricity, but in greater abundance, so much so that it becomes visible where it was at first invisible, and bursts forth in sparks."

"If it doesn't burn, let me try," pleaded Jules.

Jules passed his hand over the cat's fur. The bright beads and their cracklings began again still stronger. Emile and Claire did the same. Mother Ambroisine was afraid. The worthy woman perhaps saw some witchcraft in the bright sparkles from her cat. The cat was then let loose. Besides, the experiment was beginning to give annoyance, and if Uncle Paul had not held the animal fast perhaps it would have begun to scratch.

 

Four American Patriots  by Alma Holman Burton

The Constitution of the United States

The very next day after this great speech of welcome to Washington and Lafayette, Patrick Henry became governor of Virginia again. There were many grave questions to be solved. What should be done with the Tories? That was one of the questions.

"Tar and feather them!" cried some.

"Welcome them and all other subjects of Great Britain," cried Governor Henry. "The Tories were mistaken, but the quarrel is over. We have peace again. Let us lay aside prejudice. These people who sided with the king are intelligent and industrious. We need men and women to help make a strong nation. Let all come who will."

When some wanted to keep English ships out of the harbors, that the French and other friendly nations might trade more with us, Governor Henry said: "No! Why should we fetter commerce? Let her be free as the air, and she will return on the wings of the four winds of heaven to bless our land with plenty."

Thus the great man pleaded liberty for all. After serving faithfully for two years as governor, he began again to practice law in the courts.

The soldiers of the Revolution had been paid in promises on paper by the Continental Congress. They needed money so badly that they could not wait for Congress to pay, and sold the promises at low prices to speculators.

When Patrick Henry favored the passage of a bill in the legislature to prevent the sale of the paper at such low prices, one of the speculators was so influenced by his eloquence that he exclaimed, "That bill ought to pass!" although its passage would spoil his own profits.

Now, since the war with England was over, it was clearly seen that the United States of America could not make a good government without a more permanent union. There was no president. Congress was disbanding. Soon there would be no government at all.

The colonies agreed to hold a convention at Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation which had kept them together during the war.

Patrick Henry was appointed a delegate, with George Washington, James Madison, and others; but his health was too poor for him to take the long journey.

The convention at Philadelphia adopted the Constitution of the United States as we have it to-day, without the amendments.

Eight States soon agreed to the Constitution. Would Virginia ratify it? Everybody said that New York and the rest of the states would act with Virginia.

General Washington sent Patrick Henry a copy of the Constitution, and urged him to persuade the people to adopt it.

Now, we have seen that, when the king was oppressing the colonies with taxes, Patrick Henry was one of the first to propose a union. But he thought the new plan of government gave too much power to Congress and the president. He said there should be amendments to the Constitution, so that the states might have more freedom.

No one had ever known a government without a king, and it was very difficult to suit everybody.

There was a long debate in a convention at Richmond. All the other colonies watched eagerly to see if Virginia would agree to the new plan of union. Mr. Henry urged the amendments.

At last the Constitution of the United States was ratified by Virginia, with the recommendation that amendments should be adopted when they seemed necessary. And some of the very amendments proposed by Patrick Henry were afterwards adopted by Congress.

To-day the Constitution has fifteen amendments, which have helped to make our government the best in the world.

 

Emily Dickinson

Out of the Morning

Will there really be a morning? Is there such a thing as day? Could I see it from the mountains If I were as tall as they? Has it feet like water lilies? Has it feathers like a bird? Is it brought from famous countries Of which I have never heard? Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor! Oh, some wise man from the skies! Please to tell a little pilgrim Where the place called morning lies!

 

Our Little Celtic Cousin of Long Ago  by Evaleen Stein

On the March

Ferdiad found the Kinkora school very interesting. Every day when the weather was pleasant the boys gathered in the cloister courtyard where the monks taught them out of doors. If it was cold or rainy they went inside to a schoolroom where the vellum books were kept in leather satchels hanging from wooden pegs ranged round the walls. The boys all had long narrow tablets of wood coated with wax, and with a slender rod of metal they wrote on these the things they must specially remember. They learned grammar, a little geography in rime, some Latin and various bits of wisdom called "oghams," and every new school year they must memorize at least ten new poems and stories; for these were thought a very important part of school work. Ferdiad and Conn sat side by side and told the stories over and over to each other, and were always delighted to get a new one.

Meantime, Eileen was taught at home, where besides her lessons she learned to spin and sew and weave and embroider. There were several other girls and boys whose foster-parents were among the attendants of the high king and queen, and with these they had many merry times. Conn came often to see them, and as the autumn wore away the boys went nutting and hunting and fishing together.

When winter came it was not very cold, but fires were lighted and in the evenings they played chess and checkers and listened to stories and poems and music; for Brian Boru loved such things and always did his best to encourage scholars and poets and artists.

But though life passed happily enough for the boys and girls, the faces of the older people began to grow more and more anxious as the weeks went on. Now and again Ferdiad and Eileen would hear talk of some fresh raid by the Danes, who were all the while growing bolder and bolder.

Sometimes Conn came with tales he had heard, and one day he said to Ferdiad: "My foster-father says there's bound to be a fight before long, or those Danes will just settle themselves here in Ireland and we never can drive them out!"

"That's what father Angus thinks, too," said Ferdiad. "He says as soon as spring comes Brian Boru will get all the Celtic kings together and start out after the Danes and there will be a big battle somewhere."

And sure enough, as the winter passed, more and more messengers came and went from Kinkora as the high King completed his plans; and every one around the palace talked of the Danes and how they must be conquered.

"Do you know, Ferdiad," said Conn excitedly one day, "folks say the banshee Aibell has been seen by the O'Brien of Killaloe, and she has given him a magic cloak that will make him invisible as he fights in the battle?"

