It has been said by Walter Prichard Eaton, “The
pupil who gets a mark of one hundred and thereafter
hates Shakespeare, has failed—rather, his teacher
has,”—and it is equally true that the instructor also
has failed whose classes look upon history as a series
of dates and dull facts instead of a colorful story.
To teach history successfully means to give the
child vivid pictures of the past, to enable him to see
as a whole the march of a race or of a nation across
the canvas of time, to watch the legions of warriors
go to victory or defeat, to hear the voices of statesmen
whose wisdom has builded empires, to walk side by
side with the men and women whose lives make up the
annals of the world. To be of value to the child,
history must be felt, just as a work of literature must
be felt. He must live it, must approve the worthy
and disapprove the unworthy, must rejoice in and
sympathize with the fortunes and misfortunes of its
characters, else it cannot be anything more to him than
the chronology in the almanac, disliked during his
school days and forgotten as soon as they are over.
Story-telling can make history alive and vital because
of its power to convey the child to distant scenes and
ages, and through it he may become, not only a spectator,
but a participant in every human activity. If
our libraries were to be swept away and publishing
houses should shut their doors, we could still teach
history to children, and teach it successfully, through
the art of the narrator. By the medium of the story
we can make the child see what has been done by
his ancestors and other people in the past; by it we
can interpret to him how his forefathers lived and
acted, how other people have attempted to do what he
is trying to do or sees done, and give him a vivid idea
of human ways of living and conduct. This is history
in the larger sense, and it was taught successfully
by the story-teller in the past.
Before the days of printing, when books were manuscripts
that no one but monks could read and kings
could afford to own, story-telling was the only way
in which this subject was taught. Tales of bygone
days were told in castle halls and to groups of eager
listeners on the village green, and boys and girls of
King Alfred’s time knew as much of their country’s
story from the lips of wandering bards as those of our
generation know from cramming the contents of
textbooks. They knew it because through the tales
they heard they were able to relive it, and what has
been done before can be done again. Because of the
story’s power to vivify, modern children can relive
the world’s story just as those in medieval times relived
it, and history can be made a subject fraught with
delight to the child.
Child attention centers first upon familiar things, and
radiates from them to the unknown. Through his
interest in creatures that are a part of his environment,
the kindergarten tot becomes interested in those of
other regions, in the men, women, children, and animals
that are part of the life of some other child. Through
knowledge of his immediate surroundings he comes
to acquire knowledge of life in other surroundings,
and according to the appeal it makes to his imagination,
he understands and sympathizes with it, and his social
sense is broadened. Therefore, in the study of history,
the attention should be focused upon local environment,
and from it should radiate to other sections of
the world. In other words, by what the child sees
happening around him, he must be led to see what has
happened in the past and what is happening now in
distant regions. This requires imagination, and a
boy or a girl cannot see or feel these events if they are
presented as a dry chronology, because under those
conditions they do not arouse the imagination. He
must behold them flashed on a canvas like a colorful
picture, and because the story can do this, because
it can make real to the imagination situations that
cannot be experienced, through it he can be led to see
and feel all that we desire him to see and feel.
The biographical story, the tale of the leader who
towers above his fellows like the Matterhorn above
the Valais foothills, is a boon to every teacher of history.
Because it is unified in plot and dramatic in appeal
to the imagination, it is the most easily handled of
all the history material, and should be used freely.
But if children are not to have a distorted idea of the
story of the human race, we must not stop with the
biographical tale. We must give them also a conception
of the part the masses have had in the making
of the great human story, of the yeomen of England,
upon whose sturdy shoulders the foundation of British
liberty stands, of the vassals of Italy, France, and
Germany, of the army of unknown toilers who built
the Pyramids and the Chinese Wall. Sometimes, in
satisfying the child’s hero-love, we make him one-sided
by laying too much stress upon individual
achievement and not enough upon the work of the
multitude. We do not lead him to value the importance
of the humble who toil in the rank and file. This
is not as it should be. We should make it clear to him
that the stokers who feed the furnace of the man-of-war
are as splendidly patriotic as the admiral who
commands the fleet, and are as necessary to their land,
because, were there no coal heavers, there could be no
navy.
Sometimes, too, because martial events are more
spectacular than those of peace, we give the impression
that they are the only important and heroic ones, and
fail to convince the children of the fact that the peasants
of Lorraine, who tilled their fields until they blossomed
like gardens, served their land as loyally as the soldiers
who marched to victory under the oriflamme of Henry
of Navarre. We are too prone to center the child interest
around military affairs, and neglect to emphasize
the importance of conflicts of another kind. The
history of every modern industry, of every achievement
that has meant anything to the world, is a story of
struggle, of victory over opposing forces. It has its
succession of events, its periods of triumph and defeat,
its moments of suspense, and its thrilling climax, and
if presented in all its possibilities, is as fascinating to
childhood as Napoleon’s Russian campaign. Let us
not fail to give these narratives of struggle that are
unstained by human blood, and in doing it lead children
to understand that there are other ways of serving
one’s land besides riding a war horse or carrying a
musket.
We teach that Robert Fulton invented the first
steamboat, but it is only the exceptional child-leader
who makes the most of that event, who throws upon
the canvas, for youth to behold, the story of the struggle
and disappointment, the triumph and despair, of the
young American engineer. To give them the fact
that the Clermont made a successful trip from New
York to Albany in 1807, is like telling the end of a
story without the beginning or intervening chapters,
and a snatch of a tale never has the effect of the whole.
But if the children have all the light and shade of that
splendid narrative of invention, of the labor beside
the Seine, of the hope and discouragement there, it
becomes a fascinating, unforgotten tale. They remember
the Clermont episode because they have enjoyed
a story, and years afterward, when they see a
ferryboat or an ocean greyhound, they will think of
the New Englander through whose dreams and labor
it came to be.
To the teacher who looks upon history as a great,
fascinating tale, who regards it as a narrative instead
of a mere bunch of dates and periods, who knows the
story of man’s inner development as well as that of
his outer, and who uses the myths, legends, and epics
of a land as side lights to illuminate its true story, great
results are possible. There is no phase or period of
history that he cannot make intensely interesting to
the child, no page of the world’s story that will not
teem with life and color to the boy or girl who receives
it from such an instructor. It may be an account of
events in his own land, of happenings in the stern,
white north country or in the opalescent south, it may
be of knights in glittering armor or of serene-faced,
brown-cowled friars, of men from the masses or from
the ranks of the exalted, but it will breathe and pulsate
for him, it will give him the information that he should
receive, and it will give him an understanding that no
memorizing of dates and outlines can give, because he
has lived with those who made history, because he has
suffered, rejoiced, and achieved with them.
Every great historian is more than a recounter of
events of the past. He is an artist who fits himself
into the moods of men and women who lived and accomplished
before his time, puts them into his pages
as creatures of flesh and blood, and gives to their activities
as much freshness and interest as have the
events that happen before our eyes. Motley, Guizot,
Hume, Hallam, Froissart, and our own Parkman,
Lodge, Prescott, and Bancroft created as splendidly
as ever Hugo, Corneille, or Balzac created, because they
endowed characters of fact with as much life as these
other men gave to characters of fiction; and consequently,
with sources rich in inspiration from which
to draw, the teacher who aspires to vivify history by
story-telling is confronted by no hopeless task. He
need only go to the works of the standard historians
for his background, and then, by giving the imagination
sufficient play to supply setting and detail of
situation, he can carry a joyful lesson to the children.
This is well illustrated in the following story of Western
discovery. Children love it and ask to have it told
again and again, while if the bare facts are given them
in outline form, it means little to them. Not every
teacher is gifted to the degree of Miss Hood and can
hope to weave a fact of history into a tale that deserves
to rank as a children’s classic; but every teacher can
put history into story form with enough skill to make it
hold delight for his pupils and cause them to go from
his instruction with a fondness for history, an understanding
of what history really means, which is worth
infinitely more than a thousand dates or outlines
crammed into the mind for an examination or recitation,
or stored there permanently to rust and grow
useless, because they have no meaning, and therefore
no broadening or illuminating effect upon his life.
By Margaret Graham Hood
The Story of Tejos
In the year 1530, when Nuño de Guzmán was governor
of New Spain, he had an Indian slave of whom he was very
fond and who was likewise fond of his master. He was a
good servant and different in many ways from all the other
slaves in the palace, and it often pleased Nuño de Guzmán
to talk with him.
“Tejos,” said De Guzmán to him one day, “tell me of
your home when you were a boy, and tell me of your father
and mother.”
Then Tejos turned away from his master and stood for a
long time silent.
“Master,” he said at last, “when Tejos was a boy he
lived not in this land, nor was he a slave. His home was in
a land far, far to the northward. My lord, it was a great
land. Beyond the home of my father there was yet another
country greater still. In that farther land were seven great
cities, and even the smallest of them was as great as this
city of Mexico. So rich were the people of those cities that
they made arrowheads of emeralds, and scraped the sweat
from their bodies with scrapers made of gold, and put precious
stones over their doors. Their houses were wide and
high. My father carried to these people the feathers that
they wore upon their heads, and in return they gave him
gold and turquoises and emeralds. My father took Tejos
with him twice, my lord, when he journeyed with feathers
to those cities, and though Tejos was then but a small boy,
he still remembers the long streets where were only the
stores of jewelers who sold the precious stones and made
them into ornaments for the people.”
“And where,” asked Nuño de Guzmán breathlessly,
“where is this land?”
“It is far away from here, my lord,” answered Tejos,
sadly. “Forty days you must journey to reach it, and the
land through which you must travel is a desert lying between
two seas, and there is neither water nor food to be had.”
Scarcely waiting to sleep, De Guzmán began to gather a
force to march in search of this wonderful land. Far and
wide the story spread and on all sides the talk was of
The Land of the Seven Cities
With four hundred Spaniards and twenty thousand
Indians, De Guzmán marched from Mexico, and the people
waited each day to hear that he had conquered a great
empire in the north.
As he went, rumors of the Seven Cities kept coming to
him, and his men were often so excited he could hardly get
them to sleep enough. For days they pressed eagerly forward,
hoping each day to find the Seven Cities at hand; but
instead of this, the country each day grew more desolate,
the mountains grew steeper and the roads harder to find,
while the Seven Cities, instead of coming nearer, were always
farther and farther to the north.
Then the Indians began to desert and the Spaniards to
complain. “We have been deceived,” they said, “and we
shall all die in this bleak land. Let us return to Mexico.”
For a while Nuño de Guzmán cheered them by holding
ever before them the reward that awaited them, but at last
he too grew discouraged and afraid; they all turned about
and marched sadly back to Mexico.
“We will go back now,” said Nuño de Guzmán, “but some
day I will have the right sort of an army and I will come
again. Tejos himself shall lead me, and I will yet find and
conquer those Seven Cities.”
But when he returned to Mexico, Tejos was dead, and
the story of Nuño de Guzmán’s misfortunes discouraged
others; so for six years no one went to seek the Seven Cities.
Then a strange thing happened.
The Wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca
Into the town of Culiacan there one day came wandering
four strange men. They were barefooted and almost
naked. The little clothing they wore was made of skins
and hung in rags about them. Their hair lay in a tangled
mass upon their shoulders, and their beards reached almost
to their knees.
They fell at the feet of the first Spaniard they met, crying,
“Thank God! Thank God! At last! At last!”
Then they seized his hands and kissed them, kissed each
other, and danced about, clapping their hands and shouting
for joy.
“They are madmen,” said the people who gathered
around to look at them. “What shall we do with them?”
“No, no,” cried the oldest of the strangers. “No, no!
You do not understand. We are poor wanderers who have
been lost for years among the Indians. We have been
slaves; our companions have died, but at last we have
escaped and now, for the first time in years, we see Christians
and Spaniards and our joy overcomes us. Can you
wonder at it, dear friends?”
“Lost among the Indians!” murmured the people in
astonishment. “Made slaves by the Indians! Terrible!
What can it mean?”
“There is something very strange about it,” said one.
“Let us take them before our Capitán,” said another,
and they took them at once to the Capitán.
“Who are you?” he asked rudely, looking with disgust
at their dirt and rags.
“I am Cabeza de Vaca,” said the oldest man. “I am a
noble of Castile who came with Narvaez to conquer Florida.
The fleet was wrecked and all were lost save these three
companions and me. We have been all these years since
among the Indians.”
“I do not believe a word of it,” said the Capitán. “There
is something strange about it. These men may be criminals.
Put them into prison until we find out.”
For three months they lay in the prison. Then they
were sent for by the Alcalde Melchior Diaz. He received
them with all kindness, and to him they were allowed to
tell their story.
“Is it true,” he said to the oldest man, “that you are
Cabeza de Vaca of Castile?”
“It is true,” answered Cabeza de Vaca. “Ten years ago
I sailed with Narvaez to the Florida coast to take part in
his great expedition, but, alas! all our ships were wrecked
and only a few of us escaped to the mainland. There most
of those who did escape died, and we four, three of us Spaniards
and one a negro, have wandered ever since among the
Indians. We wept for joy at sight of our own people when
we reached your town, but they have treated us worse
than did the Indians.”
“Do not think of that now,” said kind Melchior Diaz.
“It was a mistake; you shall now be treated with all the
kindness that is your due. Tell me your story.”
Then Cabeza de Vaca began the story of his wanderings:
“After Narvaez and the ships were lost,” said he, “we
escaped to the mainland and were taken captive by the
Indians. They were a poor, starved people who lived on
roots and berries and whatever they could get, and who
often went for days without a mouthful. I do not know
how many years they held us as slaves, but it was for many
years and our sufferings were great.
“We tried always to get to the north, and little by little
we got further westward and northward.
“At last we escaped from those Indians who held us as
slaves and fell in with others farther west who had never
seen a white man. We had with us a rattle such as is used
by their medicine men, and this, with our beards, made them
think we were from heaven. They fell on their faces before
us and gave us all that they had.
“We told these people we wished to go to where the sun
sets, and they said, ‘No, you cannot go there. The people
are too far away.’
“‘It makes no difference,’ I said, ‘you must still lead us
there.’
“We saw they were in great fear, but at last they sent off
two of their women to see if they could find the other people
and tell them of our coming. In five days they came back.
‘They have found no people,’ said the Indians to us. ‘Then,’
said I, ‘lead us to the northward,’ and again they said:
‘There are no people there. Neither is there food or
water.’
“At this I became offended and went apart from them,
and at night went away by myself to sleep. But they
came at once where I was and remained all night without
sleep. They talked to me in great fear, telling me how
great was their fright, begging us to be no longer angry;
and they said they would lead us whatsoever way we
wished to go, though they knew they should die on the
way.
“We still pretended to be angry, lest their fright should
leave them, and while we were thus pretending a remarkable
thing happened: the very next day many of them became
ill, and eight men died. They believed we had caused
their death by willing it, and it seemed as if they must all
die of fear.
“In truth, it caused us so much pain to see them suffer
that it could not be greater, and we prayed to God, our
Lord, to relieve them, and they soon got better.
“News of our strange power spread through the land, and
the people trembled at our coming. Sometimes they would
come to meet us, and bring all they owned and offer it to
us. Or, again, when they heard we were coming, they would
go into their houses and pile all their goods in a heap in the
middle of the floor for us, and then sit down, with their
faces to the wall, their heads bowed, and their hair drawn
over their eyes. Thus they waited until we came and spoke
to them. Then they gave us whatever we would take from
them.
“Wherever we went, they brought their sick to us and
begged us to cure them. We always examined them carefully,
and treated them as best we knew how, and prayed
earnestly to God to help us, and they nearly always got well.
Whenever a sick man got well, he not only gave us all that
he had, but all his friends did likewise.
“As we pressed westward and northward we came all
the time to finer Indians who had more wealth and better
homes than those farther east.
“At last we came to a land of plenty. The people lived
in houses and had beans, pumpkins, and calabashes for
food and covered themselves with blankets made of hides.
They were the finest-looking and strongest people we had
seen and intelligent beyond any of the others. They had
nothing they did not give to us. They begged us to pray
for rain and told us that for two years not a drop had fallen.
When we asked where they had got their food, they told us
from the land of the maize. Then I bade them tell me of
this land of the maize, and they told that beyond them was
a land of many people and large houses, where maize grew
all over the land; that the people of that land were wealthy
and wore beautiful plumes and feathers of parrots, and used
precious stones for arrowheads and to decorate their houses.
And they brought to me five beautiful emeralds cut into
arrowheads, and many fine turquoises and beads made of
coral such as come from the South Seas. When I asked
whence they got these stones, they pointed to some lofty
mountains that stand toward the north and told us that
from there came the precious stones, and that near those
mountains were large cities. They said that in those cities
the houses were so large that there were sometimes three or
four lofts one above the other.”
“And did you not go to those cities?” asked Melchior
Diaz, eagerly.
“No,” answered Cabeza de Vaca. “I did not go because
I heard that toward the sunset were other men of my
kind, and I hurried westward, hoping to meet them. Therefore
I did not go to the land of the cities. I longed once
more to look upon the face of a Spaniard.”
“You have suffered much,” said Melchior Diaz, “but do
not think of it, and now rest.”
Then Melchior Diaz sent off a messenger to Mexico to
carry a letter to the Viceroy de Mendoza, telling him of
Cabeza de Vaca and his strange tale.
Forthwith the messenger returned with a letter commanding
Cabeza de Vaca and his companions to come at
once to Mexico and appear before the viceroy.
To Mexico they went, and again Cabeza told the strange
story of their wanderings.
“It is a wonderful story,” said the viceroy, when he had
finished, “and you certainly deserve to spend the rest of
your life in ease. Say the word, and I myself will send
you home to Spain.”
Cabeza de Vaca almost wept for joy at these words.
“Gladly will I go, dear friend. Gladly will I go, for I am
weary of wandering and would once more see my own
country.”
So Cabeza de Vaca and two of his companions sailed off
to Spain, and the Viceroy de Mendoza thought much of
the wonderful cities far to the northward.
The Journey of Fray Marcos
The story of Cabeza de Vaca set all New Spain talking
once more of the Seven Cities.
“Of course,” said the people, as they talked, “of course
they are the same seven cities Nuño de Guzmán learned of
from Tejos, the Indian. He did not get the right directions,
and so he failed to reach them. But now we know they are
there,” and many were eager to set out at once.
But the Viceroy de Mendoza was a quiet and careful
statesman.
“There have been many lives lost already,” he said, “and
it will be better not to be in too great a hurry. I believe
these are the seven cities sought for by Nuño de Guzmán,
but I shall not send an army until I am sure.”
Then he thought of a monk called Fray Marcos of Niza,
who had been much among the Indians of the north, and he
sent for him to come at once to Mexico.
Fray Marcos came, and the Viceroy de Mendoza told
him the story of Cabeza de Vaca.
“Now, Fray Marcos,” said the viceroy, after finishing the
story, “if we should send an army, these Indians would
surely make war upon us and both for them and for us
there would be many lives lost. You understand them, and
it might be that they would let you come among them and
learn what we desire. Perhaps there lies to the northward
as great a nation as Peru or Mexico. It must be taken for
the church and the crown. Will you not be the one to carry
the message of the cross and to take possession of the country
for the king of Spain?”
“I will,” said Fray Marcos, eagerly.
“Very well,” said Mendoza, smiling. “The negro Stephen
who was with Cabeza de Vaca is here, and he shall be your
guide. Remember that this expedition is to be undertaken
more to spread our knowledge of God than for great wealth.
Therefore, bear in mind that the natives are to be treated
with the utmost kindness, and my displeasure will fall heavy
upon whosoever shall offend them. Say to them that the
Emperor is very angry at those Christians who have been
unkind to them, and that never again shall they be enslaved
or taken from their homes.
“Take special note of their number, and of their manner
of life, and whether they are at peace or at war among
themselves. Notice the nature of the country, the fertility
of the soil, and the character of its products. Learn what
wild animals there are there, and find out if there are any
rivers great or small. Search for precious stones and metals
and, if possible, bring back specimens of them. Also make
careful inquiry if the natives have any knowledge of a neighboring
sea.
“If you shall succeed in reaching the Southern Sea, write
out an account of all your discoveries and bury it at the
foot of the tallest tree and then mark the tree with a cross.
Do the same at the mouth of all rivers, and those who are
sent after you will be on the lookout for such a sign. Take
enough Indians with you so that you can send them back
from time to time to bring to us reports of the route you
have taken and how you are treated by the Indians you meet.
If you shall come to any great city, do not send back word
but come yourself and tell me about it. And lastly, although
all the world belongs to the Emperor, be sure and plant the
cross in those new lands and take possession of them in the
name of the Spanish crown, and never forget that your
life is of great value to your church and your country, and
do not risk it needlessly. Now, go. Make all your plans
and set out as soon as may be.”
Fray Marcos hastened to make his plans, and on the
seventh of March, 1539, he set out from Culiacan with the
negro Stephen and a few faithful Indians.
Several months went by; then, at the end of September,
1539, a traveler in a monk’s gown came walking alone into
Culiacan.
“It is Fray Marcos!” cried the people. “It is Fray
Marcos, who went to search for the Seven Cities!” “Did
you find them, Fray Marcos?” “Where is Stephen, the
negro?” “Are the Seven Cities full of wealth?”
But Fray Marcos would not answer. “I have much to
tell,” he said to them, “but I will tell it only to the Lord de
Mendoza himself.”
To the Lord de Mendoza he told a story even more wonderful
than the story of Tejos, the Indian, or that of Cabeza
de Vaca.
“All the way,” he said, “I found great entertainment, for
after I told the Indians they were not to be enslaved, they
could not do enough to show their love for me. I went
where the Holy Ghost did lead me. The Indians guided
me from place to place, and some went ahead to tell others
that I was coming. Everywhere they came to meet me and
gave me welcome. They had food ready for me; and where
there were no houses, they built bowers of trees and flowers
that I might rest safe from the sun.
“I saw naught that was worthy of notice until there came
to me some Indians from an island off the coast, and these
wore about their necks great shells that were of mother-of-pearl.
To these I showed the pearls which I carried with
me for show, and they told me that in their islands there
were great stores of such, and that there were thirty islands.
“And then I passed through a desert of four days’ journey,
and there went with me the Indians from the island and
from the mountains I had passed. At the end of this
desert I found other Indians, who marveled much to see me,
because they had not before seen a white man. They gave
me great stores of food and sought to touch my garments,
and called me Hayota, which in their language means ‘A
man come from Heaven.’
“As best I could, I told to all these Indians of our Lord
God in Heaven, and of our great Emperor over the sea.
Then I asked them if they knew of any great kingdom
thereabout or of any great cities.
“And they told me that farther on were high mountains,
and at the foot of those mountains was a large and mighty
plain on which were many great towns and people clad in
cotton. Then I showed them metals that I carried with
me and said to them, ‘Have the people of those cities any
of these?’ And they took the gold metal from my hand
and said: ‘Of this do the people of those cities make the
vessels from which they eat, and also do they make of it
thin plates to scrape the sweat from their bodies, and the
walls of their temples are covered therewith.’
“Then I asked concerning the precious stones known to
the people of the cities, and the Indians answered that they
had round, green stones that they prized much and wore
hanging from their noses and ears.
“The Indians offered to take me to the cities, but because
it was a long journey from the sea, and your lordship had
commanded me to keep close to the coast, I did not go.
“It was now Passion Sunday, and I felt inclined to tarry
among the people I was with. I did so, but I sent on ahead
of me the negro Stephen.
“I told him to go to the northward fifty or threescore
leagues, and to take with him Indians, of whom he should
send back from time to time messengers bearing me news of
all that he learned.
“We agreed that if it were the mean country of which
he learned, he should send me a cross no longer than my hand;
but if it were a great country, he should send me a cross
the length of two hands; and if it were a country greater
and richer than New Spain, he should send a great cross.
“Stephen went from me on Passion Sunday, after dinner,
and within four days there came to me messengers bearing
a cross as high as a man. He sent me also word that I
should at once come after him, for he had news of a mighty
province; that he had with him certain Indians who had
been to that province, and one of them he sent to me.
“The Indian whom Stephen had sent told me it was
thirty days’ journey beyond the town where Stephen was,
to the first city of the province, which was called Cibola. He
said there were seven great cities in this province all under
one lord. The houses, he said, were made of stone and
the smallest of them were of two lofts, one above the other;
and the house of the lord of the province had four lofts and
was wide and long. He said, too, that the gates of the
finest houses were cunningly wrought with turquoises,
whereof they had plenty.
“The same day that Stephen’s messenger came to me
there came also another Indian from the seacoast, and he
told again of the many islands in the sea and of people who
have many pearls and much gold.
“And that same day there came to me three Indians with
their faces and breasts and arms painted.
“They came, they said, from a province toward the east
that bordered upon that of the Seven Cities. They had
heard of me and wished to see me. They told me of the
Seven Cities of Cibola, the people, and the houses, in the
same manner that Stephen had sent me word. I sent back
the Indians who had come from the islands on the seacoast,
and hurried on after Stephen.
“Each day messengers came to me from Stephen, all
carrying large crosses and all telling of Cibola.
“At last came Indian messengers who told me of three
other kingdoms called Marata, Acus, and Tonteac. They
said that the people of those provinces dressed even as the
people of Cibola, with gowns of cotton that hang to their
feet, and they bound them with girdles of turquoises. And
they told me much more, to make me know that these provinces
were in all ways as great as Cibola.
“I traveled on for days, stopping to know the people
among whom I passed and always being received by them
with all tenderness.
“They brought me their sick that I might heal them and
sought always to touch my garments. They gave to me
cowhides so well tanned that I could not well believe them
to have been dressed by savage people.
“As I went on, I came to great crosses set up in the
ground by Stephen to let me know that the good news of
the country increased. I came to a pleasant town at last
where indeed were people clad in cotton, both men and
women, and they wore turquoises in their noses and ears.
The lord of the village came with his brethren to greet me,
and they were well dressed in robes of cotton and hides and
wore collars of turquoises about their necks.
“It was a fair country, better than any I had yet seen;
so I set up two great crosses and took possession of it for
His Majesty, the Emperor. They offered me gifts of all
they had, but I took not one thing save food.
“I came now to a desert and went into it, and I found
that the Indians had gone on ahead of me and built bowers
beneath which I ate and slept, and in this manner I traveled
for four days.
“Then I entered a valley where were many people; men
and women came to meet me with food. All of them had
turquoises hanging from their noses and ears and collars of
turquoises three or four times double about their necks.
“Here they knew of Cibola as much as we in New Spain
know of Mexico and could answer all I wished to ask about
the people.
“As I went on I met more and more people, and passed
through a fine country where is much grass and water.
The people were in all ways civil and kind and told me about
Cibola and Acus, and Tonteac and Marata and Quivira.
Here I saw a thousand oxhides all nicely dressed and chains
of turquoise, and they told me they all came from Cibola.
“And now I had two deserts to cross and was fifteen
days’ journey from Cibola.
“I entered the desert, and many Indians went with me,
and others went on ahead to make ready for me; and each
day there came word from Stephen, telling me all was true
and to hurry after him.
“For twelve days I journeyed thus, and then there came
running to meet us an Indian in great fright—his body
covered with sweat and dust and his face showing the greatest
sadness.
“He told us that the day before, Stephen had reached
Cibola, and had sent messengers into the city with presents
for its lord, and to let him know they came in peace.
“But the lord of the city fell into a great rage, and dashed
the presents of Stephen to the ground. In his fury he drove
the messengers out of the city, and told them that if they
again appeared they would surely be killed, as would also
Stephen, if he dared to come near.
“The messengers hurried to Stephen and told him what
had happened, but he was in no wise afraid; he answered
he should go, nevertheless, and bade the Indians fear not,
but to come with him.
“They went on, but as they were about to enter the city,
many of its people met them and seized them and cast them
into a great house that stood just outside. They took from
them all that they had, and left them all night without food
or drink. The next morning Stephen and his Indians tried
to escape, but they were scarce outside their prison when
the people of the city set upon them, and Stephen and all
the Indians, except the messenger and one other, were killed.
These two had been struck down and left for dead, but
were only stunned. They had lain under the dead bodies
of the others until the angry people had gone back into the
city. Then they had crept away.
“My Lord de Mendoza, so great was my grief at this
terrible news that it seemed for a moment I must indeed
die, but when I saw all my Indians begin to weep and lament,
I knew I must not give way.
“I straightway gave to them many of the presents I had
intended for the people of Cibola, and then I resolved that
though I might not enter the city I would still look upon it,
and I told them I would nevertheless go on. They begged
me not to go, but when they saw I was firm two of them
agreed to go with me. So we left the others to await our
return and journeyed forwards. We traveled one day, and
then we came to a round hill. This I climbed, and on looking
down saw at its foot the city of Cibola. It was a fair
city, my lord. The houses were as the Indians told me, of
two and three and four stories and built of stone. The
people were somewhat white and dressed in white garments.
Greatly was I tempted to risk my life and go thither, but
knowing that if I were killed all knowledge of the country
would be lost, I gave it up and contented myself with planting
a cross upon the hilltop in token that I took possession
for the crown of Spain.”
“You have done well, Fray Marcos,” cried Mendoza,
“and now it is time to send an army.”
The Disappointment of Coronado
When Mendoza wanted to send an army, the first person
he thought of was a brave soldier and fine nobleman named
Francisco de Coronado, who sat by his side, listening eagerly.
Coronado knew all about the expedition of Nuño de Guzmán,
and had heard the story of Cabeza de Vaca. Also,
he had talked with Mendoza before the viceroy had sent
Fray Marcos on his journey, and had said he would be willing
to spend a fortune in fitting out an army to take the
Seven Cities.
So Mendoza turned to Coronado and said: “Is it still
your wish, my noble friend, to lead an army against this
kingdom of Cibola?”
“It is,” said Coronado.
“Well, then, make ready at once, and I will help you in
every way that I can,” said the viceroy.
The news spread rapidly, and again all New Spain was
talking of the Seven Cities. In a short time three hundred
Spaniards and eight hundred Indians had enlisted, and so
many gentlemen of noble birth had offered to go that the
viceroy was much embarrassed in choosing officers, for of
course he must take the noblest gentlemen, and there were
too many!
A fine sight they were—those cavaliers of Spain—in
their glittering armor, mounted on prancing horses, their
lances gleaming in the sunlight and their banners flying.
Out of Compostela they marched in the gayest spirits,
thinking of the loads of gold and jewels they would bring
back with them.
But it was very different when they reached the desert
and the mountains. They did not know how to bear the
fatigue of such a journey, nor how to care for their horses
and cattle and sheep. The animals died in large numbers,
and the courage of the soldiers weakened rapidly as they
grew weary.
The soldiers had come with the thought of conquest, so
they did not treat the Indians they met so kindly as Fray
Marcos had done, and of course the Indians did not like
them very well, and in a little while there began to be trouble.
At last they came to a narrow pass in the mountains.
“I am afraid the Indians will try to keep us from passing,”
said Coronado to the Master of the Field. “Go you
with a company of soldiers and guard that pass until all
the army come up. Then we will go through.”
The Master of the Field took his company and stood guard
at the pass. But that night, while all but the sentries were
asleep, the Indians crept down upon them and the sleeping
camp was roused by a shower of stones and arrows and the
wild yells of the Indians.
Now the men had lain down with their guns beside them;
so they were ready, and they sprang up and began fighting
bravely. For a while the battle raged hotly, the Spaniards
firing their guns and the Indians replying with stones and
arrows. But when the Indians saw some of their number
falling dead, they were frightened and fled away in the
darkness, and the Spaniards held the pass.
After that the Spaniards had little peace, but nevertheless
Coronado managed to keep up their courage. On they went,
up through that country we now call Arizona, over almost
the same road that Fray Marcos had traveled. They paused
where is now the city of Tucson, and then marching northeastward,
crossed the Gila River and moved on toward
Cibola. At last, where today stands the town of Zuñi,
they reached the first city of the kingdom whose fame had
so long filled with golden dreams the minds of the Spaniards.
But instead of the great, fine, glittering city they had expected
they saw only a village of a few hundred houses.
The hearts of the Spaniards sank as they gazed upon it.
Coronado called three of his men and said to them, “Go
into the city and say to the people that we are not enemies,
but have come in the name of the Emperor, our lord, to
defend them and to join with them in friendship.”
The messengers went into the city and delivered Coronado’s
message, but the people of Cibola received it with scorn.
“We did not ask you to come,” they replied, “and your
lord had no right to send you. This is our land and we can
defend it. Go back to your lord and to your own land, for
if you stay here you shall not one of you live.”
The messengers turned to go back to Coronado, and even as
they went the people of Cibola began firing arrows at them.
Coronado got his men quickly together and gave the
command to attack. The people of Cibola were gathered
upon the walls of their city and rained down arrows and
stones upon the Spaniards as they came. The Spaniards
were many of them so weary from their long journey that
they had not strength enough left to pull a crossbow. Indeed,
for a time it seemed they must be beaten, so fiercely
did the Indians battle against them. The glittering armor
of Coronado and the earnestness with which he cheered on
his men, told the Indians that he was the leader of the
Spaniards, and they tried particularly to kill him. Twice
they felled him to the ground, and once he must surely have
been killed had not a brave knight stood across his body and
guarded him from the rain of stones until he recovered. He
would not give up. Weak from the blows he had received,
aching in every part, and with an arrow sticking in his foot,
he led the last charge, shouting “Santiago!” as he rode.
“Santiago!” echoed his soldiers as they followed him
straight into the town. The Indians fled as the Spaniards
entered, and the battle was over.
The Spaniards almost wept with rage and despair as they
looked about them. The houses, it is true, were made of
stone and were large, as had been said, but there were no
jeweled gates, no vessels of gold and silver, no fine city, no
stores of wealth to carry back to Spain.
So great was Coronado’s despair that he fell ill almost
unto death. He could not bear to give up. It seemed he
must find those seven wonderful cities. As soon as he was
able he sent out parties in all directions to see what could be
found.
For almost two years they searched. Whenever an Indian
told them a new tale, they started off at once to see if it
were true. They heard of a great river to the westward,
and Arellano, one of the brave officers, led a party at once
in search of it. Across the dry, hot desert of Arizona they
went, and never stopped until they came to the Grand
Cañon of the Colorado. Below them flowed the mighty
river between walls hundreds of feet deep and so steep they
could not descend to the water, though they were almost
dying of thirst as they stood over it.
Scarcely had they got back before the army was again
all excitement because an Indian had told a tale of a great
city to the northeastward. Coronado himself led them in
search of it. Up they went through New Mexico, traveling
for days among herds of buffaloes that reached farther than
they could see.
They went so far north as to enter that part of our country
now called Kansas. They found in reward for their
long journey only a few Indian villages.
At last, when more than two thirds of his men were dead,
Coronado gave up and marched back to Mexico. And this
was the last search for the Seven Cities that were not.
In the study of geography the story means as much
as in history. The child is keenly interested in
what he is doing and in what those around him are
doing, and when he discovers that people in China,
in South America, in Australia, or in Russia are doing
the very things he is attempting to do or sees done,
that they are engaged in industrial occupation very
much as his father or uncle or neighbor is engaged in it,
that distant occupation loses its remote quality, and
the country with which it is associated becomes real
and near to him. In the larger sense geography is
something that must be felt and imagined. It is an
interpretation of foreign activities and the regions in
which they take place, and because the story can interpret
these activities, because it can make situations
real and familiar instead of aloof, it is of inestimable
value in teaching the subject. Here the myth and
fairy tale can be used with excellent results, because
through them the child sees something of the struggle
of man in his effort to interpret the world and comes
to have a broader sympathy for the ideals of people
of other regions. Moreover, in many instances it
tends to fix definite information concerning a certain
locality and to invest distant regions with vivid interest,
for to the boy who associates the Rhine or Danube
or Himalayas with the tale of a hero or people who once
lived and did brave deeds there, those rivers and
mountains will be more than black specks on a map.
If he hears of the two frogs in Japan who started out
to see the world, he will not say that Kioto is somewhere
in South America, because the spot has been fixed in
his mind by a story. Because it is associated with
something he has enjoyed, it stays there, and while
the highest aim of the study of geography is not merely
to stuff the mind with facts, but to broaden the horizon
and bring the world within the child’s own dooryard,
the acquisition of certain information tends to give
him that broad outlook which makes all people seem
creatures of his world and all activities a part of his
own experience. Unfortunately, however, teachers
sometimes lose sight of this fact, and the larger aim is
made subservient to a memorizing of data.
Geography and history are so closely related that
it is difficult to separate them, and in making one vivid
we must draw constantly from the other. The field
is limitless. In fact, there are so many stories to give
the geography class that teachers sometimes say,
“When are we to have time for formal recitations?”
Too much recitation and not enough story is responsible
for the fact that boys and girls sometimes give
startling information about the location of places.
Shorten the recitation period, if necessary, but do
not fail to give the stories that bring far-away places
as near as one’s own dooryard, and let tests and examinations
prove which method is better. We must
possess before we can give, and the pupil who is assigned
a number of pages and expected to recite about them
often fails miserably, because interest, which must
underlie the acquisition of knowledge, has not been
aroused. We may tell him to study the course of the
Rhine and locate the cities that dot its banks, and one
will mean no more to him than the other. But if he
hears the tale of the building of the king of German
cathedrals and the legend of the architect’s compact
with the Evil One, Cologne will have an individuality
very different from that of Coblenz with its bridge of
boats. If he listens to the tale of Maui fishing up
New Zealand from the bottom of the ocean, of the
demigod chieftain who was the discoverer of Hawaii
and the patriarch of his people, there will pass before
his eyes at the mention of places among the Pacific
Islands pictures of a dark-skinned, sea-loving race
with a history fully as fascinating as that of his own
people.