"Who is Aibell?" asked Ferdiad.

"Oh, I forgot," said Conn, "you haven't lived here long enough to know. She is the fairy queen who specially guards the flaith O'Brien. He's a great champion who lives at Killaloe, not far from here. Aibell is famous around here and her palace is under the rock of Craglea in a glen near the O'Brien's home."

"Well," said Ferdiad, "I hadn't heard about Aibell, but I did hear that a flock of roysten crows flew eastward last night, and some say the battle witches often take the shape of crows and fly ahead when war is coming."

The next day the two boys had still more exciting things to talk about. "Oh, Conn!" cried Ferdiad, "what do you think?  We  are going too! The high King will take along quite a number of the boys from here to run errands, and father Angus says that you can go with the group with the palace because you and I are such friends!"

"Oh, good!" cried Conn, his eyes dancing. "My foster-father and my own father both are going with the soldiers and I suppose quite an army will start from here."

"Yes," said Ferdiad, "some of the Celtic kings and their soldiers will come here to start with Brian Boru and the rest will meet him in the kingdom of Meath, near where the river Liffey empties into the sea, and I am sure my own father, too, will be with the Meath army. They say a lot of the Danes have been camping all winter at the Ford of the Hurdles, and the high King means to attack them somewhere near there."

So the preparations went on; and by and by, when April came and the hawthorn trees began to bloom and the fields were full of buttercups, the Celtic kings with their poets and attendants began to arrive in chariots, while their soldiers followed on foot. The more important folks were entertained inside the dun, and the common soldiers pitched their tents in the fields without.

In a few days more Eileen and her mother waved a tearful good-by to Angus and Ferdiad and Conn as they took their places in the great host that wound out of the dun and across the fields to the east. At the head went Brian Boru and after him the kings and flaiths riding in chariots, while the poets cantered along on horseback, their musical branches tinkling and their heads full of the battle songs they would chant when the time came. There were also musicians and story tellers and jugglers to provide entertainment when they camped at night, and doctors and priests to attend those who would be wounded and dying in the fight. The soldiers trudged along on foot and the baggage followed in ox-carts. Ferdiad and Conn and the other boys marched along with the rest and whenever they were wanted to carry messages or do any service the buglers called them, and when they got tired marching they could climb in the ox-carts and ride for a while.

"How long will it take us to get to the sea-coast? Do you know?" asked Conn of Ferdiad.

"Father Angus said it would be over a week," said Ferdiad, "but I don't care how long it takes. I think it will be lots of fun, especially when we camp at night!"

And Ferdiad was right. The boys greatly enjoyed the march, and, best of all, the evenings when the tents were pitched, the protecting wall of earth thrown up around the camp, the fires made and supper being cooked. Later on, when the great king's-candle was lighted at the door of Brian Boru's tent, story telling and singing and all sorts of fun went on.

At last they drew near the mouth of the river Liffey and began to smell the salt air of the sea; and on a plain near its shore they made their camp. Close behind rose the Hill of Howth, and not far off the sea glittered and gleamed as the ebbing waves laid bare a wide strand of bowlders covered with long green water weeds. By and by, when the tide would come sweeping in, the great foaming breakers would roar and rumble over the stones like a herd of angry, bellowing bulls, and for this reason the Celtic people called the seashore there "Clontarf," which means in their language the "Lawn of the Bulls," a name which it bears to this day.

Ferdiad and Conn, who had not before seen the ocean, delighted in watching the curling green breakers and wading out as far as they dared. But they did not have much time to play, as the next day, which was Palm Sunday, they had many errands to do.

On that morning all the other Celtic kings joined Brian Boru's army, bringing with them their hosts of fighting men dressed, as were all the rest of the Celtic soldiers, in tunics of yellow linen; they had no armor because they thought it cowardly to wear it and protected only their heads with leather helmets and the front of their legs from the knee down with pieces of brown leather. The kings and flaiths did not wear even these, but were arrayed in silk and gay linen bratts and tunics and gold chains and bracelets quite as if they were going to a feast instead of a fight.

Ferdiad and Conn were very busy for the next three or four days, and finally, Thursday evening, Ferdiad said, "I believe they will fight soon now. I wouldn't wonder if it will be to-morrow!"

"Why," said Conn, "that's Good Friday! I shouldn't think Brian Boru would pick such a holy day to fight. You know he is so religious."

"He is," said Ferdiad, "but I heard the soldiers talking about a prophecy of a Dane soothsayer. I don't know how the found out about it, but the prophecy says if the battle is on Good Friday our Celts will win, though the high king will be killed. Of course nobody wants Brian Boru killed, but the soldiers say they want to fight to-morrow on account of the first part of the prophecy and that they can ward off the last part easy enough as they are sure the high king won't be in the fight because of the day and they will keep an extra strong guard around him besides."

"What does Brian Boru say?" asked Conn. "Did you hear?"

"They say he has the battle all planned and is willing for it to be to-morrow, though, as the soldiers thought, he himself won't touch weapons on Good Friday because it's against his religion. It seems to me he is too old to fight anyway!"

"Don't you think it!" said Conn. "He is mighty brave and a good fighter yet, if he is  'way past eighty!"

That night there were no poets' songs nor story telling nor jugglers' tricks, for everybody was on the alert for the coming battle. The two boys curled up side by side in one of the ox-carts and, like all the rest of the Celtic host on this night, they did not take off their clothes. Far off in the distance they could see the watch-fires of the Danes at the Ford of Hurdles, and they went to sleep talking excitedly of the morrow.

 

The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai  by Maude Barrows Dutton

The Rustic and the Nightingale

A certain Rustic had a garden which was filled with beautiful plants and vines. In one corner grew a rose-tree, which bore the most fragrant blossoms in the garden, and was therefore the Rustic's greatest pride. Every morning, when he walked among his flowers, he brought fresh water to sprinkle this rose-tree, so that it might never be parched by the heat. And in the winter he covered it most carefully with straw, lest the frost should chill its delicate roots.