If there is not time for him to recite it all, let him
write about it. This will help to solve the composition
problem, because the reason for much of the miserable
written English work is due to the fact that the
child has nothing to give. He is told to elaborate
upon a subject that lies far from his interest, one of
which he has little knowledge, with results that every
English teacher knows. But if he has been interested
in it by a story, he can give that story back in oral or
written form, even though the construction be far from
perfect.
Another value of using stories with a geographical
or historical background is that they develop the
child’s social instinct and give him something of a
realization of the brotherhood of man. Through
hearing and reading them he becomes broader and
more tolerant. He sees that in every part of the world
men have their standards and ideals, which, although
they may be greatly at variance with his own, are
entitled to respect because they represent deep convictions
and desires. Instead of viewing the world
through a keyhole, he sees it across unobstructed
fields and comes to have a bigger human understanding.
In the study of geography there is a finer opportunity
than anywhere else in elementary education to divert
the child’s feet from a narrow, provincial trail into
the broad highway of cosmopolitanism.
As in the study of history, so in geography the story
should radiate from local environment to other sections
of the world, and every worker with girls and boys,
whether mother, teacher, or librarian, should endeavor
to give them some idea of the story of their own locality.
The child should know something of the legends
of the people who built their camp fires on the spots
that are his public parks and gardens, and teachers
especially should aid the earnest group of men and
women that is patiently collecting and preserving
our American folklore, by giving some of it to the
children. It will not only heighten pride in their
own locality, but it will broaden their understanding
of other lands and races and their sympathy with the
struggles of different peoples. This kind of work belongs
to the field of history, but it so greatly increases interest
in geography that the teacher should not miss the
opportunity of using this material.
There are legends clustering about every section
of our country that the people of that locality should
know, and it is a matter of regret that the average
man or woman has seldom heard of them. Europeans
are inclined to say we are a people of no traditions.
While the charge is untrue, and our land is rich in legendary
lore, it is true that only a small percentage of
Americans are familiar with it. One reason for this
general ignorance is that much of it has been buried
in scientific treatises, which are unavailable to the
layman. But within the last few years a large amount
has been put within reach of the story-teller. The
unceasing work of the American Folklore Society has
resulted in unearthing and preserving much that
would otherwise have been lost and that is important
enough to have a place in our schools. Nothing is
more fascinating to the child than stories of his own
region, and our young people ought to be privileged
to share in that joy with boys and girls of the Old
World.
There are peasant lads in France, Italy, and other
European countries who can entertain by the hour with
tales of their rivers and mountains—not those of some
distant province, but the peaks that tower above their
native village, the streams along which they trudge
on their way to school. California, Washington, and
Oregon children should be given legends of the Yosemite,
of Lake Tahoe, of Mount Shasta, of the Columbia
River, and of Mount Rainier. Boys and girls
among Southern bayous should be taught the traditions
of their region, of the Indians and Creoles who
made history there when that section was a province
of France; while along Northern lake and inland river
are tales of forest folk, of pathfinder and black-robed
message bringer, of knights of the Old World come
to seek fortune in the New, that are a part of the
heritage of every youth living there. Let us give them
to our young people, that they may love their home
spots, not just because they are beautiful and are
theirs, but as the French child loves the Rhone or the
Austrian the Danube, because of the stories that tend
to make them enchanted ground.
In using the story in geography the teacher’s work
does not end with telling the story. The places mentioned
in it should be located on the map, that their
exact position may be fixed in the mind of the child.
Interest in the story will make this a pleasure rather
than a task for the boy, just as it becomes a delight
rather than a hardship for him to follow the route
taken by his father or uncle when he goes on a journey,
or to work out the itinerary of a trip he hopes to take
himself. One small boy studied the geography of Virginia
with keen interest after reading Lord Cornwallis’
Silver Buckles, and more than one man and woman
attest to the fact that some book read and loved during
their school days did more to fix the location of river,
city, and mountain in their minds than hours of classroom
recitation spent in bounding states and countries
and tracing the courses of rivers.
The following legend of Niagara Falls is illustrative
of one type of tale that will greatly add to the child’s
interest in geography by investing certain localities
with story associations. Much other material is given
in the appended bibliography, and the wide-awake
teacher will be able to glean much more from libraries
and adapt it to her work.
Retold from an Iroquois Legend
Before the white man sailed westward across the Atlantic,
in fact, before Columbus was born or anybody even dreamed
about a short route to the Indies, a little Indian girl lived
on the shore of Niagara not so very far above the cataract.
She was a happy little thing, and as she grew to maidenhood
she became the fairest girl of her tribe, and her father,
who was a mighty chieftain, promised her in marriage to the
most powerful of his braves. This Indian was a swift
runner, and around the council fire not another tongue was
so nimble or eloquent as his, and never did his arrows fail
to pierce the heart of the deer at which he aimed them.
But that mattered little to the girl. He was not her ideal
of a husband, and she could think of nothing more dreadful
than becoming the mistress of his wigwam. Yet her father
had spoken and she must obey, and with a sad heart she
made ready for the wedding, weaving the handsomest of
wampum belts and ornamenting her moccasins with gay
beads and bits of woodpecker feather.
The wedding morning dawned, and the Indians began the
games and merrymaking that always marked a marriage.
The bridegroom and the young braves vied in races and
wrestling matches, and the women too had a part in the
festivities, singing and chanting weird songs as they tended
the fire and roasted venison for the feast. Everybody was
happy,—every one but the bride, who did not want to
marry, and who sat in her wigwam looking sadly out upon
the sport. Suddenly came the decision that she would not
be the squaw of the man she detested.
Quickly, softly, she crept from the wigwam and hurried
to the river bank. The others were so busy with their merrymaking
that they did not see her go, and soon she came to
where her canoe was moored to some bushes. She stepped
into it, pushed it from shore, and began drifting down the
stream. It was good to be there on the water, for, like all
Indian girls, she loved to paddle, and in her joy of skimming
along with the current she began to sing.
Suddenly a whoop went up from the village of her people.
It was not the cry of those victorious in a game, it was a
shout of anger, a cry of alarm, for they had seen her and
believed she was trying to escape from the marriage every
one knew was distasteful to her. The bridegroom started in
pursuit, then another Indian and another, until every man
in the village was rushing to the river and some had already
begun the chase in canoes.
“They shall not take me back,” the girl murmured.
“I will not go back to the village and become Kunawa’s
squaw.”
With swift, powerful strokes she paddled down the stream.
She forgot that the cataract was roaring below her, forgot
that her canoe was going rapidly and surely toward the
bright foam from which no boat could come back. She
thought only that she was fleeing from a wedding, and not
until she saw the rapids beneath her did she realize her fate.
Then she began her death song, and those in pursuit heard
it for a moment, loud, clear, and plaintive as the canoe cut
into the cataract, then suddenly silenced as it shot down
to the rapids. Some of the women wailed and joined in
the funeral dirge, and some of the others cried out in fear
to the Great Spirit.
“It is the last of Kunawa’s bride!” they exclaimed.
“She is now on her way to the Spirit Land.”
But it was not the last of the girl. Far down in the mist
of the cataract, Heno, the Thunder God, had seen her. He
held forth his arms, and as the canoe dropped to the rapids,
she went into them, and bearing her through the watery
depths, he placed her in a cavern behind the fall where he
had lived since the beginning of things, and where the girl
would live with him henceforth.
Many years passed. She was no longer a young maiden,
but a tall, sturdy woman, and Heno gave her to one of his
sons to be his squaw. She lived there in happiness with him
in the cavern under Niagara, and often she thought of her
people and her native village above beside the river. Because
she remembered and loved them, Heno was kind to
them, and when pestilence came to the region he lifted her
to the shore that she might tell them where to go to escape
the disease.
Once a great monster, a snake all green and white, came
trailing his body through the forest like a river between
hills, and made straight for the village by Niagara to feed
upon the people there. But through the Indian girl Heno
had told them of the coming danger, and they fled before
the monster so fast that when it reached the village it found
only a place of deserted camps. The great creature hissed
with wrath, but Heno saw it from the mists and struck it
dead with a thunderbolt. The great mass rolled to the river,
floated down the stream, and lodged so tight above the
cataract that a fold in its body sent a great volume of
water out of its course, forming the Horseshoe Fall. The
flood centered there destroyed the home of Heno too, but
the Thunder God arose with his children and the Indian
girl, and ascending to the heavens, has lived there ever
since, where he thunders in the cloud mists as he once did
in those of the fall. His voice is so mighty that the echo
of it is always sounding above Niagara, and although white
men say it is nothing but the noise of falling water, the
Indians know better. They know it is the song of the god
of the Thundering Water.
The history and geography references have been combined because
each of the books listed here is valuable in both lines of work. This
plan also carries out the Play School idea, which is that there is no line
of demarcation between the two subjects.
Baldwin, James: The Discovery of the Old Northwest.
Becquer, Gustavo Adolfo: Romantic Legends of Spain.
Brabourne, Lord (Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen): River Legends
(London and England).
Converse, Harriet Clarke: Myths and Legends of New York State
Iroquois.
Griffis, William Elliot: The Unmannerly Tiger and Other Tales
(Korean).
Guerber, Helène A.: The Story of the English; Legends of the Rhine;
Legends of Switzerland.
Hardy, Mary E.: Indian Legends from Geyser-land (Yellowstone).
Hearn, Lafcadio: Kwaidan (Japan).
Janvier, Thomas A.: Legends of the City of Mexico.
Johonnot, James: Ten Great Events in History.
Judson, Katharine B.: Myths of California and the Old Southwest;
Myths and Legends of the Great Plains; Myths and Legends of
Alaska; Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest.
Lang, Andrew: True Story Book.
McMurry, Charles A.: Pioneers of the Mississippi Valley.
Perry, F. M., and Beebe, Katherine: Four American Pioneers.
Pitman, Leila Webster: Stories of Old France.
Skinner, Charles M.: American Myths and Legends; Myths and
Legends beyond Our Borders (Mexico and Peru).
Smith, Bertha H.: Yosemite Legends.
Warren, Henry Pitt (Ed.): Stories from English History.
Westervelt, H. D.: Legends of Old Honolulu.
Nature study, as a formal subject in the elementary
schools, is often uninteresting to the
child, because many teachers think that there the
bare truth should prevail, and present information
concerning the sciences as a series of dry, emasculated
facts. The result is indifference toward what might
be a keen pleasure, and sometimes even distaste for it.
But if the nature lesson is presented in a manner that
brings vivid pictures to the mind of the child, if he
is given some vision of what cannot be understood
by mere description, it becomes a living reality, and not
only fixes information that is the foundation for scientific
study later, but enlarges the emotional life and
quickens the imagination. It gives him a feeling of
close contact with nature and makes him so responsive
to its varied life, moods, and aspects, that he comes to
love it.
Those who understand nature love it more than those
who do not. The man who knows the elm, the beech,
the hemlock, and various other forest brethren, finds
a pleasure in the woods that is impossible to him to
whom a tree is just a tree. The latter is like Peter
Bell, of whom Wordsworth wrote:
A primrose by a river’s brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
He goes on his way thinking that trees are good for
lumber, to produce shade and break the force of winds
that might otherwise blight his crops, but he has little
conception of how they affect human happiness and
human life. When tired and nerve worn, he does not
yearn for the peace of the redwoods, but for some
artificial stimulus in a city distant from the one in
which he has his cares. Why? Because he was not
born with a love of nature that is as rare as genius,
and was not fortunate enough to be led along the path
on which it is acquired. That there are many men
and women of this type is proved by the ruthless way
in which our forests have been destroyed, by the
abuse of privileges in public parks and gardens, by
the way in which trees are slaughtered in city streets.
It is certain that love of nature is not born with every
one, and that what is the fortunate heritage of the
few must be instilled into the many. This can be done,
and it can be done through story-telling. The careless
child, the unobservant child, to whom a flower is just
a flower or a bird a bunch of feathers, can be led to
open his eyes and see what he did not see before,
while the one who has already found joy in the life of
field and stream will respond with intense pleasure
because a new and roseate light is flashed upon what is
already familiar.
Children learn to love nature just as they learn to
love a picture, a dog, or a swimming hole, through
experience with it that gives joyous results. The
country lad, whose Saturdays and vacation days are
associated with cowslips, dragon flies, and quiet hours
beside a trout stream casting a line for the elusive
catch, is not likely to find schoolroom nature study
a dull subject, because, through hours of enjoyment,
he is equipped with an emotional and imaginative
background that gives color to every fact presented.
But he who has not had this opportunity, who knows
as little of wild life as a cormorant knows of the Colorado
crags, will not respond eagerly to a series of facts,
because experience has not previously aroused his
imagination concerning them, and he cannot comprehend
their mystery and wonder. If these facts are
presented through the medium of the story, if they
depict the life of the open as vividly as some painting
that meets the eye, they will give pleasure and furnish
incentive for further investigation. They will not
only awaken the uninformed child to a realization of
the wonders and delights nature holds for him, but
they will give the other, more fortunate child additional
pleasure, just as a favorite fairy tale does when told
again and again by one who loves it and can make its
moods his own.
This does not mean that all information should be
presented through the medium of the story. The
story should be used only to give such information as
is natural to the story form. But nature study can be
wonderfully illuminated by the story, because many
of the truths of science do lend themselves to plot,
and where they have been put in parallel literary form,
they are as replete with beauty and imagery as the
fairy tale, and afford the fancy as free play as do the
adventures of sprites and goblins. The marvel of the
brown bulb or seed metamorphosing into the brilliant-hued
blossom, of the homely caterpillar evolving
into a bit of flying color, of the majestic movements
of stars and planets through worlds remote but as
exquisitely constructed as our own, fascinates the child
and furnishes wide, untrammeled avenues along which
his imagination may roam. There is almost no branch
of science that is not rich in material for the story-teller.
Dr. Carrel, the great French specialist, once said that
some day an artist will arise who will weave the facts
concerning the circulation of the blood into a tale as
fascinating as any conte from the Arabian Nights.
It is not likely that physiology will ever be the nucleus
of stories to give to children in the early years of school
life, but Dr. Carrel’s words hold a valuable hint for the
narrator, who should not fail to draw from truth as
freely as he draws from myth and fable. An overdose
of one kind of food, no matter how wholesome, disarranges
the digestive apparatus, and an overdose of
one kind of literature makes a one-sided man. There
are some facts to show that a too free feeding on fairy
tales has led to crooked thinking and susceptibility
to superstition, and the story-teller should balance
his work in improbable tales with those of fact that
fire the imagination because of the marvels related in
them.
This is not so difficult as it may seem, for many
of the truths of science have been put into simple
language by men who were poet enough to bring to
children something of their mystery and beauty, and
there is no dearth of books that can be used with
gratifying results by workers among children as young
as those of six to nine years. Part of the story of
evolution is enjoyed in this period. The boy in the
age of fancy is fascinated by listening to an account
of early man’s struggle with nature, and tales of the
tree dwellers, of cave and cliff dwellers, of the discovery
of fire and the adventures of the first wanderers, mean
as much to him as any fairy tale, because they have
the very characteristic that makes the fairy tale delightful—an
element of mystery that permits the fancy
to roam unchecked.
Older children revel in the truths of science, if they
are presented in story form. Take, for instance, David
Starr Jordan’s “Story of a Stone.” Where is there a
fairy tale more fascinating than this narrative of “a
bit of petrified honeycomb,” plowed up by a Wisconsin
husbandman as he made ready to sow his winter wheat?
The style and language have the charm of Andersen,
the plot is as well sustained as that of any Thuringian
folk tale collected by Grimm, and it begins as fairy
tales have begun since the beginning of time:
Once upon a time, a great many years ago, so many,
many years that one grows very tired in trying to think
how long ago it was; in those old days when the great Northwest
consisted of a few ragged and treeless hills, full of
copper and quartz and bordered by a dreary waste of sand
flats, over which the Gulf of Mexico rolled its warm and
turbid waters as far north as Escanaba and Eau Claire; in
the days when Marquette harbor opened out toward Baffin’s
Bay, and the northern ocean washed the crest of Mount
Washington and wrote its name on the pictured rocks;
when the tide of the Pacific, hemmed in by no snow-capped
Sierras, came rushing through the Golden Gate between the
Ozarks and the northern peninsula of Michigan, swept over
Plymouth Rock, and surged up against Bunker Hill; in the
days when it would have been fun to study geography,
because there were no capitals, nor any products, and all
the towns were seaports,—in fact, an immensely long
time ago, there lived somewhere in the northeastern part of
Wisconsin a little jellyfish.
Dr. Jordan has also woven into story form information
concerning the animal life of sea and stream, of
a mother and baby seal, in the delightful tale of “Matka
and Kotik,” and there is not a boy or a girl in the heroic
period who does not listen eagerly to the adventures of
a salmon, “a curious little fellow, not half an inch long,
with great, staring eyes which made almost half his
length, and with a body so transparent that he could
not cast a shadow.” The account of the battle of the
fish there under the ripples of the Cowlitz, the beginning
of the eventful journey down the river, the merry
conflict with the herring and the terrible one with the
sea lions, swimming always and always, growing larger
and more daring, and having in his watery realm as
many adventures as bold Robin had in his greenwood,
hold the children from the beginning to the end of the
story. They sympathize as he struggles up the stream
again, “growing poor and ragged and tired,” and
through his life and adventures they come to have an
interest in the world of fishes that they will not have
without the tale. Such stories demonstrate the fact
that information concerning the sciences can be put
into fascinating story form, and every worker with
young folk should endeavor to present some of it
through this delightful medium.
The child will find such tales far more appealing than
the so-called nature stories in which animals are over-personified
and in which they meet man in situations
that every intelligent boy or girl knows are impossible.
A lad is not brought into harmony with nature by being
given yarns that caricature nature, and many of the
modern nature stories do this very thing. Children
know that a wild bear does not walk into a little girl’s
flower garden, and then politely say “I am sorry”
and back out because the small mistress of the garden
is kind and instead of throwing stones at him explains
in elegant English that it is rude to go into another’s
property unbidden. They know that animals and
children do not converse together in the same language,
and that bears do not have courses in ethics. The
nature story that fascinates the child must be true to
nature’s laws. He may listen to some of the sugary,
impossible yarns written to point a moral, but they do
not give him keen pleasure, and because they are
ridiculous in his eyes, he draws no lesson from them.
One of the aims of story-telling is to give ethical instruction,
but there is a wealth of tales that reflect
nature and life correctly that should be used for this
purpose, and the facts of science should not be distorted
in an attempt to emphasize a lesson.
Tales pervaded by over-sentimentalism will not
stir deep response in children. This is why the nature
story that is true to the facts of science is the one that
interests the boy or girl. It is like the racial tale,
full of conflict, of temporary defeat and final triumph.
The young salmon grown old, struggling up Snake
River to the foot of the Bitter Root Mountains, was
sore of muscle and unsightly of skin, and his tail was
frayed and torn, but the desire of his nature was fulfilled
at last. He scooped out a nest and covered
the eggs of his companion, and then, because the work
of his life was done, was free to drift downstream.
Such stories give insight into nature and engender
a love of nature; and besides quickening the imagination
and enriching the emotional life, they help to give
stability to the child character, because through them
he learns the workings of certain inexorable laws.
There is such a vast amount of material to use in
teaching nature study, that the suggestions and bibliography
given in this chapter can by no means be
comprehensive. In the realm of geology there is the
story of limestone, of slate, of quartz and granite, of
rock salt and sandstone, and particularly interesting
to the child is the story of coal. For him it abounds
in color, and beautiful indeed are the pictures that
he sees as he listens to this narrative of the carboniferous
forests that grew in the beginning of time, of
the lush, dank swamps of the Permian or Triassic or
Miocene Period, and the strange animal life that peopled
them. From astronomy and botany one may glean
as much as from geology, while entomology, zoölogy,
and ichthyology hold untold delights for the child.
A wonderful science story is that of the coral polyp,
building from some submerged cliff or crag until a little
island rises above the blue water. In my own childhood
it meant as much as ever a fairy tale meant, and
I can still feel the pleasure I experienced the first time I
heard it. It is full of mystery and wonder, and a story
of rare beauty for the child. I have used it often in
story-telling, and it never fails to bring enthusiastic
response; and very popular with the children is this
song of the insect builders, of which I do not know
the authorship, but which is one of the fragrant memories
of my childhood:
Far down in the depths of the deep blue sea,
An insect train works ceaselessly;
Moment by moment and day by day,
Never stopping to rest or play,
Rock upon rock they are rearing high,
Till the top looks out on the sunny sky:
The gentle winds and the balmy air
Little by little bring verdure there,
Till the summer sunbeams gayly smile
On the birds and flowers of the little isle.
Older children enjoy hearing about the different
forms of coral, of the characteristics of that of the
Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, and of the
Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic. They enjoy, too,
hearing about the coral industry, of the fishing for it
along the shores of Africa, of the departure of the
seekers from Sicily, of the Feast of the Coral Fishers
that is such a picturesque feature of the island life, of
the polishing and carving and preparing the product
for trade; they like the legend the southern Italians
tell of how the first medallion in Sicily was made as
an offering of gratitude by a fisher lad to the young
Princess of Naples. From beginning to end the coral
story is a narrative that charms the child, and it is
but one of the forms of sea life, which holds rich opportunities
for the narrator, while sea life is but one of
the fields of science from which he can glean with splendid
results. In fact, the possibilities for story work
in the teaching of science are almost beyond imagining
until one begins to survey the field and enumerate
sources of material, and the story-teller will be restricted
in it only by her ability to organize material
and present it to the children in story form.
Sometimes writers, thinking they will make nature
stories more enjoyable to boys and girls, people them
with supernatural folk who are supposed to be responsible
for the marvels that occur in them. It is
a practice that scientists decry, and it is condemned by
all who believe that a story fit to give to children
must be worthy of the name of literature, and consequently,
whether fact or fiction, must be true in
spirit. The tale that portrays a fairy up in the sky
keeping the planets in motion like so many checkers
on a board, or one in which enchanted creatures bury
their beads in the ground, causing them to send up
roses and lilies and other beautiful blossoms, is not a
nature story. It may be a charming fanciful tale,
but it should not be given to teach the truths of
science. Science stories, like Bible stories, need no
sugar coating to make them attractive. When given
as stories, and not as a string of facts, they are full of
suspense, and accounts of actual happenings in star
land, under the waves, or deep in the earth are as
fascinating to the child as the fancied ones of nature’s
forces were to primitive man in the forest, when he
crept close to the tribal story-teller and in big-eyed,
wondering awe sought to know the meaning of the great
globule that gleamed in the sky by day and the numberless
tiny ones that gleamed there by night. The primitive
animal tale, which gives early man’s belief as to
how certain creatures came by their characteristics,
is very interesting to the child, and while in a broader
sense it belongs to the field of geography, my own
experience has been that if told in connection with
animals or flowers studied, it is received with enthusiasm
by boys and girls. But the child should understand
that these narratives are primitive man’s conception,
and that the science stories are the real “why”
and “how” stories.
Out in the heart of the Pacific, far out where the blue
waves roll their shining masses between Samoa and the Australian
mainland, where the brown-skinned islanders and the
white-winged sea birds seem always happy, a little animal
floated around one day, floated from among the shoals of
Tutuila toward the open sea. It was a tiny creature, and
as curious as it was tiny, for it looked more like a spot of
clear jelly than anything else, and its name was Polyp.
Quite lazily it floated about in the water, now under a
stretch of seaweed, all purple and opalescent like ropes of
wonderful colors, now through the clear, bright current
past the gaping mouth of a shark. But the shark, although
always on the watch for something to devour, did not get
the little polyp, and soon it came to a submerged rock deep
under the waves. This seemed a very good resting place,
and there the polyp stayed.
Days passed, weeks lengthened into months, and still
the polyp kept to its place on the under-sea rock. But it
was not drowsing and sleeping like a lazy creature. It was
busily at work, for the very minute it landed on the rock
it decided to make a house.
Now you must not think that it could not work, because,
although it did look like a drop of jelly and was small and
curious, it was alive. It had arms, very, very tiny arms,
finer than the finest silk thread in your mother’s workbasket,
and so thin and delicate looking that nobody could see them.
But those arms were stronger than they looked, and with
them it held on to the rock tight and fast.
Then, what a queer house-making! The little, jellylike
body began to swell. It raised itself up in the shape of a
tube, and around the edge of the tube came a little rim.
This rim was the beginning of the house of the polyp.
The waves rolled on. The sun beat down brightly and
hotly as it always beats down in the South Sea country,
and then came another change. A knot rose in the middle
of the jelly, and out of that knot reached a mouth and feelers.
Now the work began in earnest. The polyp began to eat,
to eat as greedily as a boy who has had not a bit for a whole
day. It took in chalk and phosphorus from the sea food
that came its way, yet it seemed never to get enough, and
all the while the little feelers kept reaching out for more
food and pouring it into the open mouth. As it ate, the
chalk it took in piled around the little rim, which I told you
was the beginning of the house, and although the polyp
wanted much to hold some of that nice chalk food in its mouth
long enough to get the full taste, it could not. The white
substance went right down and piled up on the rim; so it
is no wonder that the little creature was always hungry.
Well, it ate and it ate. The rim kept growing and growing,
as of course it must with so much chalk piling up on it,
and as the house grew higher and higher the polyp kept
moving to the top. The part below was hard and white
like stone, and still the polyp kept eating, eating, and building,
building.
For a long time it kept on, until finally it died. Then
one day another drop of living jelly floated that way, and
finding the chalk house of the other polyp, stopped there and
began building on top of it. The waves rolled on. The
sun shone, and all the while the house went steadily higher.
Other polyps too came and began building beside and above
it, and as they died they left their hard, white homes behind
them as the first polyp had done. Others and still others
came, until, as many, many years passed, the chalk houses
reached the top of the water and men called them an
island.
The waves rolled by. Seaweed drifted that way and
lodged itself on the chalk reefs. It decayed and turned to
soil. Sometimes the water and sometimes the wind brought
bits of plant and seed from some other older islands, until
at last there were flowers and trees and birds singing in the
branches.
Now the ships of the world sail by, going toward China
or Australia or to the American shores far, far away,
and sometimes they stop at the little island, and sometimes
those on board rest there among the palms and think it so
delightful a land that they wish they never had to go away,
but might stay there always and always. Yet but for a
wee, curious sea creature that island would not be, for it
had its beginning in a tiny animal, more like a drop of
jelly than anything else, that floated one day between Samoa
and the Australian mainland, and made its house upon a
bit of submerged rock.
Beard, James Carter: Humor in Animals.
Bergen, Fanny Dickerson: Plant Work.
Burroughs, John: Squirrels and Other Fur-bearers.
Collins, Archie Frederick: The Book of Stars.
Comstock, John Henry: Insect Life.
Du Chaillu, Paul B.: The World of the Great Forest.
Fabre, Henri: Insect Adventures; The Life of a Fly; The Hunting
Wasps; The Mason Bees; The Life of a Caterpillar.
Frye, Alexis Everett: Brooks and Brook Basins.
Grinnell, Joseph and Elizabeth: Birds of Song and Story.
Grinnell, Morton: Neighbors of Field, Wood, and Stream.
Groos, Karl: The Play of Animals.
Hawkes, Clarence: Shovelhorns: The Biography of a Moose.
Holder, Charles F.: Stories of Animal Life.
Ingersoll, Ernest: Wild Life of Orchard and Field.
Jordan, David Starr: Science Sketches.
Lea, John: The Romance of Bird Life.
Miles, Alfred H.: Animal Anecdotes.
Miller, Ellen R.: Butterfly and Moth Book.
Morley, Margaret W.: Butterflies and Bees.
Porter, Gene Stratton: Moths of the Limberlost.
Porter, Jermain G.: Stars in Song and Legend.
Roberts, Charles G. D.: Earth’s Enigmas; Haunters of the Silences;
Kindred of the Wild; Kings in Exile.
Thompson, Jeanette May: Water Wonders Every Child Should
Know.
People are likely to smile when a story-telling
enthusiast suggests that his art will intensify the
interest in manual training and domestic science, but
a little investigation usually convinces them that this
contention is not merely a wild theory. Cooking and
sewing and wood, metal, and leather working each has
an interesting story, and through understanding how
these crafts originated and how they have developed
with the progress of the race, he comes to have an
appreciation of their true dignity and value. In a
broad sense these tales belong to the field of history
and geography, for domestic science and manual training
have a background in history and present-day
geography. But since the school gives them as separate
subjects, a consideration of story materials touching
them will be valuable to teachers of these subjects.
It is a far cry from the first roast meat of primitive
man, discovered by accident to be more delectable
than that untouched by heat, to the banquet of the
twentieth-century gourmet, but they are chapters of
the same tale, each intervening portion of which is
interesting. There seems to be no relation between the
grass skirt of the prehistoric belle and the creations of
Worth or Paquin, but they are links in the same chain,
beads strung upon the same thread, as are the rush
mats of the cave woman and the rugs of Teheran.
There are dozens of stories to give to girls that will
increase their interest and delight in household crafts.
Tales of the lace makers of Italy and Spain, of medieval
tapestry weavers, of dower chests of European peasant
maids, the contents of which pass from generation to
generation, of royal costumers and court tailors, their
problems, patience, and artistry, all tend to give a
touch of romance to something many girls are inclined
to hold in contempt. They enjoy hearing about cookery
in foreign lands, of ways of serving meals that are
very different from our own, and no one is more amused
by Lamb’s “Dissertation on Roast Pig” than she who
deals with problems of roasting and baking.
Domestic-science girls who are told something of the
legends clustering around various foodstuffs enjoy the
cooking class more than those who hear nothing but
lectures on chemistry, dietetics, and comparative nutritive
values, and they take more pleasure in preparing
a meal because they know stories about the various
dishes that comprise that meal.
This is no unproved theory, but one that has been
tried successfully with a group of fourteen-year-old
girls, who took keener delight in bread making after
being told of the bakers of Nuremberg and who brewed
coffee with more interest when they knew the tale of
how Arabians discovered the use of coffee.
There are stories of wood, metal, and leather workers
that should be given to every boy, not only because
they throw new light upon what he is doing and add
interest to it, but because they lead him to respect
those who toil with their hands. Stories of medieval
carving, of house building in different lands and ages,
now of the brush hut of the Australian aborigine, now
of the workmanship in the palace of a sultan or czar;
of the poet craftsmen of Nuremberg, of the pottery
making of the Aztecs, of the building of Venice upon
piles hewn from Tyrolean forests, these and dozens of
kindred subjects are rich in materials that will give
children pleasure and knowledge. To the boy or girl
who loves the work in manual training and domestic
science they bring additional pleasure, while in the indifferent
they awaken interest; and, moreover, the
snobbish child who is inclined to think handcraft beneath
his respect, will be led to see that the carpenter
who strives to make each effort more worthy than the
preceding one, or the housewife who puts the best of
herself into the preparation of a meal, is in the same
class with Phidias or Shakespeare in earnestness of
purpose, even though not in results, and is as deserving
of honor. The first step toward success with these
branches is to dignify them in the eyes of children, and
nothing accomplishes this as effectually and rapidly as
the story. To know that the crafts were worthy of
the best efforts of those of other times and lands is to
make them feel they are worthy also of their best
effort.
There is another reason why these stories should be
told. In the midst of the agitation in favor of vocational
training, the force of which is sweeping away and
modifying some of the old educational standards, there
is danger that in catering to the demand for the practical
in schools we neglect that which conduces to
dreams and ideals.
A man may advance beyond the ranks of a journeyman
joiner and make a good living if he has no thought
beyond the work of each day as it dawns, but without
vision he cannot become the master builder, and
romance is the corner stone upon which the temple of
vision stands. The palaces of old Hellas were built to
strains of music, for the beauty-loving Greeks knew
that melody gave men lofty thoughts, and believed
work performed to its accompaniment would be of
higher order than that performed without it. Bands
were hired to play as the toilers worked, and boys who
were to become builders were inspired to emulate the
efforts of great craftsmen by being told stories of their
achievement. In our day we cannot expect the state
to provide bands and symphony orchestras to inspire
toilers, but during the days of their apprenticeship we
can give them tales that will have a tendency to glorify
their chosen craft. We can cause them to feel that
only the best efforts of hand and brain are fit to go into
this craft, because it is a monument to the memory of
those who lived and died in its ranks, and that every
worthy effort of each succeeding toiler helps to make
that monument nobler and more enduring.
Retold from an Arabian Folk Tale
The dervish Hadji Omar was a fortunate man. No one
of his day was so well versed in lore of the ancients and in
the knowledge of his own time, no one was so highly esteemed
by his people or so loved and trusted by the caliph. At
every royal banquet he sat in a seat of honor, and whenever
he went through the streets of Mocha the populace shouted,
“Hail, Omar!”
But there came a time when the fortunes of the dervish
changed. One afternoon as he sat in the court garden he
heard a conversation that dismayed him. Beyond the palm
trees that screened him from their sight, the caliph and his
council were planning how to defraud the common people
and enrich themselves. Hadji Omar listened, grieved, and
that night went to his friend, told what he had heard, and
tried to dissuade him from a course of dishonor.
Then the caliph forgot all the happy hours he had spent
with the dervish, forgot that he had loved him even as a
brother, and remembered only that the dervish was trying
to interfere in his plan. He flew into a rage and declared
that Omar should be exiled from Mocha, and that a price
would be upon his head should he ever return. Never again
should he sit at the royal banquet table. Never again should
he pass through the streets amid cries and calls of endearment.
He should live in the wilds like a hunted creature
and get his food as the birds of the field get theirs.
So out from the city that he loved went the wise and
righteous dervish. He took the camel trail into the desert,
and after a time came to an oasis where he stayed. A
miserable existence he had there, because few food plants
grew in the spot. Sometimes a caravan came by, and a
merchant or camel driver pitied him and gave him dates or
milk. But sometimes he had nothing to eat, and always
his meals were so scanty that he grew thin and weak and
haggard.
One day—he had been a long time without food and was
faint from hunger—he found some berries growing on a
tree beside a spring. They were so bitter that he could
not eat them; so he tried the experiment of roasting them
over the coals. This made them more palatable, but still
they were viciously hard. Hadji Omar was so hungry that
he was willing to do any amount of work to get food; so he
boiled the berries, hoping they would soften. Still they
were hard, but he managed to eat a few of them and drank
of the water. His hunger and fatigue seemed gone, and he
realized he had made a great discovery.
Hastening back to the city, he told the guard his story
and was allowed to go into the presence of the caliph. There
he produced some of the roasted berries, which were boiled
according to his direction, and the governor and council
drank of the water. They pronounced it a kingly beverage,
and the decree went forth that Hadji Omar was to go free.
Thereafter he lived with the caliph, who loved and trusted
him as before and led a more exemplary life because of the
influence of the goodly dervish.
Hadji Omar was honored during his remaining years, and
after his death was revered as a saint, not only because he
was wise and righteous, but because he discovered to Arabia
the beverage of the coffee berry.
Clinch, George: English Costume from Prehistoric Times to the End
of the Eighteenth Century.
Goldenberg, Samuel L.: Lace, Its Origin and History.
Knight, James: Food and Its Functions.
Lowes, Emily Leigh: Chats on Old Lace and Needlework.
Morse, Frances Clary: Furniture of the Olden Time.
Norton, Edith Eliza: Rugs in their Native Land.
Planché, James Robinson: History of British Costume.
Ransom, Caroline Louise: Studies in Ancient Furniture.
Singleton, Esther: Furniture of Our Forefathers.
Stories of the Ancient World Retold from St. Nicholas (Clothing).
And now arises the question, Does all this effort on
the part of the story-teller pay? Is it worth the
labor required for the domestic-science supervisor, the
manual-arts director, the music, literature, geography,
or history teacher, to prepare stories that touch upon
his work? That question can best be answered by
estimating results.
As stated in the opening chapter of Part One, story-telling
can simplify the entire education problem. It
will create noble ideas in boys and girls of today just
as it created ideals and established standards in those
of the past. It will arouse an ambition to live and to
achieve so that they may be worthy of the emulation
of children of the future even as they emulate the
heroes of days gone by. In no other way can such
deep desire be awakened as through story hearing and
reading. In no other way do children realize so completely
the truth of Longfellow’s words:
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Yet in many homes story-telling is almost unknown
because the mother does not deem it of sufficient value
to make some sacrifice of her time and provide for it.
She does not know that the story-telling mothers of
the past have been those whose children have risen
up and called them blessed; that the confidence of
their boys and girls, won around the fireside as old-time
tales were told, has been held unshaken to the
end.
The force that in the long ago moved men to great
achievement has lost none of its power. Twentieth-century
children respond to stories as eagerly as did
boys and girls by the sea of Hellas when Greece was
young, as they did in medieval castle hall to the
strains of minnesinger and harper, because child
nature does not change. The story hour in the home
is a formidable rival of the street and the nickelodeon,
and the teacher whose fund of tales is large and who
tells them joyously has little trouble with discipline.
Her charges know that she holds the key to Magic
Land, and that if they are good she will open the gate.
They remember her with affection, and best of all
remember the dreams that came into being under her
spell. She is queen of her little realm through the
royal right of the minstrel, and no pretender can dislodge
her from her throne in the hearts that she has
won.
Yet some school officials, men of education and
refinement, regard story-telling as a very good means
of entertainment, but unworthy of a place in the curriculum,
and when urged to include it ask, “Does it
pay?”
If it is worth anything to make formal schoolroom
subjects joyous instead of boresome, then story-telling
pays; if it is necessary to give the child something
that will be a perennial rainbow in his soul, something
that will keep him sweet and full of faith and
hope when disappointments come and illusions go,
that will cause him to laugh at age even in the time of
white hairs and wrinkles, then story-telling is vitally
necessary. He cannot grow bitter who possesses
Aladdin’s lamp. Dark skies may lower over his head
and the thunder crash ominously about him, but if
the seeds of romance have been planted in his soul, if
poesy has been nurtured into flower there by the world’s
best stories heard in his youth, he will retain, even in
the midst of blackness and tempest, a vision of turquoise
skies behind the clouds, a dream of sun-kissed
fields where grow everlasting flowers of fragrance and
beauty.