One morning as he was bringing the water, he saw a nightingale perched on one of the branches of the rose-tree. The bird was hopping about and playfully pulling one of the most beautiful roses to pieces. The angry Rustic drove the bird away; but when he came the next morning, he found that the Nightingale had returned, and that the ground beneath the rose-tree was covered with torn petals. This time the Rustic was so angry that he laid a snare to catch the bird. The third morning, when he came out into his garden, the roses were unharmed, for the Nightingale was caught fast in the snare. The Rustic hurried to fetch a cage, and carried the captive home.

The Nightingale was very sad as she beat about the cage, and finally besought the Rustic to tell her why it was that he had imprisoned her. "Was it to hear my song?" she asked. "But it cannot be for that," she added, "for do I not sing sweetly to you every evening from my nest in the garden?"

Then the Rustic replied, "Can you indeed be ignorant of the harm which you have done me? Have I not found you for two mornings tearing my beautiful roses to pieces? It is a just punishment for you now that you are shut up away from your friends, for you were day by day robbing me of mine."

Then the Nightingale answered, "Is it merely for thoughtlessly plucking the petals from a few of your roses that you will imprison me for life? If you punish me so severely for this small sin, how greatly will you be punished when my heart breaks from being shut up in this cage and I die. I beg, kind sir, that you will be merciful and free me."

The Rustic's heart was touched. He carried the cage out into the garden and opened the door. Before the Nightingale flew away, she lighted for a moment on a branch near by. "You are a good man," she said, "for you have shown pity towards me. As a token of my gratitude, I will tell you that beneath the very spot where you are standing, lies hidden a pot of gold. Take it and use it for your garden!" And singing sweetly, the Nightingale flew away to her nest.

 

Walter de la Mare

Jim Jay

Do diddle di do, Poor Jim Jay Got stuck fast In Yesterday. Squinting he was, On cross-legs bent, Never heeding The wind was spent. Round veered the weathercock, The sun drew in— And stuck was Jim Like a rusty pin. . . . We pulled and we pulled From seven till twelve, Jim, too frightened To help himself. But all in vain. The clock struck one, And there was Jim A little bit gone. At half-past five You scarce could see A glimpse of his flapping Handkerchee. And when came noon, And we climbed sky-high, Jim was a speck Slip-slipping by. Come tomorrow, The neighbours say, He'll be past crying for; Poor Jim Jay.

 

The Struggle for Sea Power  by M. B. Synge

The Battle of the Nile

"O saviour of the silver-coasted isle! O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile!" —Tennyson.

"L ET us destroy England!" exclaimed Napoleon impatiently; "that done, Europe is at our feet."

It was evident, after the victories of Cape St Vincent and Camperdown, that England was too strong to be encountered by sea again. But Napoleon had gigantic schemes of his own. He would attack England in distant India, he would restore to France the great kingdom of the East. English troops were now in possession of the Cape of Good Hope, therefore Napoleon planned the route through Egypt to India. The shadowy East appealed to the strong imagination of the young Corsican soldier.

"Europe is but a molehill," he said; "all the great glories have come from Asia."

Very quietly he now set to work preparing for his conquest of Egypt. England must know nothing of it. In the summer of 1798 all was ready, and one May morning, the sun rose on the white sails of the French transports, as they left Toulon.

"In the name of Liberty I am come to lead you across mighty seas and into remote regions, where your valour may win such glory and such wealth as can never be looked for beneath the cold heavens of the west," said Napoleon to his soldiers at starting. No expedition so vast and formidable in strength had ever set sail from the French coast before as that, which now swept proudly down the Mediterranean Sea, while England guarded her own coasts for the invasion that never came.

The French fleet having captured Malta, arrived off Alexandria on July 1, and the troops disembarked in a violent gale, their boats being nearly swamped by the surf.

Alexandria fell without a struggle, and the army set out for the long desert march to Cairo.

On the 21st Napoleon and his army came within sight of the Pyramids, and found the enemy drawn up to receive him.

"Soldiers," he cried, "forty centuries look down upon you from the top of yonder pyramids."

The battle of the Pyramids was fought and won, and the victorious French started back for the coast.

Meanwhile it became known to England that the French fleet was in the Mediterranean Sea, and Nelson with an English fleet was despatched at once in quest. After searching for some time, he arrived off Alexandria on August 1 to find the long-sought fleet riding at anchor in Aboukir Bay, some fifteen miles from Alexandria; and the look-out from the mast-head of the admiral's flagship beheld the gleam of white sails in the afternoon sunshine with feelings akin to despair. The afternoon wore on, and the French ships lay motionless on the smooth waters of Aboukir Bay. None thought that Nelson would dare attack them till morning. But they did not know the English admiral.

"Fear? I never saw fear. What is it?" he had asked, when little more than a baby. He did not know at the age of forty. He made up his mind to attack at once. It was his first command, and his first magnificent chance.

"If we succeed, what will the world say?" said one of his captains.

"There is no if  in the case," replied Nelson; "that we shall succeed is certain. Who may live to tell the story is another question."

Nelson had already lost one eye and his right arm in battle, but he was undaunted. The order to advance was given, and soon the gleaming sails of the English ships were scudding over the afternoon waters of the Mediterranean. They entered Aboukir Bay in grim silence. One by one the battle-ships took up their positions between the French ships and the coast, in such a way that two English ships attacked one French; and at half-past six, as the sun was setting in the west, the battle began. By seven o'clock black darkness had fallen over land and sea; but the flashing lights filled the heavens, and the booming guns broke the silence of the eastern night.

Early in the night Nelson was badly wounded in the forehead—so badly that he cried, "I am killed." They carried him below. The surgeon was attending a poor sailor, who had been badly wounded. When he saw Nelson being carried down, apparently dying, he left the sailor and hurried to the side of the admiral.

"No," murmured Nelson in his agony; "I will take my turn with my brave fellows."

Suddenly, in the middle of that savage night of battle, the French flagship exploded. Flames in great sheets shot up into the moonless sky, as from a volcano. The water hissed, as blazing masses of rigging and timber shot up only to fall into the troubled bay. The French Admiral perished, and a hush fell on every man in the two fleets. No gun was fired, for all seemed paralysed with the awful sight of that burning ship. Among those who perished in the flagship was the ten-year-old Casabianca, who refused to leave his post without his father's leave, and that father was already dead below.

"The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead."

Morning dawned to find two French ships alone unconquered, and these saved themselves by flight. Thus ended the battle of the Nile, one of the most important naval battles ever fought. For it put an end for the present to the naval power of France, and it gave to England absolute command of the Mediterranean.

The news reached Napoleon on his desert march.

"To France," he said with a sigh, "the Fates have decreed the empire of the land; to England the empire of the sea."

"We have no longer a fleet," he said later. "We must either remain in this country, or quit it as great as the ancients."

 

Stories of William Tell Told to the Children  by H. E. Marshall

How Gessler and Landenberg Came To Rule in Switzerland

Far away in the heart of Europe there lies a little country called Switzerland. Instead of being surrounded by the blue sea as our island is, it is surrounded and shut in on all sides by other lands. It seems wonderful that in the fierce old days, when might was right, and when great and powerful Kings and Princes swept over the world, fighting and conquering, that little Switzerland should not have been conquered and swallowed up by one or other of the great countries which lay around. But the Swiss have always been a brave and fearless people; in the very heart of Europe their country has lain for hundreds of years as safe and free as our island on the ocean waves.

Many many years ago, however, one of the great Princes of Europe did try to conquer Switzerland and take away the freedom of its people. But the people fought so bravely, that instead of being conquered, they conquered the tyrants and drove them away.

In those far-off times the countries of Europe were divided quite differently from now. The greatest ruler in Europe was the Emperor, and his empire was called the Holy Roman Empire. This Empire was divided into many states, over each of which ruled a Prince or King who owned the Emperor as "over-lord." When an Emperor died, his son did not succeed to the throne, but the Kings and Princes met together and chose another Emperor from among their number.

Switzerland was one of the countries which owned the Emperor as over-lord. But the Swiss were a free people. They had no King or Prince over them, but a Governor only, who was appointed by the Emperor.

Austria was another of the states of the great empire, and at one time a Duke of Austria was made ruler of Switzerland. Switzerland is a beautiful country, full of mountains, lakes, and valleys, and this Duke cast greedy eyes upon it, and longed to possess it for his very own.

But the Swiss would not give up their freedom; and three cantons, as the states into which Switzerland is divided are called, joined together, and swore to stand by each other, and never to submit to Austria.

Uri, Schwytz, and Unterwalden were the names of these three cantons. They were called the Forest Cantons because of the beautiful woods with which the mountainsides were covered. A little later another canton joined the three. These four cantons lie round a lake which, from that, is called the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons.

At last it happened that Albrecht, Duke of Austria, was chosen to be Emperor. He was the son of that Duke who had already been ruler of Switzerland, and he was greatly rejoiced, for he said to himself that now truly he would be lord and master of Switzerland. For although the Swiss had resisted the Duke of Austria, they would not dare to resist the Emperor, he thought. So he sent two nobles to the Swiss to talk to them, and persuade them to own him as their King.

"Promise that your country shall belong to the Duke for ever," said these nobles, "and he will care for you and love you as his children. You are not strong enough to stand against a great enemy, but he will protect you. He does not ask this of you because he wants to take your flocks and herds, but because he has heard from his father and has read in old histories what a brave people you are. Duke Albrecht loves brave men. He will lead you to battle and victory, and make you rich with spoil, and will give you great rewards, and when you do brave deeds, he will make you knights."

Some of the people of Switzerland were persuaded to belong to Austria, but the freemen and nobles, and all the people of the three cantons replied, "Say to your master, as Duke, that we will never forget what a brave leader and good Governor his father was, and we will love and respect his house for ever, but we wish to remain free. Say to him, as Emperor, that we will be true to the Empire as we have ever been. As Emperor he must content himself with that."

So the messengers went back to Albrecht and told him what the people said. When he heard the message he was very angry. He looked darkly at the nobles, biting his fingers and grinding his heel into the ground as he listened. "The proud peasants," he cried at last, "they will not yield. Then I will bend and break them. They will be soft and yielding enough when I have done with them."

But Albrecht was already quarrelling with the Princes of his Empire, who, although they had chosen him to be Emperor, now hated and despised him. So for some time Albrecht had little thought to spare for Switzerland, but he did not forgive the people, and from time to time he still tried to make them own him as their King.

Months went past and the Emperor appointed no ruler over Switzerland. At last the people, feeling that they must have a Governor, sent messengers to the Emperor, begging him to appoint a ruler, as all the Emperors before him had done.

"You desire a Governor," growled Albrecht, as the messengers stood respectfully before him. "A Governor you shall have. Go home and await his coming. Whom I send to you, him you must obey in all things."

"We have ever been a law-abiding people, your Majesty," said the messengers.

"Think you so?" said Albrecht sternly, "see to it that you are, or you shall pay for it with your lives and your goods, and your freedom will I utterly destroy."

Then, very sad at heart, the messengers turned home again.

When they had gone, Albrecht smiled grimly to himself. "They will not yield," he said, "but I will oppress them and ill-treat them until I force them to rebel. Then I will fight against them and conquer them, and at last Switzerland will be mine."