Is the reward to the worker not worth the price?
One guerdon lies in the thought that he who joins the
ranks of story-tellers becomes a member of a glorious
company, one with which the greatest souls of the
world were not unwilling to be identified. Goethe
never felt it beneath his dignity to gather a group of
children about him and delight them with a tale, and
nothing speaks more eloquently of the sweetness of
Verdi’s nature than one of his letters to his librettist
that relates how, in his visits back to the hill town
where he was born, it gladdened him to see gamins
swarm from every quarter, exclaiming, “Una favola,
signor, una favola!”
“He is a happy man,” says Châteaubriand, “who
keeps through a turbulent lifetime the heart of a child,
who carries with him to the end of his journey some of
the illusions stored up in his youth, for contact with
envy and calumny and deception are apt to cause them
to take flight.” The author of Faust and the creator
of Otello each had his share of brushing against the
things that make men bitter. They had sounded the
depths of discouragement and disappointment, yet
they had the hearts of children, and who knows but
that telling stories to children had something to do
with keeping them young? During Verdi’s period of
struggle and heartbreak, when Milan jeered at his
compositions and critics declared him a man of no
talent, when obstacles piled so high it seemed beyond
mortal power to remove them, when no one in the city
but himself and his wife believed in him, instead of
becoming sour and worthless, as any but a granitic
nature like his would have done, he returned to his
native highlands and told stories to children who
thought him more wonderful than a king; then he went
back to his labor strong and fit. Forgetting himself in
delighting the village bambinos bolstered up his courage
and his faith and helped to make him an exuberant
giver. Perhaps the present-day story-teller, like that
master at Roncone, if he approach his work reverently
and keep in mind a thought of what it has meant to
the world, may receive as much as he gives.
(Alsatian Folk Tale—Christmas Story—Ethics, teaching
honesty)
The man in the moon was once a merry peasant, who
ever so long ago lived quite amicably with his good wife
and children, and had a hut with a wooden floor and a roof
whose thatch was as thick as any in the village. Always
there was plenty of black bread and goat’s milk, and sometimes
on Sundays or holidays the family felt rich enough to
afford a bit of pork. But one Holy Night that peasant
turned dishonest, and then something happened.
“What shall we have for the Christmas feast?” asked
his wife, who was fat and jolly. “Shall it be our good rye
bread and a fine joint of meat?”
“To be sure,” the merry husband answered, “but that is
not enough. There shall be cabbage too.”
At his words the wife opened her mouth so wide that it
looked like a big round window in her face.
“Cabbage!” she gasped. “Pray, how can that be,
since we have not a leaf in the hut?”
The peasant nodded in a knowing way and answered,
“To be sure, there is none there now, but there will be by
and by.”
Then he held his tongue as if he thought it unwise to talk
too freely to a woman, took a basket, and went out of the
door. His wife was much excited. She was sure he had
some secret message from the fairies, for it was in that far-away
time when strange and marvelous things happened.
Down along the road the peasant hurried, smiling like a
village maiden on the way to meet her sweetheart at the fair.
Everywhere lights gleamed from the windows, and he laughed
at the sight of them, for he knew people were inside, thinking
of the feast and the Holy Night.
“Which makes it safe for me,” he murmured. On and
on he went, never stopping until he came to a cabbage
patch, the largest and finest in the village. They were
bigger than his head, those cabbages, and every one of
them belonged to the mayor.
“But some shall go into my good wife’s pot,” he laughed
as he saw them, and climbing the fence he went into the
patch and began to help himself.
Then suddenly along the road came a child on a snow-white
horse. He rode as if nothing could halt him, but
seeing the man in the patch, he stopped and shouted, “What
are you doing?” The peasant looked to right and left and
began to stammer, “Just b-b-b-borrowing some of the
m-m-m-mayor’s cabbages,” he replied, as he threw a plump
one into his basket.
The clear, strong tones rang out again, “You steal, and
on the Holy Night too! So you and your basket shall go
to the moon.”
Then, whisk! Up the peasant started and never stopped
until he came to the middle of the moon, and there he has
stayed ever since. Whether or not he ate the cabbages, no
one knows, but he and his basket are there to this day,
and every night when the moon is full you may see them.
(Thuringian Folk Tale—Ethics, teaching contentment)
Ever so long ago, in the time when there were fairies, and
men and animals talked together, there was a curly-tailed
pig. He lived by himself in a house at the edge of the
village, and every day he worked in his garden. Whether
the sun shone or the rain fell he hoed and dug and weeded,
turning the earth around his tomato vines and loosening
the soil of the carrot plot, until word of his fine vegetables
traveled through seven counties, and each year he won the
royal prize at the fair.
But after a time that little pig grew tired of the endless toil.
“What matters it if I do have the finest vegetables in
the kingdom,” he thought, “since I must work myself to
death getting them to grow? I mean to go out and see the
world and find an easier way of making a living.”
So he locked the door of his house and shut the gate of
his garden and started down the road.
A good three miles he traveled, till he came to a cottage
almost hidden in a grove of trees. Lovely music sounded
around him and Little Pig smiled, for he had an ear for
sweet sounds.
“I will go look for it,” he said, following in the direction
from which it seemed to come.
Now it happened that in that house dwelt Thomas, a cat,
who made his living playing on the violin. Little Pig saw
him standing in the door pushing the bow up and down
across the strings. It put a thought into his head. Surely
this must be easier and far more pleasant than digging in a
garden!
“Will you teach me to play the violin, friend cat?” he
asked.
Thomas looked up from his bow and nodded his head.
“To be sure,” he answered; “just do as I am doing.”
And he gave him the bow and fiddle.
Little Pig took them and began to saw, but squeak!
quang! No sweet music fell upon his ear. The sounds he
heard were like the squealing of his baby brother pigs when
a wolf came near them.
“Oh!” he cried; “this isn’t music!”
Thomas, the cat, nodded his head.
“Of course not,” he said. “You haven’t tried long enough.
He who would play the violin must work.”
“Then I think I’ll look for something else,” Piggywig
answered, “because this is quite as hard as weeding my
garden.”
And he gave back the bow and fiddle and started down
the road.
He walked on and on, until he came to a hut where lived
a dog who made cheese. He was kneading and molding
the curd into cakes, and Little Pig thought it looked quite
easy.
“I think I’d like to go into the cheese business myself,”
he said to himself. So he asked the dog if he would teach
him.
This the dog was quite willing to do, and a moment later
Little Pig was working beside him.
Soon he grew hot and tired and stopped to rest and fan
himself.
“No, no!” exclaimed the dog, “you will spoil the cheese.
There can be no rest time until the work is done.”
Little Pig opened his eyes in amazement.
“Indeed!” he replied. “Then this is just as hard as
growing vegetables or learning to play a violin. I mean to
look for something easier.”
And he started down the road.
On the other side of the river, in a sweet green field, a
man was taking honey out of beehives. Little Pig saw him
as he crossed the bridge and thought that of all the trades
he had seen, this suited him best. It must be lovely there
in the meadow among the flowers. Honey was not heavy
to lift, and once in a while he could have a mouthful of it.
He ran as fast as he could go to ask the man if he would
take him into his employ.
This plan pleased the bee man as much as it pleased the
pig.
“I’ve been looking for a helper for a year and a day,”
he said. “Begin work at once.”
He gave Little Pig a veil and a pair of gloves, telling him
to fasten them on well. Then he told him to lift a honeycomb
out of a hive.
Little Pig ran to do it, twisting his curly tail in the joy
of having at last found a business that suited him. But
buzz, buzz! The bees crept under his veil and inside his
gloves. They stung him on his fingers, his mouth, his ears,
and the end of his nose, and he squealed and dropped the
honey and ran.
“Come back, come back!” the man called.
“No, no!” Little Pig answered with a big squeal. “No,
no, the bees hurt me!”
The man nodded his head.
“Of course they do,” he said. “They hurt me too!
That is part of the work. You cannot be a beekeeper without
getting stung.”
Little Pig blinked his beady eyes and began to think hard.
“It seems that every kind of work has something unpleasant
about it. To play the violin you must practice
until your arm aches. When you make cheese you dare
not stop a minute until the work is done, and in taking
honey from a hive the bees sting you until your head is on
fire. Work in my garden is not so bad after all, and I am
going back to it.”
So he said good-by to the bee man and was soon back in
his carrot patch. He hoed and raked and weeded, singing
as he worked, and there was no more contented pig in all
that kingdom. Every autumn he took his vegetables to
the fair and brought home the royal prize, and sometimes,
on holidays, the cat and the dog and the bee man came to
call.
(Old Bavarian Folk Tale—Helpful in Nature Study)
Once upon a time a strange thing happened. A cormorant,
a bat, and a bramble met at the mouth of the river Elbe
one day and told a sorrowful story. Each was almost bankrupt;
so they decided to postpone paying their debts, put
their remaining possessions together, and share in the consequent
weal or woe.
They bought a merchant vessel, a ship large and strong,
and so seaworthy it seemed it could sail to the nethermost
parts of the Spanish Main. Wool was precious then as
now, and in a country far away a hundredweight of sheep’s
fleece brought many a gold doubloon. So they freighted
the vessel with the best wool that was to be had and joyfully
watched the white sails disappear in the pearl-gray
mist. But a storm arose and angry winds dashed their
galleon against demon-like rocks. Instead of reaching a
distant land of gold doubloons the ship went to Davy
Jones’s locker, and her precious cargo made couches for the
mermaids.
Then sad indeed was the plight of these partners on the
North Sea shore! Bailiffs began to sue them for payment
of their debts, and ever since that time the bat has flown
by night, for in no other way can he avoid his creditors.
The cormorant, a solitary black figure, still broods beside
the waves and dives into the sea, hoping to retrieve his
shattered fortune, while the bramble has turned thief.
Whenever a sheep goes by, he seizes a bit of the fleece, trying
in this way to make up for the loss of the wool that went
to the bottom of the Spanish Main instead of bringing him
the gold of which he had dreamed.
Retold from Grimm
(Wonder Tale)
In olden times there lived a king and queen, who lamented
day by day that they had no children; and yet never a one
was born. One day, as the queen was bathing and thinking
of her wishes, a frog skipped out of the water and said to
her: “Your wish shall be fulfilled. Before a year passes
you shall have a daughter.”
As the frog had said, so it happened, and a little girl was
born who was so beautiful that the king almost lost his
senses; but he ordered a great feast to be held, and invited
to it not only his relatives, friends, and acquaintances, but
also all the wise women who were kind and affectionate to
children. There happened to be thirteen in his dominions,
but since he had only twelve golden plates out of which
they could eat, one had to stay at home. The feast was
celebrated with all the magnificence possible, and, as soon
as it was over, the wise women presented the infant with
their wonderful gifts: one with virtue, another with beauty,
a third with riches, and so on, so that the child had everything
that is to be desired in the world. Just as eleven
had given their presents, the thirteenth old lady stepped in
suddenly. She was in a tremendous passion because she
had not been invited, and, without greeting any one or looking
at any one, she exclaimed loudly, “The princess shall
prick herself with a spindle on her fifteenth birthday and
shall die!” and without a word further she turned her back
and left the hall. All were terrified, but the twelfth fairy,
who had not yet given her wish, then stepped up. Because
she could not take away the evil wish, but could only soften
it, she said, “She shall not die, but shall fall into a sleep of
a hundred years’ duration.”
The king, who naturally wished to protect his child from
this misfortune, issued a decree commanding that every
spindle in the kingdom should be burnt. Meanwhile all
the gifts of the wise women were fulfilled, and the maiden
became so beautiful, gentle, virtuous, and clever, that
every one who saw her fell in love with her. It happened
on the day when she was just fifteen years old that the queen
and the king were not at home, and so she was left alone in
the castle. The maiden looked about in every place, going
through all the rooms and chambers just as she pleased,
until she came at last to an old tower. Up the narrow
winding staircase she tripped until she arrived at a door,
in the lock of which was a rusty key. This she turned, and
the door sprang open, and there in the little room sat an
old woman with a spindle, spinning flax.
“Good day to you,” said the princess, “what is this that
you are doing here?”
“I am spinning,” said the old woman, nodding her head.
“What thing is that which twists round so merrily?” inquired
the maiden, and she took the spindle to try her hand
at spinning. Scarcely had she done so when the prophecy
was fulfilled, for she pricked her finger; and at the very
same moment she fell back in a deep sleep upon a bed which
stood near. This sleep extended over the whole palace.
The king and queen, who had just come in, fell asleep in the
hall, and all their courtiers with them; the horses in the
stables, the doves upon the eaves, the flies upon the walls,
and even the fire upon the hearth, all ceased to stir; the
meat which was cooking ceased to frizzle; and the cook at
the instant of pulling the hair of the kitchen boy lost his
hold and began to snore, too. The wind also fell entirely,
and not a leaf rustled on the trees round the castle.
Now around the palace a thick hedge of briers began
growing, which every year grew higher and higher, till the
castle was quite hidden from view, so that one could not
even see the flag upon the tower. Then there went a legend
through the land, of the beautiful maiden Brier Rose, for
so was the sleeping princess named, and from time to time
princes came, endeavoring to penetrate through the hedge
into the castle; but it was not possible, for the thorns held
them as if by hands, and the youths were unable to release
themselves, and so perished miserably.
After the lapse of many years, there came another king’s
son into the country, and heard an old man tell the legend
of the hedge of briers; how that behind it stood a castle
where slept a wonderfully beauteous princess called Brier
Rose, who had slumbered nearly a hundred years, and with
her the queen and king and all their court. The old man
further related what he had heard from his grandfather,
that many princes had come and tried to penetrate the
hedge, and had died a miserable death. But the youth was
not to be daunted, and, however much the old man tried
to dissuade him, he would not listen, but cried out, “I fear
not, I will see this hedge of briers!”
Just at that time came the last day of the hundred years,
when Brier Rose was to wake again. As the young prince
approached the hedge, the thorns turned to fine large flowers,
which of their own accord made a way for him to pass
through, and again closed up behind him. In the courtyard
he saw the horses and dogs lying fast asleep, and on the
eaves were the doves with their heads beneath their wings.
As soon as he went into the house, there were the flies asleep
upon the wall, the cook still stood with his hands on the hair
of the kitchen boy, and the maid stood at the board with
the unplucked fowl in her hand. He went on, and in the
hall he found the courtiers lying asleep, and above, by the
throne, were the king and queen. He went on farther, and
all was so quiet that he could hear himself breathe, until
at last he came to the tower and opened the door of the
little room where slept Brier Rose. There she lay, looking
so beautiful that he could not turn away his eyes, and he
bent over her and kissed her. Just as he did so she opened
her eyes, awoke, and greeted him with smiles. Then they
went down together, and immediately the king and queen
awoke, and the whole court, and all stared at each other
wonderingly. Now the horses in the stable got up and
shook themselves; the dogs wagged their tails; the doves
upon the eaves drew their heads from under their wings,
looked around, and flew away; the flies upon the walls
began to crawl; the fire began to burn brightly and to cook
the meat; the meat began again to frizzle; the cook gave
his lad a box upon the ear which made him call out; and the
maid began to pluck the fowl furiously. The whole palace
was once more in motion as if nothing had occurred, for
the hundred years’ sleep had made no change in any one.
By and by the wedding of the prince with Brier Rose was
celebrated with great splendor, and to the end of their lives
they lived happily and contented.
Retold from Grimm
(Thuringian Wonder Tale)
There was once a king whose wife had golden hair and
was altogether so beautiful that her equal was not to be
found in the world. It happened that she fell ill, and when
she felt she must soon die she called the king and said, “If
you marry again after my death, take no one who is not as
beautiful as I have been, nor one who has not golden hair
like mine, and this you must promise me.” After the king
had promised she closed her eyes, and soon died.
For a long time the king would not be comforted and
thought not of taking a second wife, but his councillors at
last said that he must marry again. Then messengers
were sent far and wide to seek a bride who should be as
beautiful as the late queen, but there was no one to be found
in the whole world so beautiful and with such golden hair.
So the messengers returned home without accomplishing
anything.
Now the king had a daughter who was just as beautiful
as her dead mother. She had also the same golden hair, and,
as she grew up, the king saw how like she was to his lost
wife. He told his councilors that he wished to marry his
daughter to his oldest councilor, and that she should be as
queen. When the oldest councilor heard this he was delighted.
But the daughter was frightened at the resolve
of the king, and hoped yet to turn him from his intention.
So she said to him, “Before I fulfill your wish I must first
have three dresses: one as golden as the sun, another as
silver as the moon, and a third as shining as the stars;
further, I desire a cloak composed of thousands of skins
and hides, and to which every beast in your kingdom must
contribute a portion of his skin.”
The princess thought this would be impossible to do, and
so she should reclaim her father from his intention. But
the king would not give it up, and the cleverest maidens
in his kingdom had to weave the three dresses, one as golden
as the sun, a second as silver as the moon, and a third as
shining as the stars, while his huntsmen had to catch all the
beasts in the whole kingdom and from each take a piece
of skin wherewith a mantle of a thousand pieces was made.
At length, when all was ready, the king let the mantle be
fetched, and, spreading it before him, said, “Tomorrow
shall the wedding be.”
When the king’s daughter now saw that there was no hope
left of turning her father from his resolve, she determined
to flee away. In the night, while all slept, she got up and
took three of her treasures, a golden ring, a gold spinning
wheel, and a gold reel; she put also in a nutshell the three
dresses of the sun, moon, and stars, and putting on the
mantle of all skins, she dyed her hands and face black with
soot. Then, commending herself to God, she set off and
traveled the whole night till she came to a large wood, where,
feeling very tired, she took refuge in a hollow tree and went
to sleep. The sun rose, and she still slept and slept on till
it was again far into the morning. Then it happened that
the king who owned this forest came to hunt in it. As
soon as his dogs ran to the tree they snapped about it,
barked, and growled, so that the king said to his huntsmen,
“See what wild animal it is that is concealed there.” The
hunters obeyed his orders, and, when they returned, they
said, “In that hollow lies a wonderful creature whose like
we have never before seen; its skin is composed of a thousand
different colors, but it lies quite quiet and asleep.”
The king said, “Try if you can catch it alive, and then bind
it to the carriage, and we will take it with us.”
As soon as the hunters caught hold of the maiden, she
awoke full of terror, and called out to them, “I am a poor
child forsaken by both father and mother! Pray pity me,
and take me with you!” They named her “Allerleirauh,”
because of her mantle, and took her home with them to
serve in the kitchen and rake out the ashes. They went
to the royal palace, and there they showed her a little stable
under the step where no daylight could enter, and told
her she could live and sleep there. Afterwards she went
into the kitchen, and there she had to carry water and
wood to make the fire, to pluck the fowls, to peel the
vegetables, to rake out the ashes, and to do all manner of
dirty work.