A few days later Albrecht sent for two of his friends. These friends were called Hermann Gessler and Beringer of Landenberg.

Now the Emperor Albrecht knew that these men were grim, rough, and pitiless, and therefore he chose them as rulers of Switzerland. He chose them, too, because they were Austrians, and he knew they would be hated by the Swiss.

"My lords," he said when they came, "I have long watched you and have marked the zeal and love which you have for my throne and person. I am resolved to reward you. You, Hermann Gessler, I make ruler over the Forest Cantons of Uri and Schwytz, and you, Beringer of Landenberg, I make ruler over Unterwalden.

"I have no words wherewith to thank your Majesty," said Gessler, bowing low.

"Your Majesty honours me too much," said Landenberg, bowing still lower.

"They are a wild and rebellious people to whom I send you," went on the Emperor, "they are so fierce and unruly that you must take soldiers with you to help you to enforce the laws. You will tax the people in order to pay for these soldiers. You will punish all wrongdoers severely. I will endure no rebels within my empire."

"We understand, your Majesty," said Gessler.

"Your Majesty shall be obeyed," said Landenberg. And once more bowing low, they took leave of the Emperor and, gathering together their men and horses, set out for Switzerland.

Hard and bitter days began when Gessler and Landenberg settled there. They delighted in oppressing the people. They loaded them with taxes; nothing could be either bought or sold, but the Governors claimed a great part of the money; the slightest fault was punished with long imprisonment and heavy fines. The people became sad and downcast, but still they would not yield to Austria.

"God gave us the Emperor to stand between us and our enemies," they said. "Now the Emperor has become our greatest enemy. But if we keep true to the Empire, this Emperor may die, and another, who will be kinder to us, may be chosen. If we yield to Austria, our freedom is lost for ever. Let us pray God for patience. The Emperor may soon die. Then, with a new Emperor, Austria will have no power over us."

 

Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Across the Lake  by Lisa M. Ripperton

The Selfish Giant

E VERY afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden.

It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. "How happy we are here!" they cried to each other.

One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.

"What are you doing here?" he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.

"My own garden is my own garden," said the Giant; "any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself." So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS

WILL BE

PROSECUTED

He was a very selfish Giant.

The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. "How happy we were there!" they said to each other.

Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. "Spring has forgotten this garden," they cried, "so we will live here all the year round." The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. "This is a delightful spot," he said, "we must ask the Hail on a visit." So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice.

"I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming," said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; "I hope there will be a change in the weather."

But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave none. "He is too selfish," she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.

One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King's musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open casement. "I believe the Spring has come at last," said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked out.

What did he see?

He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child.

And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children's heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. "Climb up! little boy," said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.

And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out. "How selfish I have been!" he said; "now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever." He was really very sorry for what he had done.

So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant's neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. "It is your garden now, little children," said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye.

"But where is your little companion?" he said: "the boy I put into the tree." The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him.

"We don't know," answered the children; "he has gone away."

"You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow," said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. "How I would like to see him!" he used to say.

Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. "I have many beautiful flowers," he said; "but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all."

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?" For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I might take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.

 

Will o' the Wasps  by Margaret Warner Morley

Feeding the Hungry Infants

"I wonder what the little upside-down larva has to eat, Uncle Will—what does the mother wasp feed it?" and Theodore began to dance about his uncle, now on this side, now on that, as they went out next day to hunt for wasps' nests.

"Be quiet, you will-o'-the-wisp, or I can't talk. It is like trying to talk to a swarm of bees all flying about and buzzing at once."

At this Theodore threw back his head and began to laugh. He laughed and laughed, and then he began to sing; and this is what he sang:

Oh, I am the will-o'-the-wisp, The will-o'-the-wisp, Oh, I am the will-o'-the-wisp, And you are the Will o' the Wasps, Uncle Will, You are the Will o' the Wasps!

And then Uncle Will had to laugh too, and I am sure that everybody now sees how this book came to get its name, for Theodore often called his uncle Will o' the Wasps after that.

"Now I'll be still," said Theodore, "if you will go on and tell what the baby Vespa has to eat."

"Well, then, you ridiculous infant, as soon as the larva hatches out Mother Vespa goes off hunting. When she has caught a fly, or some other dainty game bird—why are you thumping me, sir?—oh! well, dainty game insect, then—when she has captured her prey, she chews it to a pulp, but instead of swallowing it herself she flies back home and feeds it to the hungry young grub in the cell. Since the grub hangs mouth down, and generally with open mouth too, it is easy for the little mother to feed it."

"It is just lovely," said Theodore, delightedly.

"Yes, isn't it?" said Uncle Will. "And when the baby wasps feel the mother jarring the nest as she enters, they pop out their little heads and open their mouths!"

"Oh, oh!" squealed Theodore, "how I want to see them!"

"Only have patience," said Uncle Will, "and very likely before the summer is over you will have a chance."

"Don't they see the mother coming?" asked Theodore, after thinking a moment; "have they no eyes?"

"Yes, they have little pin points of eyes, like the bee larvae; but how much seeing they do with them I am sure I do not know. They have the tiniest little black eyes which are not faceted like the eyes of the grown-up wasp."

"They are simple, like the eyes in the top of the wasp's head," said Theodore.

"Yes, that is it."

"And the wasps feed their young just the way the bees do, only the bees give their young honey and bee-bread, which I think is nicer than flies."

"That is because you are a boy," said Uncle Will; "if you were a wasp you would feel differently. Perhaps the wasps do give their babies honey as a treat sometimes, for the grown-up wasps love to such honey from the flowers, but their main diet is animal food."

"They are carnivorous, like lions," said Theodore; "but the bees are herbivorous like the gentle cows and sheep. Maybe that is why wasps are such fierce people."