Here, for a length of time, Allerleirauh lived wretchedly;
but it happened once that a feast was held in the palace,
and she asked the cook, “May I go and look on for a little
while? I will place myself just outside the door.” The
cook said, “Yes, but in half an hour’s time you must return
and rake out the ashes.”
Allerleirauh took an oil lamp, and, going to her stable,
put off the gown of skins and washed the soot from her face
and hands so that her real beauty was displayed. Then she
opened her nut and took out the dress which shone as the
sun, and as soon as she was ready she went up to the ballroom,
where every one made way for her, supposing that she
was certainly some princess. The king himself soon came
up to her, and, taking her hand, danced with her, thinking
the while in his heart that he had never seen any one like
her. As soon as the dance was finished she disappeared,
and nobody knew whither. The watchmen stationed at the
gates were called and questioned, but they had not seen
her.
She had run back to her stable and, having quickly taken
off her dress, had again blackened her face and hands, put
on the dress of all skins, and became “Allerleirauh” once
more. As soon as she went into the kitchen to do her work
in sweeping up the ashes, the cook said, “Let that be for
once till the morning, and cook the king’s supper for me instead,
while I go upstairs to have a peep; but mind you do
not let one of your hairs fall in, or you will get nothing to
eat for the future.”
So saying, he went away, and Allerleirauh cooked the
king’s supper, making some soup as good as she possibly
could, and when it was ready she went into the stable, and
fetched her gold ring, and laid it in the dish. When the
dance was at an end, the king ordered his supper to be
brought, which, when he had tasted, he thought he had
never eaten anything so nice before. Just as he nearly
finished it he saw a gold ring at the bottom, and, not being
able to imagine how it came there, he commanded the cook
to be brought before him. The cook was terrified when he
heard this order, and said to Allerleirauh, “Are you certain
you did not let a hair fall into the soup? For if it is so,
you will catch a beating.”
Then he came before the king, who asked who had cooked
the supper, and he answered, “I did.” But the king said,
“That is not true; for it is of a much better kind and much
better cooked than usual.” Then the cook said, “I must
confess that not I, but Allerleirauh, cooked it.” So that
the king commanded that she should be brought up.
When Allerleirauh came, the king asked, “Who are you?”
“I am a poor child, without father or mother,” replied
she.
“Why did you come to my palace?” then inquired the
king.
“I am good for nothing else but to have the boots thrown
at my head,” said she.
The king asked again, “Where did you get this ring,
then, which was in the soup?”
Allerleirauh said, “I know nothing of it.” And, as she
would say no more, she was at last sent away.
After a time there was another ball, and Allerleirauh
asked the cook’s permission to go again and look on, and he
consented, and told her, “Return here in half an hour to
cook the king again the same soup which he liked so much
before.”
Allerleirauh ran into the stable and, washing herself
quickly, took out of the shell the dress which was silver as
the moon, and put it on. Then she went up to the ballroom
and appeared like a princess, and the king, stepping
up to her, was very glad to see her again; and, as the dancing
had just begun, they joined it. But as soon as it was
over, his partner disappeared so quickly that the king did
not notice where she went. She ran to her stable and
changed her garments again, and then went into the kitchen
to make the soup. While the cook was upstairs, she fetched
the golden spinning wheel and put it in the tureen, so that
the soup was served up with it. Afterwards it was brought
before the king, who ate it, and found it tasted as good as
the former; and the cook was called, who was obliged to
confess again that Allerleirauh had made it. Allerleirauh
was accordingly taken before the king, but she repeated
what she had before said, that she was of no use but to have
boots thrown at her, and that she knew nothing of the gold
spinning wheel.
Not long afterwards a third feast was given by the king,
at which everything went as before. The cook said to
Allerleirauh when she asked leave to go, “You are certainly
a witch, and always put something in the soup which makes
it taste better than mine. Still, since you beg so hard, you
shall go at the usual time.” This time she put on the dress
shining as the stars, and stepped with it into the ballroom.
The king danced again with her, and thought he had never
seen any maiden so beautiful, and while the dance went on
he slipped the gold ring on to her finger without her perceiving
it and told the musicians to prolong the time. When
at last it ended, he would have kept fast hold of her hand,
but she tore herself away, and sprang so quickly in among
the people that she disappeared from his sight. Allerleirauh
ran as well as she could back to her stable; but she had stayed
over and above the half hour, and she had not time to pull
off her beautiful dress, but was obliged to throw over it her
cloak of skins. Neither did she quite finish the blacking of
her skin, but left one finger white. Then she ran into the
kitchen, cooked the soup for the king, and put in it the reel,
while the cook stayed upstairs. Afterwards, when the king
found the reel at the bottom of his soup, he summoned
Allerleirauh, and perceived at once her white finger, and the
ring which he had put on it during the dance. He took her
by the hand and held her fast, and when she tried to force
herself from him and run away, her cloak of skins fell partly
off and the starry dress was displayed to view. The king
then pulled the cloak wholly off, and down came her golden
hair, and there she stood in all her beauty, and could no
longer conceal herself. As soon, then, as the soot and
ashes were washed off her face, she stood up and appeared
more beautiful than any one could conceive possible on earth.
But the king said to her, “You are my dear bride, and we
will never separate from each other.” Thereupon was the
wedding celebrated, and they lived happily to the end of
their lives.
Retold from Grimm
(Folk Tale—Ethics, teaching kindness)
In olden times, when the good angels walked the earth in
the form of men, it happened that one of them, while he was
wandering about very tired, saw night coming upon him
before he had found a shelter. But there stood on the road
close by two houses opposite to one another, one of which
was large and handsome, while the other appeared miserably
poor. The former belonged to a rich man, and the
other to a poor man, so that the angel thought he could
lodge with the former, because it would be less burdensome
to him than to the other to entertain a guest. Accordingly
he knocked at the door, and the rich man, opening the
window, asked the stranger what he sought. The angel
replied, “I seek a night’s lodging.” Then the rich man
scanned the stranger from head to foot, and perceiving that
he wore ragged clothes, and seemed like one who had not
much money in his pocket, he shook his head and said, “I
cannot take you in; my rooms are full of herbs and seeds,
and, should I shelter every one who knocks at my door, I
might soon take the beggar’s staff into my own hand. Seek
a welcome elsewhere.”
So saying, he shut his window to, and left the good angel,
who immediately turned his back upon him and went over
to the little house. Here he had scarcely knocked, when
the door was opened and the poor man bade the wanderer
welcome, and said, “Stop here this night with me; it is
quite dark, and today you can go no farther.” This reception
pleased the angel much, and he walked in; and the wife
of the poor man also bade him welcome and, holding out
her hand, said, “Make yourself at home, and though it is
not much that we have, we will give it to you with all our
heart.” Then she placed some potatoes at the fire, and
while they roasted she milked her goat for something to
drink with them. When the table was laid, the good angel
sat down and ate with them, and the rude fare tasted good,
because they who partook of it had happy faces. After
they had finished, when bedtime came, the wife called the
husband aside and said to him, “Let us sleep tonight on
straw, my dear, that this poor wanderer may have our bed
whereon to rest himself, for he has been walking all day
long, and is doubtless very tired.”
“With all my heart,” replied her husband; “I will offer
it to him;” and, going up to the angel, he begged him, if he
pleased, to lie in their bed that he might rest his limbs
thoroughly. The good angel at first refused to take the bed
of his hosts, but at last he yielded to their entreaties and lay
down, while they made a straw couch upon the ground.
The next morning they arose early and cooked their guest a
breakfast of the best that they had, and when the sun shone
through the window he got up, too, and, after eating with
them, prepared to set out again. When he stood in the doorway
he turned round and said to his hosts, “Because you
are so compassionate and pious, you may wish three times
and I will grant, each time, what you desire.”
The poor man replied, “Ah, what else can I wish than
eternal happiness, and that we two, so long as we live, may
have health and strength and our necessary daily bread?
For the third thing I know not what to wish.”
“Will you not wish for a new house in place of this old
one?” asked the angel.
“Oh, yes!” said the man, “if I may keep on this spot, so
would it be welcome.”
Then the good angel fulfilled his wishes and changed their
old house into a new one, and, giving them once more his
blessing, went out of the house.
It was already broad daylight when the rich man arose
and, looking out of his window, saw a handsome new house
of red brick where formerly an old hut had stood. The
sight made him open his eyes, and he called his wife
up and asked, “Tell me what has happened; yesterday
evening an old, miserable hut stood opposite, and today
there is a fine new house! Run out and hear how this has
happened!”
The wife went and asked the poor man, who related that
the evening before a wanderer had come, seeking a night’s
lodging, and that in the morning he had taken his leave,
and granted them three wishes—eternal happiness, health
and food during their lives, and instead of their old hut, a
fine new house. When he had finished his tale, the wife of
the rich man ran home and told her husband all that had
passed, and he exclaimed, “Ah! had I only known it! The
stranger had been here before, and would have passed the
night with us, but I sent him away.”
“Hasten, then!” returned his wife. “Mount your horse,
and perhaps you may overtake the man, and then you must
ask three wishes for yourself also.”
The rich man followed this advice, and soon overtook the
angel. He spoke softly and glibly, begging that the angel
would not take it ill that he had not let him in at first, for
that he had gone to seek the key of the house door, and
meanwhile he had gone away, but if the angel came back
the same way he would be glad if he would call again. The
angel promised that he would come on his return, and the
rich man then asked if he might not wish thrice as his neighbor
had been allowed. “Yes,” said the angel, “you may
certainly, but it will not be good for you, and it were better
you did not wish.”
But the rich man thought he might easily obtain something
which would tend to his happiness, if he only knew
that it would be fulfilled, and so the angel at length said,
“Ride home, and the three wishes which you shall make
shall be answered.”
The rich man now had what he desired, and, as he rode
homewards, began to consider what he should wish. While
he thought he let his rein fall loose, and his horse presently
began to jump, so that he was jerked about, and so much
so that he could fix his mind on nothing. He patted his
horse on the neck, and said, “Be quiet, Bess!” but it only
began fresh friskings, so that at last he became savage, and
cried quite impatiently, “I wish you might break your
neck!” No sooner had he said so than down it fell upon
the ground and never moved again, and thus the first wish
was fulfilled. But the rich man, being covetous by nature,
would not leave the saddle behind, and so, cutting it off,
he slung it over his back and went onwards on foot. “You
still have two wishes,” thought he to himself, and so was
comforted, but as he slowly passed over the sandy common
the sun scorched him terribly, for it was midday, and he
soon became vexed and passionate; moreover, the saddle
hurt his back; and besides, he had not yet decided what to
wish for. “If I should wish for all the treasures and riches
in the world,” said he to himself, “hereafter something or
other will occur to me, I know beforehand; but I will so
manage that nothing at all shall remain for me to wish for.”
Many times he thought he knew what to wish, but soon
it appeared too little. Then it came into his thoughts how
well his wife was situated, sitting at home in a cool room,
and appropriately dressed. This idea angered him uncommonly,
and, without knowing it, he said aloud, “I wish
she were sitting upon this saddle, and could not get off it,
instead of its being slipping about on my back.”
As soon as these words were out of his mouth, the saddle
disappeared from his back, and he perceived that his second
wish had passed its fulfillment. Now he became very hot,
and began to run, intending to lock himself up in his room
and consider there something great for his last wish. But
when he arrived and opened the house door he found his
wife sitting upon the saddle in the middle of the room, and
crying and shrieking because she could not get off. So he
said to her, “Be contented; I will wish for the riches in all
the world, only keep sitting there.”
But his wife shook her head, saying, “Of what use are all
the riches of the world to me, if I sit upon this saddle?
You have wished me on it, and you must also wish me
off.”
So, whether he liked it or not, he was forced to utter his
third wish, that his wife might be freed from the saddle,
and immediately it was done. Thus the rich man gained
nothing from his wishes but vexation, trouble, scolding, and
a lost horse; but the poor people lived contented and pious
to their lives’ end.
Adapted from Story by Johanna Spyri
(Ethics—Geography)
In the mountain land of Bohemia there lived in the long
ago a miner with his wife and little daughter. They were
happy in their hut in the forest, but after a time the father
and mother died, and the child was left alone in the world.
She had no money, and no aunts or cousins to take her in,
and it seemed as if she would have to go hungry. But always
there are kindly hearts among the poor, and one of the
miners opened his house that she might have a home. He
had six children of his own and little bread and meat to spare,
but his good wife said, “We will divide what we have.”
So little Hilda became one of the family, and they grew to
love her very much.
It was midwinter, and Christmas day not far away. The
children thought of nothing but the coming of St. Nicholas,
who they hoped would not forget them on the Holy Night,
when every boy and girl in Bohemia expects a visit from
the gift bringer. But when they spoke to the miner about
it he shook his head and said, “Do not set your hearts upon
his coming. Our hut is very small and stands so far in the
forest that he may not be able to find it.”
Gretchen, his little daughter, had a very different idea.
She declared St. Nicholas could find a house in the dark if
it were no bigger than an ant hill, and went to bed to dream
of the toys and sweetmeats he would bring.
Day after day passed, and nearer, nearer came the season
of Christ’s birth. The children talked of him as they sat
by the fire at night, as they picked up dead branches in the
forest, and as they bedded the goats and shut them in, for
Bohemian mountain folk are a toiling people, and even boys
and girls must work.
At last the day before Christmas came, and in the afternoon
little Hilda started out with her basket to get some
cones. She wanted the fire to be brighter and more cheerful
than ever that night, and perhaps if she met a servant from
the castle, he might take some to feed the prince’s fire, and
give her a silver piece.
“And if he does,” she thought as she trudged on her way,
“I can buy something for the miner and his dear children.”
Now, in that land of Bohemia, on the summit of a lofty
mountain, a creature named Rübezahl made his home.
He possessed all magic powers, and was so mighty that his
sway extended to the very center of the earth. There he
had chambers of gold and silver, and diamonds and jewels
without number, and often gave of his treasures to those
who were good enough to deserve them. He could change
himself at will into any form. Now he was a bat flying in
the night, now a country swain selling his wares at the fair,
and now a woodman cutting down trees in the forest, because
thus he was able to find out who was worthy and who
unworthy, and to reward or punish them as they deserved.
Hilda had often heard of the strange ways of Rübezahl,
and wondered if he would ever cross her path.
“I suppose not,” she murmured, “because I am just a
little girl.”
As she came near the fir trees, a tiny white-haired man
walked out of the shadow. He had a long white beard and
a jolly red face, and looked as if he were the friend of children.
“What are you doing?” he called to her.
“I’ve come to gather cones,” she replied; “some for our
fire and some to sell, if the servant from the castle will only
buy.”
Then she told him of the miner’s family, of how eager she
was to get some money that she might buy a gift for his children,
and of her hope that St. Nicholas would not forget
them on the Holy Night.
The little old man seemed much interested, and when she
finished her story he said, “The largest cones are on that
tree. If you hope to sell, gather the best ones.”
He pointed to a great, dark fir just beyond them, and
then went back into the shadows of the forest.
Little Hilda thanked him and ran to the spot. She could
see the cones like beehives on the branches, and just as she
came under them there was such a downfall of beautiful
brown things it frightened her and she began to run. But
thinking of what she could do with such big ones, she went
back, filled her basket, and started homeward.
It was very heavy, and the farther she went the heavier it
grew.
“I’ll have to ask little Gretchen to help me take it up
the hill path to the castle,” she thought. But by the time
she reached the hut it had become such a load she could
not move it, and the miner had to carry it in himself.
“They are lovely big ones and of a beautiful brown
color,” she said as the children crowded around to see.
But when they looked at the basket again, they saw no
brown at all. Instead there was a gleam brighter than that
of the moonbeams through the fir trees, for a wonderful
thing had happened. In the twinkling of an eye every one
of those cones had turned into shining silver, which sparkled
and glistened so that they dazzled the eyes.
Then the little girl remembered the old man in the forest
and told the miner about him.
He nodded his head in a knowing way and said, “Surely
it was Rübezahl, and he has rewarded you for being sweet
and gentle.”
All of which seemed like a dream to little Hilda, but
when she looked into the basket she knew it was true. And
so knew all the other mountain folk, when the stars of the
Holy Night shone out and the children went from door to
door distributing silver cones. The good folk who gave
her a home received so many that never again were they
poor. They built a fine house with a porch and twenty
windows, and were as rich as any one in Bohemia.
To make things lovelier still, St. Nicholas found the hut,
just as Gretchen had said he would, and left some sweets
and toys for the children. He laughed loud and long when
he saw the shining cones, for he had heard all about it from
Rübezahl himself.
This all happened very, very long ago, in the time so far
away that even the oldest grandmother cannot remember
the Holy Night when Hilda gave precious gifts to the miners;
but the story has come down from the fathers and the fathers’
fathers, and that is why, even to this day, the mountain folk
of Bohemia still deck their Christmas trees with silvered
cones.
Adapted from Version by Hoffman von
Fallersleben
(Thuringian Folk Tale—Helpful in Nature Study)
In the beginning of things, when God the Father created
every beast of the forest and every bird and tree and blossom,
he gave each one a name, and the snowdrop, the lily, the
pansy, the violet, and all the other flower sisterhood rejoiced
and were glad, for each thought its own name the
loveliest in the world. Everywhere in field and woodland
there was happiness, and the blossoms lifted their faces
toward heaven in gratitude, thanking the Gracious Giver.
But suddenly there was a sound of weeping. Somewhere
in the meadow a flower had raised its voice in sorrow, and
all the other flowers looked to see. At first they could not
tell whence the sound came, then they beheld a tiny blossom,
with petals the color of heaven and a heart the color of gold.
It was sobbing bitterly, and the lily, looking down in pity,
asked, “Why weepest thou?”
“Alas,” came the reply, “I have forgotten my name.”
Then—wonderful sound—the primrose and the violet and
the pansy heard the voice of God the Father, for although
the blossom was very tiny and half hidden by the grasses of
the field, He heard and saw and knew.
“Forgotten your name?” He spake in tones that were
sweet and tender. “Then shalt thou be called ‘Forget-me-not,’
for that thou canst always remember.”
“Forget-me-not,” repeated the gorgeous rose and the
modest violet, and the tiny one smiled through its tears and
said, “Forget-me-not.”
And ever since that day at creation time, when God the
Father named every beast of the forest and every bird and
flower and tree, the wee blossom whose petals are the color
of heaven and whose heart is the color of gold, has been called
“Forget-me-not.”
(Thuringian Folk Tale—Nature Study)
Once upon a time, say the peasants of the Rhineland, a
woodman lived with his wife and two daughters in a little
hut in the forest. They were very poor, but what mattered
that, since they were very happy?
They had five chairs,—one apiece, and one for company,—clean,
sweet feather beds to keep them warm at night, a
bit of soup to eat with their black bread, and once each year
they went to the fair.
But after a time the mother died, and things were different.