"Maybe so," said Uncle Will. "And yet even hornets can be tamed."

"Oh, now, Uncle Will!—one Pelopaeus at a time you can tame, but a whole nestful of hornets!"

"I don't know that you could get them tame enough to carry about in your pocket," said Uncle Will; "but I do know that they get used to people when they build near a house, and they have been known to live on very friendly relations with their human neighbors. However, they don't often get a chance, for when people find a hornet's nest starting near the house they generally demolish it."

"I think it is too bad to spoil their pretty paper houses," said Theodore. "Do the hornets do any harm except to sting people?"

"Well, they sometimes steal meat."

How Theodore laughed at that. "Steal meat!" he cried; "who wouldn't let them have a little piece of meat no bigger than a pin head!"

"That is all very well," said Uncle Will, "if they would be content with that. but suppose a whole nestful, or two or three nestfuls, should visit the butcher's shop every day and many times a day, and gnaw and nibble his meat to pieces, and carry off pounds and pounds of it."

"Oh, but they don't do that, do they?"

"They have been known to," said Uncle Will. "Not that we have anything to fear from them in that line in this part of the country, but they do bite our ripe fruit sometimes and do a great deal of damage."

"But they catch flies and insects," said Theodore.

"Yes, that is so; and I have heard that people have been known to hang a wasp's nest in the doorway to keep the room free of flies."

"My!" said Theodore, "I think I would rather have the flies. Didn't they sting the people most to death?"

"No, they did not sting them at all. You see, they learned to know them. As soon as they understood that the people were not going to hurt them they did not hurt the people."

"How about visitors?" asked Theodore.

"Well," said Uncle Will, "I have heard they would sometimes sting strangers, and since we want visitors to come in safety to our house I think we will not use the wasps as fly-catchers."

"No," shouted Theodore, "I guess we won't! But these little nests in the shed can't do any harm, there are too few wasps in them."

"Oh, are they?" said Uncle Will; "you just wait! Do you know what happens next?"

"I suppose the mother Vespa makes more cells, but this little bit of a bell-tent could not hold very many."

"There is a strange story about how the nest grows," said Uncle Will, "but that will have to wait until to-morrow, for I must be off now."

 

Edward Lear

Calico Pie

I Calico Pie, The little Birds fly Down to the calico tree, Their wings were blue, And they sang "Tilly-loo!" Till away they flew,— And they never came back to me! They never came back! They never came back! They never came back to me! II Calico Jam, The little Fish swam, Over the syllabub sea, He took off his hat, To the Sole and the Sprat, And the Willeby-Wat,— But he never came back to me! He never came back! He never came back! He never came back to me! III Calico Ban, The little Mice ran, To be ready in time for tea, Flippity flup, They drank it all up, And danced in the cup,— But they never came back to me! They never came back! They never came back! They never came back to me! IV Calico Drum, The Grasshoppers come, The Butterfly, Beetle, and Bee, Over the ground, Around and around, With a hop and a bound,— But they never came back to me! They never came back! They never came back! They never came back to me!

 

Hurlbut's Story of the Bible  by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

Jesus at Jericho

Matthew xx: 20 to 34;
Mark x: 35 to 52;
Luke xviii: 35, to xix: 28.

ESUS was passing through the land of Perea on his way to Jerusalem. His disciples were with him, and a great multitude of people, for again the feast of the Passover was near, and the people from all parts of the land were going up to Jerusalem to take part in the feast; and although Jesus had said, over and over again, that he was to die in Jerusalem, still many believed that in Jerusalem he would make himself king and would reign over all the land.

On one day James and John, two of the disciples of Jesus, who were brothers, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with their mother. She knelt before Jesus, and her two sons knelt beside her. Jesus said to her, "What is it that you would ask of me?"

She said to him, "Lord, grant to me that my two sons may be allowed to sit beside thy throne, one on the right hand, the other on thy left, in thy kingdom."

"You do not know what you are asking," answered Jesus. "Are you able to drink of the cup that I am about to drink?"

By "the cup" he meant the suffering that he was soon to endure; but this they did not understand; and they said to him, "We are able."

He said to them, "My cup indeed you shall drink; but to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to those for whom God has made it ready."

When the other disciples heard that James and John had tried to get the promise of the highest places in the Lord's kingdom, they were very angry against these two brothers. But Jesus called them to him, and he said, "You know that the rulers of nations lord it over them; and their great ones are those who bear rule. But not so shall it be among you. For whoever among you would be great, let him serve the rest. For the Son of man himself did not come to be served, but to serve others; and to give up his life that he might save many." Jesus with his disciples and a great multitude drew nigh to Jericho, which was at the foot of the mountains, near the head of the Dead Sea. Just outside the city, at the gate, was sitting a blind man begging. His name was Bartimeus, which means "the son of Timeus." This man heard the noise of a crowd, and he asked what it meant. They said to him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by." As soon as he heard this he began to cry out aloud, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!"

Blind Bartimeus

Many people told him not to make so great a noise, but he cried all the louder, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!"

Jesus heard his cry, and stood still, and said, "Call the man to me!"

Then they came to the blind man and said, "Be of good cheer; rise up; he calls you!"

The blind man sprung up from the ground and threw away his garment, and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, "What do you wish me to do to you?"

"Lord, that I might have my sight given to me," answered blind Bartimeus.

Then Jesus touched his eyes, and said, "Go your way; your faith has made you well."

Then immediately sight came to his eyes, and he followed Jesus, while all the people who saw it gave thanks to God.

There was another man in Jericho who had heard of Jesus, and greatly longed to see him. This was a man named Zaccheus. He was a chief man among the publicans, the men who gathered the taxes from the people, and whom all the people hated greatly. Zaccheus was a rich man, for many of the publicans made great gains. Wishing to see Jesus, and being little in size, Zaccheus ran on before the crowd, and climbed up a sycamore-tree by the road, so that he might see Jesus as he passed by.