The father took another wife, who had two children of her
own, and she was very unkind to her husband’s little
daughters. She forced them to do all the work, and if the
poor woodman so much as opened his mouth to object, she
beat him with her slipper. You will know how greedy she
was when I tell you that she took two of the fine wood chairs
for her own children and kept two for herself, and you remember
there were only five in the hut. That left one for
the husband and his daughters, and as the father was kind
and good, he let them have it all to themselves and patiently
stood while he ate his meals.
For a long time that greedy little stepmother ruled her
husband and his children with an iron hand, while her own
daughters acted like spoiled princesses, until one night something
happened. The hut and the family disappeared.
Just how it came to pass, nobody knows, but the next morning
the other woodmen found a little flower growing where
the house had stood, and they knew that a fairy or witch or
something had turned the family into the blossom which
you may see almost any summer day. The greedy stepmother
still sits on her two chairs, with her children on each
side of her holding a chair apiece. The woodman’s little
daughters are crowded together on one, just as they were in
the hut. And what of the poor henpecked husband, who
did not dare to object to anything his spouse chose to do?
Look in the center, right under her slipper, and you will
find what most people say is the pistil. But the peasants
of the Rhineland know better. It is the woodman, who
once upon a time lived in the hut in the forest, and the flower
you call the pansy is to them “The Little Stepmother.”
(Bavarian Folk Tale)
Once, in the German land of Bavaria, there was a mother
who was very poor. She was sad as Easter time drew near,
for it was the custom in that land to give presents then just
as we do at Christmas, and she had nothing for her children.
She grieved about it day and night, and one day was so unhappy
over it that she wept.
“Never fear,” the old grandmother said, “the hens are
laying well, and I know how to make beautiful dyes from
moss and leaves. We can color some eggs for Hans and
Annchen, and they will be happy.”
This was a lovely thought to the poor mother, and she
went to work. Soon she had beautiful red, blue, yellow,
purple, and orange eggs, and when Easter morning came
she and the grandmother hid them in a nest in the woods.
It was a lovely spot, with a thick carpet of moss underfoot
and the snowy blossoms of the wild plum overhead.
Then they all went to the tiny chapel that stood at the
other side of the village, to listen to the music and hear the
good pastor tell the story of Easter day, after which they
walked home by the woodland path.
Little Hans and Annchen were running ahead of the others,
and all at once they called, “Oh, Mother, Grandmother,
come!”
The good mother said, “They must have found the eggs,”
and hurried to see.
Yes, there the children knelt, bending over the nest of
eggs lovelier than they had ever seen.
“They are beautiful, Mother!” exclaimed Hans. “See,
they look like hen’s eggs, yet they are every color, like the
rainbow. How did they get here in the woods?”
“I know,” cried little Annchen. “A fairy bird laid them.”
Just then a rabbit leaped out of some tall grass behind
the nest, and hopped away into the forest.
The children screamed with delight. “The rabbit laid
the eggs! The rabbit laid the eggs!” they shouted.
And ever since that time Bavarian children have played
that rabbits lay Easter eggs.
Adapted from Story by Canon Schmidt
(Ethics)
During the days of the Crusades a little village stood in the
heart of a little valley. The people living there were very
poor, but so good and gentle that despite their poverty they
were happier than many of the great folk of the realm. They
had none of the cares that trouble the rich. Their rude
black huts, each with its tiny garden plot and bit of meadow
land where they pastured the cow or goats, satisfied them
because they knew nothing else, and they lived so simply
and healthfully that there were men over a hundred years
of age among them. Sometimes they burned charcoal for
the iron works in the mountains and earned a few pennies,
when they felt rich indeed, but if there was no money they
did not complain. They ate their vegetables and black
bread and drank their goat’s milk in contentment.
One day, when the corn ears were yellowing, a little girl
hurried down the mountain side where she had been tending
goats. She ran to her home at the edge of the village, and
called to her mother in the garden, “Oh, mamma, come
quickly! A beautiful woman with two pretty children is
waiting for me on the mountain. They are very tired and
hungry, and she asked me for some bread and milk.”
Kind hearts beat in the breasts of those village folk, and
although they had little themselves, they were always ready
to share their small store. Quickly the mother filled a jar
with goat’s milk and took some bread, butter, and cheese,
and she and her husband followed the little daughter up the
mountain side. After a while they came to a turn in the
path, and saw a woman, very young and very beautiful,
sitting on a rock under a beech tree. She was holding a
little girl who was as lovely as herself, and beside them, on
the ground, a tiny dark-eyed boy played with a bunch of
thistles. Not far away an old man was unloading a mule
and opening bundles as if preparing to camp for the night.
Their clothing was of the costly kind that is worn only by
the very rich, and it seemed strange that they should be
asking food of the poor.
The village wife offered the bread, butter, and cheese
she had brought with her, which the woman received with
smiles and words of thanks. She kept nothing herself, but
gave all to the old man and children, who ate the coarse
peasant fare as if it tasted very good, and as she watched
them tears streamed down her cheeks. She asked many
questions about the valley, and finding that no one but
charcoal burners lived there, and that strangers almost never
came by, exclaimed, “I think God must have sent me here.
I have been driven from home and am seeking a spot where
we may rest in peace.”
They went down to the valley together, and the peasant
and his wife led the way to a vacant house, which the woman
rented for her home. It was a very humble cottage, but she
said it suited her, for it was new and clean, and from its little
windows one could see out over the cabins and the garden
plots to the tall, dark fir trees on the mountain slopes. She
took one of the village girls for a servant, and the worn, unhappy
look began to leave her face.
Early the next morning she called the maid Marie, gave
her a silver piece, and said, “Go and get some eggs for breakfast.”
The girl looked at her in surprise.
“Oh, madame!” she asked sorrowfully, “do you mean
that I must take the eggs of the dear little birds that sing
in the forest?”
“Of course not,” her mistress replied, thinking her very
silly, “I want hen’s eggs, not bird’s eggs.”
But Marie looked more amazed than before.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘hens,’” she said. “We
have none of them here.”
“You have no hens!” the woman exclaimed. “How can
that be?”
Then she remembered that this was a village of poor
peasants and that only the rich had chickens, because they
had just been brought to Europe from Asia, and were very
costly. So she bade the old man Kuno go to the city across
the mountains and bring her everything she needed.
“And be sure not to forget the cock and hens,” she called
after him as he rode away.
Late that afternoon the man returned, and the woman
met him at the door. “Have you brought the chickens?”
she asked.
Nodding in reply, he set the cage on the ground.
By this time the village children had gathered around, and
were greatly excited about the strange-looking birds. They
laughed and clapped their hands, for they never had seen
anything like them, and when Kuno turned them out of the
cage and they walked around picking up the grain he threw
to them, their joy knew no bounds. Then the cock flapped
his wings and crowed and some of the hens cackled, and the
children danced and screamed in delight. They stayed
until it was dark, and early the next morning came again
and brought their fathers and mothers to see the wonderful
birds that sang such curious songs.
Summer passed and autumn came. The last apples fell
from the trees, nuts dropped in the frost-painted forest, and
the sharp winds of November blew down from the peaks,
yet still the lovely stranger and her children stayed in the
village. That was very strange, for the valley was entirely
surrounded by rugged mountains, and was a rough, wild
country in winter, when the tiny houses were almost buried
in the snow. But they seemed happy there, and the people
wondered much about it. They talked of it as they herded
the goats on the slopes, as they burned charcoal in the shadow
of the fir trees, and always would end by saying, “She is some
great lady, for she speaks the language of court, and she
and her children have costly clothes and many gold pieces.”
But they found out nothing, for when they asked the
children who their mother was they said, “She is mamma,
and we are Blanche and Edmund.”
So still they wondered and still they did not know. But
they were glad she lived among them, because they had grown
to love her very much. She was kind and charitable toward
every one in the village. She gave food to the poor and took
care of the sick, and the peasants repaid her with many
kindnesses. They gave her game they killed in the forest,
and when spring came and the snow melted, the village
children roamed the woods for the earliest violets and cowslips,
and brought them to her door.
These acts of kindness touched her, and the morning before
Easter she thought, “I must do something to make them
happy.” But what could it be? She couldn’t give them a
feast, because, although she had plenty of money, it was
impossible to get any meat in the village; and she couldn’t
give them presents, because there was no place to buy them.
She had nothing but eggs, which she thought would be no
treat at all. Then an idea came to her. Calling Marie,
the maid, she told her of it and they merrily went to work.
They went into the woods and gathered roots, moss, and
berries such as were used for dyeing in those days. They
made cakes and custards. They colored eggs red, blue,
green, orange, and lilac, and planned to give the people a
grand surprise. Late in the afternoon little Blanche and
Edmund went out through the village and stopped at every
house, saying, “Mamma invites you, you and all your family,
great and small, to a feast at our house tomorrow. Come
after the mass.”
Everybody accepted the invitation. They had never
been to a real feast, and to go to one at the house of the
lovely stranger would be fine indeed. They took out their
best holiday attire, polished their shoe buckles until they
shone, and made ready for a gala time, and on Easter morning
a line of men, women, and children went from the chapel
to the cottage of the lady.
She met them at the door and led them into the garden,
where two long tables were spread. The parents were told
to sit down, but she said to the children, “It is not time for
you to eat yet. Go into the woods with Edmund and
Blanche, and make little nests of moss. Put them under
the trees, and be sure to remember where you left them.”
They ran out laughing, and the parents sat down to the
feast, and a splendid feast it seemed to them! There were
eggs in the shell, fried eggs, eggs in milk, omelets, and sweet,
yellow custards, and as they never had tasted eggs before,
they thought them wonderfully delicious.
After a while the children came back for their share in the
good things, and as soon as they had finished eating, the
woman said, “Go out and look for your pretty nests.”
A rush and a scramble and they were in the woods, and a
moment later cries of delight and wonder were heard, for in
each nest they found five lovely eggs of red, blue, green,
purple, and orange. They came pell-mell to show them to
their fathers and mothers, who discovered something written
upon them.
It was a motto, and the villagers, who were too unlettered
to read it, asked the lady to tell them what it meant. They
smiled as they listened, as if believing in the truth of the
words they heard:
In God’s protecting goodness trust,
For He will aid the kind and just.
The afternoon passed joyously, and when the chapel bell
rang out the Angelus, the villagers departed, and the woman
stood in the doorway with a smile upon her face, watching
them go to their homes. While she watched, a youth carrying
a bundle came walking down the mountain path. He
seemed very tired and sad, and tears came into his eyes as
she called to him. He told her he was on his way to a village
beyond to see his mother, who was old and sick, and that he
had walked a long way without food.
“I have a little money,” he said, “but must not spend it
for myself, because it is needed at home.”
Touched by his story, the woman took him into the house,
where a good meal was set before him; and as he was about
to start away, she gave him a gold piece and some eggs for
his little brother and sister.
Refreshed by rest and food he strode on his way through
the village, took the path that led to the other side of the
mountains, and after a while came to the edge of a ravine.
From that point the trail was narrow and dangerous, and he
walked rapidly because he wanted to reach home before night.
But suddenly he stopped. Looking down to where a tiny
stream wound through the gulch, he saw a horse. It was
saddled and bridled, which seemed very strange to him.
“I wonder if some one has fallen and needs help,” he
murmured.
So, although he wanted to be on his way, he climbed down
over the crags.
It was as he feared. A man was lying there, motionless
as if dead. He was dressed in heavy armor, by which the
lad knew he was some one rich and great.
Pulling off the helmet to use as a dipper, he ran to the river
for water, and poured it over the drawn, white face.
The rider opened his eyes slowly, and when he saw the
youth kneeling beside him said, “Thank God for sending
you! I fell down over the cliffs, and thought I was to lie
here and die. Oh, I am so weak and faint!” he sighed.
The peasant boy remembered the pretty eggs in his bundle
that were intended for his little brother and sister at home.
“But they would want me to give them to this poor fellow,”
he thought. So he shelled one and held it to the trembling
lips.
The man ate it as if nearly starved, and another and another.
Then, seeing the motto on the one that was still
unbroken, he opened his eyes wide.
“Stop,” he said as the boy was about to break it. “Let
me have it as it is and I will give you a gold piece for it.”
Then the peasant youth, who was stalwart and strong,
helped him on to his horse, and led him to his own village,
where the doctor said he must lie still for six weeks. He
groaned as he heard those words, and exclaimed, “Six weeks,
and my master waiting for word of her!”
But he was a soldier, and knew how to wait. He stayed
patiently, and at the end of the time went on his way.
Meanwhile, back in the village in the valley, the beautiful
stranger lived on with her children. She seemed very happy
until one day the man Kuno went to the city across the
mountain, and returned looking pale and worried.
“Madame,” he said as she met him at the door, “I have
bad news for you.”
She turned white, as if some terrible thing had happened,
took him into the house, and they talked together for a long
time. Then Kuno left the cottage and hurried through the
village to the house of the miller, who was also the mayor.
“My mistress wishes to speak to you,” he said.
The man went back with him, and when they reached the
house, the woman told a strange story.
“I am Rosalinde, daughter of the Duke of Burgundy,”
she said. “In my father’s court were two knights, Hanno
of Schraffeneck and Arno of Lindenburg, who were suitors
for my hand. I chose Arno, and Hanno was furiously angry.
He vowed he would have revenge, but I was happy with my
husband, and did not fear him.
“All went well for a long time. Then the emperor summoned
my husband to go on the Holy Wars to Palestine, and
he rode away with the Crusaders, leaving me alone with the
children. Hanno, too, was summoned to fight the Moslems,
but he stayed behind, vowing that now he would have his
revenge, and unless I married him he would put me into
prison and kill my children.
“The castle of my lord was strong, but there was no one
to defend it after he and his train went away, and Hanno
brought many men and began a siege. My good Kuno,
who knew a secret passage, aided me to escape and brought
me across the mountains to your village, where I have felt
safe. But today he saw Hanno in the city, asking people
if a lady with two children and an old domestic had passed
that way.”
She stopped a moment as if she could not speak for tears,
then went on sadly, “Kuno hid and was not seen, but I fear
that when Hanno comes through the valley, the people will
tell him I am here, and then he will put me in prison and kill
my children.”
The miller shook his head and spoke words of comfort.
“Have no fear, madame,” he said. “The villagers will
not tell that you are here, and if Hanno comes and tries to
take you, we will defend you with our lives.”
Then he went from house to house, telling the story of the
Lady Rosalinde. Soon every one in the village knew it and
the people swore to protect her at any cost, and the next
day when Hanno came, they pretended to be so stupid that
they didn’t know what he was talking about.
“She has not been here,” he said to his men. And they
went away.
After that all was peaceful in the village, and the Lady
Rosalinde was no longer afraid. Her children played with
the charcoal burners’ children, and every evening they went
to the little chapel at the edge of the forest to pray for the
safe return of the husband and father from Palestine.
One lovely evening in the month of May, they went to
the church as usual, and when they came out, sat down on
some rocks to watch the sun sink behind the mountain. A
pilgrim came by, bending low over a staff, his long white
hair reaching his shoulders and his beard flowing down over
his breast. He noticed the children and spoke to them, and
little Edmund said, “We have just been to church to pray
for our dear papa.”
The Lady Rosalinde was terribly frightened, for she thought
he might be some one who would carry word to Hanno, but
a moment later her fear turned to joy, for the pilgrim snatched
off his beard and white hair, and a young, handsome knight
stood before them. Little Blanche and Edmund screamed
in delight, for they knew it was their father.
“How did you find us?” Lady Rosalinde asked.
“I found you, my dear Rosalinde, because you were good
and charitable.”
Then he told how he had returned from the Crusades to
a ruined castle.
“I questioned the peasants around, who said Hanno had
besieged it, and that you and the children had escaped.
Then I led my train against him and took him prisoner, and
sent out horsemen to find word of you. It seemed they
would never come back, and when they did my heart almost
broke, for although they had scoured the land they had no
news. There was one, however, who did not return, and
thinking he had been killed, I gave up hope. But six weeks
later he came with a strange story, and gave me a colored
egg, and imagine my joy, to find upon it in your own handwriting,
the motto of my house:
“In God’s protecting goodness trust,
For He will aid the kind and just.”
Then, continuing the story, Lord Arno told how he had
gone in the guise of a pilgrim to the home of the peasant
from whom the cavalier received the egg, and learning that
his wife and children were in the valley, had come seeking
them.
Word that the lovely woman had been found by her husband
soon traveled throughout the village, and the people,
young and old, came to welcome him.
He was a true and valiant knight and thanked them for
their kindness to his loved ones, for the Lady Rosalinde had
told him of her stay in the valley, and of how good and gentle
the peasants were.
“And now, my dear friends,” he said, “to show you how
grateful I am, I promise to give a fine, big cow to every
family in the village. And every year at Easter time, my
wife and I will send colored eggs to the children, not only
to those of this valley, but to every boy and girl in the realm.”
Then Lord Arno and his family departed, rebuilt their
ruined castle, and lived happily there. But they never forgot
the charcoal burners in the valley, and every year sent
quantities of gay eggs to the children. As years passed
the custom spread from country to country, until now
colored eggs are given at Easter time to children in every
Christian land.
From the Polish of Glinski
(Slavic Wonder Tale)
There were a king and a queen who had been married for
three years, but had no children, at which they were both
much distressed. Once upon a time the king found himself
obliged to make a visit of inspection round his dominions;
he took leave of his queen, set off, and was not at home for
eight months.
Towards the end of the ninth month the king returned
from his progress through his country, and was already hard
by his capital city, when, as he journeyed over an uninhabited
plain during the most scorching heat of summer, he
felt such excessive thirst that he sent his servants round
about to see if they could find water anywhere and let him
know of it at once. The servants dispersed in various directions,
sought in vain for a whole hour, and returned without
success to the king.
The thirst-tormented king proceeded to traverse the
whole plain far and wide himself, not believing that there
was not a spring somewhere or other; on he rode, and on a
level spot, on which there had not previously been any
water, he espied a well with a new wooden fence round it,
full to the brim with spring water, in the midst of which
floated a silver cup with a golden handle. The king sprang
from his horse and reached after the cup with his right hand;
but the cup, just as if it were alive and had eyes, darted
quickly on one side and floated again by itself. The king
knelt down and began to try to catch it, now with his right
hand, now with his left, but it moved and dodged away in
such a manner that, not being able to seize it with one hand,
he tried to catch it with both. But scarcely had he reached
out with both hands when the cup dived like a fish, and
floated again on the surface.
“Hang it!” thought the king, “I can’t help myself with
the cup, I’ll manage without it.” He then bent down to
the water, which was as clear as crystal and as cold as ice,
and began in his thirst to drink. Meanwhile his long beard,
which reached down to his girdle, dipped into the water.
When he had quenched his thirst and wished to get up
again, something was holding his beard and would not let
it go. He pulled once and again, but it was of no use; he
cried out therefore in anger, “Who’s there? Let go!”
“It’s I, the subterranean king, immortal Bony, and I
shall not let go till you give me that which you left unknowingly
at home, and which you do not expect to find on your
return.”
The king looked into the depth of the well, and there was
a huge head like a tub, with green eyes and a mouth from
ear to ear; the creature was holding the king by the beard
with extended claws like those of a crab, and was laughing
mischievously.