When Jesus came to the tree he stopped, and looked up, and called Zaccheus by name, saying, "Zaccheus, make haste and come down, for to-day I must stop in your house."

At this Zaccheus was glad. He came down at once, and took Jesus into his house. But at this many people found fault. They said, "He has gone in to lodge with a man who is a sinner!"

Because he was a publican, they counted him as a sinner. But Zaccheus stood before the Lord, and said, "Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wrongly taken anything from any man, I give him four times as much."

And Jesus said, "To-day salvation has come to this house; for this man also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost."

Jesus was now drawing nigh to Jerusalem, and all the people were expecting the kingdom of God to begin at once, with Jesus as its King. On this account, Jesus gave to the people "The Parable of the Pounds," saying, "A certain nobleman went to a far country, expecting there to be made a king, and thence to return to his own land. Before going away he called ten servants of his, and gave to each one a pound of money, and said to them, 'Take care of this and trade with it until I come back.'

"But the people of his own land hated this nobleman, and sent messengers to the place where he had gone, to say, 'We are not willing that this man should be king over us.'

"But in the face of this message from the people, the nobleman received the crown and the kingdom, and then went back to his own land. When he had come home, he called his servants to whom he had given the pounds, so that he might know how much each had gained by trading. The first servant came before him, and said, 'Lord, your pound has made ten pounds more.'

"The king said to him, 'Well done, my good servant; because you have been found faithful in a very little, you shall bear rule over ten cities.'

"And the second came, saying, 'Your pound, lord, has made five pounds.' And his lord said to him, 'You shall be over five cities.'

"And another came, saying, 'Lord, here is your pound, which I have kept wrapped up in a napkin; for I feared you, because you are a harsh master; you take up what you did not lay down, and you reap what you did not sow.' He said to the servant, 'Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you unfaithful servant. If you knew that I was a harsh master, taking up what I did not lay down, and reaping what I did not sow, then why did you not put my money into the bank, so that when I came I should have had my own money and its gains?' And he said to those who were standing by, 'Take away from him the pound, and give it to him that has the ten pounds.'

"They said to him, 'Lord, he hath ten pounds already!'

"But the king said, 'Unto every one who cares for what he has, more shall be given; but the one who cares not for it, what he has shall be taken away from him.'

"And the king added, 'Those, my enemies, who would not have me to reign over them; bring them here, and slay them before me.' "

And after giving this parable Jesus went before his disciples up the mountains toward Jerusalem.

Jesus on the Mount of Olives looking at Jerusalem.

 

The Princess and the Goblin  by George MacDonald

The Subterranean Waters

T HE king's harper, who always formed a part of his escort, was chanting a ballad which he made as he went on playing on his instrument—about the princess and the goblins, and the prowess of Curdie, when all at once he ceased, with his eyes on one of the doors of the hall. Thereupon the eyes of the king and his guests turned thitherward also. The next moment, through the open doorway came the princess Irene. She went straight up to her father, with her right hand stretched out a little sideways, and her forefinger, as her father and Curdie understood, feeling its way along the invisible thread. The king took her on his knee, and she said in his ear—

"King-papa, do you hear that noise?"

"I hear nothing," said the king.

"Listen," she said, holding up her forefinger.

The king listened, and a great stillness fell upon the company. Each man, seeing that the king listened, listened also, and the harper sat with his harp between his arms, and his fingers silent upon the strings.

"I do hear a noise," said the king at length—"a noise as of distant thunder. It is coming nearer and nearer. What can it be?"

They all heard it now, and each seemed ready to start to his feet as he listened. Yet all sat perfectly still. The noise came rapidly nearer.

"What can it be?" said the king again.

"I think it must be another storm coming over the mountain," said Sir Walter.

Then Curdie, who at the first word of the king had slipped from his seat, and laid his ear to the ground, rose up quickly, and approaching the king said, speaking very fast—

"Please, your Majesty, I think I know what it is. I have no time to explain, for that might make it too late for some of us. Will your Majesty order that everybody leave the house as quickly as possible, and get up the mountain?"

The king, who was the wisest man in the kingdom, knew well there was a time when things must be done, and questions left till afterward. He had faith in Curdie, and rose instantly, with Irene in his arms.

"Every man and woman follow me," he said, and strode out into the darkness.

Before he had reached the gate, the noise had grown to a great thundering roar, and the ground trembled beneath their feet, and before the last of them had crossed the court, out after them from the great hall-door came a huge rush of turbid water, and almost swept them away. But they got safe out of the gate and up the mountain, while the torrent went roaring down the road into the valley beneath.

Curdie had left the king and the princess to look after his mother, whom he and his father, one on each side, caught up when the stream overtook them and carried safe and dry.

When the king had got out of the way of the water, a little up the mountain, he stood with the princess in his arms, looking back with amazement on the issuing torrent, which glimmered fierce and foamy through the night. There Curdie rejoined them.

"Now, Curdie," said the king, "what does it mean! Is this what you expected?"

"It is, your Majesty," said Curdie; and proceeded to tell him about the second scheme of the goblins, who, fancying the miners of more importance to the upper world than they were, had resolved, if they should fail in carrying off the king's daughter, to flood the mine and drown the miners. Then he explained what the miners had done to prevent it. The goblins had, in pursuance of their design, let loose all the underground reservoirs and streams, expecting the water to run down into the mine, which was lower than their part of the mountain, for they had, as they supposed, not knowing of the solid wall close behind, broken a passage through into it. But the readiest outlet the water could find had turned out to be the tunnel they had made to the king's house, the possibility of which catastrophe had not occurred to the mind of the young miner until he placed his ear close to the floor of the hall.

What was then to be done? The house appeared in danger of falling, and every moment the torrent was increasing.

"We must set out at once," said the king. "But how to get at the horses!"

"Shall I see if we can manage that?" said Curdie.

"Do," said the king.

Curdie gathered the men-at-arms, and took them over the garden wall, and so to the stables. They found their horses in terror; the water was rising fast around them, and it was quite time they were got out. But there was no way to get them out, except by riding them through the stream, which was now pouring from the lower windows as well as the door. As one horse was quite enough for any man to manage through such a torrent, Curdie got on the king's white charger and, leading the way, brought them all in safety to the rising ground.

"Look, look, Curdie!" cried Irene, the moment that, having dismounted, he led the horse up to the king.

Curdie did look, and saw, high in the air, somewhere about the top of the king's house, a great globe of light, shining like the purest silver.

"Oh!" he cried in some consternation, "that is your grandmother's lamp! We must  get her out. I will go and find her. The house may fall, you know."

"My grandmother is in no danger," said Irene, smiling.

"Here, Curdie, take the princess while I get on my horse," said the king.

Curdie took the princess again, and both turned their eyes to the globe of light. The same moment there shot from it a white bird, which, descending with outstretched wings, made one circle round the king and Curdie and the princess, and then glided up again. The light and the pigeon vanished together.

"Now, Curdie," said the princess, as he lifted her to her father's arms, "you see my grandmother knows all about it, and isn't frightened. I believe she could walk through that water and it wouldn't wet her a bit."

"But, my child," said the king, "you will be cold if you haven't something more on. Run, Curdie, my boy, and fetch anything you can lay your hands on, to keep the princess warm. We have a long ride before us."

Curdie was gone in a moment, and soon returned with a great rich fur, and the news that dead goblins were tossing about in the current through the house. They had been caught in their own snare; instead of the mine they had flooded their own country, whence they were now swept up drowned. Irene shuddered, but the king held her close to his bosom. Then he turned to Sir Walter, and said:

"Bring Curdie's father and mother here."

"I wish," said the king, when they stood before him, "to take your son with me. He shall enter my bodyguard at once, and wait further promotion."

Peter and his wife, overcome, only murmured almost inaudible thanks. But Curdie spoke aloud.

"Please, your Majesty," he said, "I cannot leave my father and mother."

"That's right, Curdie!" cried the princess. "I  wouldn't if I was you."

The king looked at the princess and then at Curdie with a glow of satisfaction on his countenance.

"I too think you are right, Curdie," he said, "and I will not ask you again. But I shall have a chance of doing something for you some time."

"Your Majesty has already allowed me to serve you," said Curdie.

"But, Curdie," said his mother, "why shouldn't you go with the king? We can get on very well without you."

"But I can't get on very well without you," said Curdie. "The king is very kind, but I could not be half the use to him that I am to you. Please, your Majesty, if you wouldn't mind giving my mother a red petticoat! I should have got her one long ago, but for the goblins."

"As soon as we get home," said the king, "Irene and I will search out the warmest one to be found, and send it by one of the gentlemen."

"Yes, that we will, Curdie!" said the princess.

"And next summer we'll come back and see you wear it, Curdie's mother," she added. "Shan't we, king-papa?"

"Yes, my love; I hope so," said the king.

Then turning to the miners, he said—

"Will you do the best you can for my servants to-night? I hope they will be able to return to the house to-morrow."

The miners with one voice promised their hospitality.

Then the king commanded his servants to mind whatever Curdie should say to them, and after shaking hands with him and his father and mother, the king and the princess and all their company rode away down the side of the new stream, which had already devoured half the road, into the starry night.

 

The Princess and the Goblin  by George MacDonald

The Last Chapter

A LL the rest went up the mountain, and separated in groups to the homes of the miners. Curdie and his father and mother took Lootie with them. And the whole way, a light, of which all but Lootie understood the origin, shone upon their path. But when they looked round they could see nothing of the silvery globe.

For days and days the water continued to rush from the doors and windows of the king's house, and a few goblin bodies were swept out into the road.

Curdie saw that something must be done. He spoke to his father and the rest of the miners, and they at once proceeded to make another outlet for the waters. By setting all hands to the work, tunneling here and building there, they soon succeeded; and having also made a little tunnel to drain the water away from under the king's house, they were soon able to get into the wine cellar, where they found a multitude of dead goblins—among the rest the queen, with the skin-shoe gone, and the stone one fast to her ankle—for the water had swept away the barricade, which prevented the men-at-arms from following the goblins, and had greatly widened the passage. They built it securely up, and then went back to their labors in the mine.

A good many of the goblins with their creatures escaped from the inundation out upon the mountain. But most of them soon left that part of the country, and most of those who remained grew milder in character, and indeed became very much like the Scotch Brownies. Their skulls became softer as well as their hearts, and their feet grew harder, and by degrees they became friendly with the inhabitants of the mountain and even with the miners. But the latter were merciless to any of the cobs' creatures  that came their way, until at length they all but disappeared. Still—

"But, Mr. Author, we would rather hear more about the Princess and Curdie. We don't care about the goblins and their nasty creatures. They frighten us—rather."  

"But you know if you once get rid of the goblins there is no fear of the princess or of Curdie."  

"But we want to know more about them."  

"Some day, perhaps, I may tell you the further history of both of them; how Curdie came to visit Irene's grandmother, and what she did for him; and how the princess and he met again after they were older—and how—But there! I don't mean to go any farther at present."  

"Then you're leaving the story unfinished, Mr. Author!"  

"Not more unfinished than a story ought to be, I hope. If you ever knew a story finished, all I can say is, I never did. Somehow, stories won't finish. I think I know why, but I won't say that either, now."