The king thought that a thing of which he had not known
before starting, and which he did not expect on his return,
could not be of great value; so he said to the apparition,
“I give it.”
The apparition burst with laughter and vanished with a
flash of fire, and with it vanished also the well, the water,
the wooden fence, and the cup; and the king was again on
a hillock by a little wood kneeling on dry sand, and there
was nothing more. The king got up, crossed himself, sprang
on his horse, hastened to his attendants, and rode on.
In a week or maybe a fortnight the king arrived at his
capital; the people came out in crowds to meet him; he
went in procession to the great court of the palace and entered
the corridor. In the corridor stood the queen awaiting him,
and holding close to her bosom a cushion, on which lay a
child, beautiful as the moon, kicking in swaddling clothes.
The king recollected himself, sighed painfully, and said within
himself: “This is what I left without knowing and found
without expecting!” And bitterly, bitterly did he weep.
All marveled, but nobody dared to ask the cause. The
king, without saying a word, took his son in his arms, gazed
long on his innocent face, carried him into the palace himself,
laid him in the cradle, and, suppressing his sorrow, devoted
himself to the government of his realm; but he was never
again cheerful as formerly, since he was perpetually tormented
by the thought that some day Bony would claim his
son.
Meanwhile weeks, months, and years flowed on, and no
one came for his son. The prince, named “Unexpected,”
grew and developed, and eventually became a handsome
youth. The king also in course of time regained his usual
cheerfulness, and forgot what had taken place; but alas!
everybody did not forget so easily.
Once the prince, while hunting in a forest, became separated
from his suite and found himself in a savage wilderness.
Suddenly there appeared before him a hideous old man with
green eyes, who said, “How do you do, Prince Unexpected?
You have made me wait for you a long time.”
“Who are you?”
“That you will find out hereafter, but now, when you
return to your father, greet him from me, and tell him that
I should be glad if he would close accounts with me, for if
he doesn’t soon get out of my debt of himself, he will repent
it bitterly.” After saying this the hideous old man disappeared,
and the prince in amazement turned his horse,
rode home, and told the king his adventure.
The king turned as pale as a sheet, and revealed the
frightful secret to his son. “Do not weep, father!” replied
the prince, “it is no great misfortune! I shall manage to
force Bony to renounce the right over me, which he tricked
you out of in so underhand a manner, but if in the course
of a year I do not return, it will be a token that we shall see
each other no more.”
The prince prepared for his journey; the king gave him a
suit of steel armor, a sword, and a horse, and the queen hung
round his neck a cross of pure gold. At leave-taking they embraced
affectionately, wept heartily, and the prince rode off.
On he rode one day, two days, three days, and at the
end of the fourth day at the setting of the sun he came to
the shore of the sea; and in the selfsame bay he espied
twelve dresses, white as snow, though in the water, as far
as the eye could reach, there was no living soul to be seen—only
twelve white geese were swimming at a distance from
the shore. Curious to know to whom they belonged, he
took one of the dresses, let his horse loose in a meadow,
concealed himself in a neighboring thicket, and waited to
see what would come to pass. Thereupon the geese, after
disporting themselves on the sea, swam to the shore. Eleven
of them went to the dresses, each threw herself on the
ground and became a beautiful damsel, dressed herself with
speed, and flew away into the plain.
The twelfth goose, the last and prettiest of all, did not
venture to come out on the shore, but only wistfully stretched
out her neck, looking on all sides. On seeing the prince she
called out with a human voice: “Prince Unexpected, give
me my dress; I will be grateful to you in return.” The
prince hearkened to her, placed the dress on the grass, and
modestly turned away in another direction.
The goose came out on the grass, changed herself into a
damsel, dressed herself hastily, and stood before the prince;
she was young and more beautiful than eye had seen or
ear heard of. Blushing, she gave him her white hand, and,
casting her eyes down, said with a pleasing voice: “I thank
you, good prince, for hearkening to me. I am the youngest
daughter of immortal Bony. He has twelve young daughters,
and rules in the subterranean realm. My father,
prince, has long been expecting you and is very angry.
However, don’t grieve, and don’t be frightened, but do as
I tell you. As soon as you see King Bony, fall at once on
your knees, and paying no regard to his outcry, upbraiding,
and threats, approach him boldly. What will happen afterwards
you will learn, but now we must part.”
On saying this the princess stamped on the ground with
her little foot; the ground sprang open at once, and they
descended into the subterranean realm, right into Bony’s
palace, which shone all underground brighter than our sun.
The prince stepped boldly into the reception room. Bony
was sitting on a golden throne with a glittering crown on
his head; his eyes gleamed like two saucers of green glass
and his hands were like the nippers of a crab. As soon as
the prince espied him at a distance, he fell on his knees, and
Bony yelled so horribly that the vaults of the subterranean
dominion quaked; but the prince boldly moved on his knees
towards the throne, and when he was only a few paces from
it, the king smiled and said: “Thou hast marvelous luck
in succeeding in making me smile; remain in our subterranean
realm, but before thou becomest a true citizen thereof
thou art bound to execute three commands of mine; but
because it is late today, we will begin tomorrow; meanwhile
go to thy room.”
The prince slept comfortably in the room assigned to him,
and early on the morrow Bony summoned him and said:
“We will see, prince, what thou canst do. In the course of
the following night build me a palace of pure marble; let
the windows be of crystal, the roof of gold, an elegant garden
round about it, and in the garden seats and fountains; if
thou buildest it, thou wilt gain thyself my love; if not, I
shall command thy head to be cut off.”
The prince heard the command, returned to his apartment,
and was sitting mournfully thinking of the death
that threatened him, when outside at the window a bee
came buzzing and said, “Let me in!” He opened the
lattice, in flew the bee, and the princess, Bony’s youngest
daughter, appeared before the wondering prince.
“What are you thus thinking about, Prince Unexpected?”
“Alas! I am thinking that your father wishes to deprive
me of life.”
“Don’t be afraid! Lie down to sleep, and when you get
up tomorrow morning your palace will be ready.”
So, too, it came to pass. At dawn the prince came out
of his room and espied a more beautiful palace than he had
ever seen, and Bony, when he saw it, wondered, and would
not believe his own eyes.
“Well! thou hast won this time, and now thou hast my
second command. I shall place my twelve daughters before
thee tomorrow; if thou dost not guess which of them is
the youngest, thou wilt place thy head beneath the ax.”
“I unable to recognize the youngest princess!” said the
prince in his room. “What difficulty can there be in that?”
“This,” answered the princess, flying into the room in
the shape of a bee, “that if I don’t help you, you won’t recognize
me, for we are all so alike that even our father distinguishes
us only by our dress.”
“What am I to do?”
“What, indeed! That will be the youngest over whose
right eye you espy a ladycow. Only look well. Adieu!”
On the morrow King Bony again summoned Prince Unexpected.
The princesses stood in a row side by side, all
dressed alike and with eyes cast down. The prince looked
and marveled how alike all the princesses were; he went
past them once, twice—he did not find the appointed
token; the third time he saw a ladycow over the eyebrow
of one, and cried out: “This is the youngest princess!”
“How the deuce have you guessed it?” said Bony angrily.
“There must be some trickery here. I must deal with your
lordship differently. In three hours you will come here
again, and will show your cleverness in my presence. I
shall light a straw, and you will stitch a pair of boots before
it goes out, and if you don’t do it you will perish.”
The prince returned desponding and found the bee already
in his apartment. “Why pensive again, prince?”
“How shouldn’t I be pensive, when your father wants
me to stitch him a pair of boots, for what sort of cobbler
am I?”
“What else will you do?”
“What am I to do? I shan’t stitch the boots, and I’m
not afraid of death—one can die but once!”
“No, prince, you shall not die! I will endeavor to rescue
you, and we will either escape together or perish together!
We must flee—there’s nothing else to be done.”
Saying this, the princess spat on one of the window
panes, and the spittle immediately froze. She then went
out of the room with the prince, locked the door after her,
and threw the key far away. Then, taking each other by
the hands, they ascended rapidly, and in a moment found
themselves on the very spot whence they had descended
into the subterranean realm; there was the selfsame sea,
the selfsame fresh meadow, and in the meadow cantered
the prince’s well-fed horse, who, as soon as he descried his
rider, came galloping straight to him. The prince didn’t
stop long to think, but sprang on his horse, the princess
seated herself behind him, and off they set as swift as an arrow.
King Bony at the appointed hour did not wait for Prince
Unexpected, but sent to ask him why he did not appear.
Finding the door locked, the servants knocked at it vigorously,
and the spittle answered them from the middle of
the room in the prince’s voice, “Anon.” The servants
carried this answer to the king; he waited, waited, no
prince; he therefore again sent the same servants, who
heard the same answer: “Anon!” and carried what they
had heard to the king.
“What’s this? Does he mean to make fun of me?”
shouted the king in wrath. “Go at once, break the door
open, and conduct him to me!”
The servants hurried off, broke open the door, and rushed
in. What, indeed? There was nobody there, and the
spittle on the pane of glass was splitting with laughter at
them. Bony all but burst with rage, and ordered them all
to start off in pursuit of the prince, threatening them with
death if they returned empty-handed. They sprang on
horseback and hastened away after the prince and princess.
Meanwhile Prince Unexpected and the princess, Bony’s
daughter, were hurrying away on their spirited horse, and
amidst their rapid flight heard “Tramp, tramp,” behind
them. The prince sprang from the horse, put his ear to
the ground, and said, “They are pursuing us.”
“Then,” said the princess, “we have no time to lose.”
Instantly she transformed herself into a river, changed the
prince into a bridge and the horse into a raven, and divided
the grand highway beyond the bridge into three roads.
Swiftly on the fresh track hastened the pursuers, came to
the bridge, and stood stupefied; they saw the track up to
the bridge, but beyond it disappeared, and the highway
divided into three roads. There was nothing to be done
but to return, and they came with naught. Bony shouted
with rage, and cried out: “A bridge and a river! It was
they. How was it that ye did not guess it? Back, and
don’t return without them!” The pursuers recommenced
the pursuit.
“I hear ‘Tramp, tramp!’” whispered the princess,
Bony’s daughter, affrightedly to Prince Unexpected, who
sprang from the saddle, put his ear to the ground, and replied:
“They are making haste, and are not far off.”
That instant the princess and prince, and with them also
their horse, became a gloomy forest, in which there were
roads, byroads, and footpaths without number, and on one
of them it seemed that two riders were hastening on a horse.
Following the fresh track, the pursuers came up to the
forest, and when they espied the fugitives in it, they hastened
speedily after them. On and on hurried the pursuers, seeing
continually before them a thick forest, a wide road, and
the fugitives on it; now, now they thought to overtake
them, when the fugitives and the thick forest suddenly
vanished, and they found themselves at the selfsame place
whence they had started in pursuit. They returned, therefore,
again to Bony empty-handed.
“A horse, a horse! I’ll go myself! they won’t escape
out of my hands!” yelled Bony, foaming at the mouth,
and started in pursuit.
Again the princess said to Prince Unexpected: “Methinks
they are pursuing us, and this time it is Bony, my
father, himself, but the first church is the boundary of his
dominion, and he cannot pursue us farther. Give me your
golden cross.”
The prince took off his affectionate mother’s gift and gave
it to the princess, and in a moment she was transformed
into a church, he into the priest, and the horse into the
bell; and that instant up came Bony.
“Monk!” Bony asked the priest, “hast thou not seen
some travelers on horseback?”
“Only just now Prince Unexpected rode this way with
the princess, Bony’s daughter. They came into the church,
performed their devotions, gave money for a mass for your
good health, and ordered me to present their respects to
you if you should ride this way.”
Bony, too, returned empty-handed. But Prince Unexpected
rode on with the princess, Bony’s daughter, in no
further fear of pursuit.
They rode gently on, when they saw before them a beautiful
town, into which the prince felt an irresistible longing
to go.
“Prince,” said the princess, “don’t go; my heart forebodes
misfortune there.”
“I’ll ride there for only a short time, and look round the
town, and we’ll then proceed on our journey.”
“It’s easy enough to ride thither, but will it be as easy
to return? Nevertheless, as you absolutely desire it, go,
and I will remain here in the form of a white stone till you
return; be circumspect, my beloved; the king, the queen,
and the princess, their daughter, will come out to meet you,
and with them will be a beautiful little boy—don’t kiss
him, for, if you do, you will forget me at once, and will
never set eyes on me more in the world—I shall die of
despair. I will wait for you here on the road for three
days, and if on the third day you don’t return, remember
that I perish, and perish all through you.” The prince
took leave and rode to the town, and the princess transformed
herself into a white stone and remained on the road.
One day passed, a second passed, the third also passed, and
nothing was seen of the prince. Poor princess! He had
not obeyed her counsel; in the town, the king, the queen,
and the princess their daughter had come out to meet him,
and with them walked a little boy, a curly-headed chatterbox,
with eyes as bright as stars. The child rushed straight
into the prince’s arms, who was so captivated by the beauty
of the lad that he forgot everything and kissed the child
affectionately. That moment his memory was darkened,
and he utterly forgot the princess, Bony’s daughter.
The princess lay as a white stone by the wayside, one
day, two days, and when the third day passed and the
prince did not return from the town, she transformed herself
into a cornflower, and sprang in among the rye by the
roadside. “Here I shall stay by the roadside; maybe some
passer-by will pull me up or trample me into the ground,”
said she, and tears like dewdrops glittered on the azure petals.
Just then an old man came along the road, espied the cornflower
in the rye by the wayside, was captivated by its
beauty, extracted it carefully from the ground, carried it
into his dwelling, set it in a flowerpot, watered it, and began
to tend it attentively. But—O marvel!—ever since the
time that the cornflower was brought into his dwelling, all
kinds of wonders began to happen in it. Scarcely was the
old man awake, when everything in the house was already
set in order, nowhere was the least atom of dust remaining.
At noon he came home—dinner was all ready, the table set;
he had but to sit down and eat as much as he wanted. The
old man wondered and wondered, till at last terror took
possession of him, and he betook himself for advice to an
old witch of his acquaintance in the neighborhood.
“Do this,” the witch advised him: “get up before the
first morning dawn, before the cocks crow to announce
daylight, and notice diligently what begins to stir first in
the house, and that which does stir, cover with this napkin:
what will happen further, you will see.”
The old man did not close his eyes the whole night, and
as soon as the first gleam appeared and things began to be
visible in the house, he saw how the cornflower suddenly
moved in the flowerpot, sprang out, and began to stir about
the room; when simultaneously everything began to put
itself in its place; the dust began to sweep itself clean away,
and the fire kindled itself in the stove. The old man sprang
cleverly out of his bed and placed the cloth on the flower as
it endeavored to escape, when lo! the flower became a
beautiful damsel—the princess, Bony’s daughter.
“What have you done?” cried the princess. “Why
have you brought life back to me? My betrothed, Prince
Unexpected, has forgotten me, and therefore life has become
distasteful to me.”
“Your betrothed, Prince Unexpected, is going to be married
today; the wedding feast is ready, and the guests are beginning
to assemble.”
The princess wept, but after a while dried her tears,
dressed herself in frieze, and went into the town like a
village girl. She came to the royal kitchen, where there
was great noise and bustle. She went up to the clerk of
the kitchen with humble and attractive grace, and said in a
sweet voice: “Dear sir, do me one favor: allow me to
make a wedding cake for Prince Unexpected.”
Occupied with work, the first impulse of the clerk of the
kitchen was to give the girl a rebuff; but when he looked
at her, the words died on his lips and he answered kindly:
“Ah, my beauty of beauties! do what you will; I will
hand the prince your cake myself.”
The cake was soon baked, and all the invited guests,
were sitting at table. The clerk of the kitchen himself
placed a huge cake on a silver dish before the prince; but
scarce had the prince made a cut in the side of it, when lo!
an unheard-of marvel displayed itself in the presence of all.
A gray tom-pigeon and a white hen-pigeon came out of the
cake; the tom-pigeon walked along the table, and the hen-pigeon
walked after him, cooing:
“Stay, stay, my pigeonet, oh stay!
Don’t from thy true love flee away;
My faithless lover I pursue,
Prince Unexpected like unto,
Who Bony’s daughter did betray.”
Scarcely had Prince Unexpected heard this cooing of the
pigeon, when he regained his lost recollection, bounced from
the table, rushed to the door, and behind the door the
princess, Bony’s daughter, took him by the hand; they
went together down the corridor, and before them stood a
horse saddled and bridled.
Why delay? Prince Unexpected and the princess, Bony’s
daughter, sprang on the horse, started on the road, and at
last arrived happily in the realm of Prince Unexpected’s
father. The king and the queen received them with joy
and merriment, and did not wait long before they prepared
them a magnificent wedding, the like of which eye never saw
and ear never heard of.
(Welsh Folk Tale—Ethics, teaching contentment)
Once upon a time a Welsh cobbler carrying a hazel wand
was walking over London Bridge, and as he sauntered along
he met an Englishman.
“Ah,” the latter exclaimed, pointing to the wand the
man of Cambria used as a cane, “where did you get it?”
“Where did I get it?” the Welshman repeated, amazed
that any one should ask such a question. “Off of a hazel
bush, to be sure.”
But the stranger stared in big-eyed wonder and shook his
head.
“There is only one hazel bush of that kind in all the
world,” he declared, “and under it a vast treasure is hidden.
Lead me to the spot, and I will share it with you.”
The Welshman smiled pleasantly, for he began to have
visions of a luxurious, idle life. He hated to work, and was
always grumbling because he had to hammer away at shoe
lasts to make his living.
To be sure he would lead the Englishman to the spot, and
once he had some gold in his possession, he’d do nothing but
feast and ride in a coach and dance at the fair. So he said
quite wearily, lest the stranger think he seemed too eager
and change his mind, “It is a long way from here, in the
Vale of Neath in my native Wales, and by my faith I have
no desire to walk that distance.”
But the Englishman coaxed, which was just what the
Welshman wanted him to do. So they turned away from
London Bridge and journeyed northward across mountains
and valleys, until they came to Cambria.
After several days they came to Craig-i-Ddinas, in the
lovely Vale of Neath. The Welshman led the way to the
hazel bush, beside which he had often played when a boy,
and the Englishman said, “In due time we will begin
work.”
When darkness was heavy enough to cover all trace of
what they did, they dug up the bush, and the Englishman,
who happened to be a wizard, pointed to a broad stone under
the roots and said, “Below is the treasure. Do as I bid
and you shall be rich.”
And the Welshman began to feel very important, thinking
how people would honor him when he lived in a great house
and wore a velvet coat.
Then the cock crowed for dawn, and they knew they must
hurry away before any of the peasants saw them. The
Welshman did not wish his village cousins to know he was
there, for they would question why he had come; so they
found a vacant tinker’s hut in which to rest until darkness
made it safe for them to go to work again.
But the cobbler was too excited to sleep. The sight of
the broad, flat stone at the root of the hazel bush brought
back to his mind a story he had often heard, one that the
village grandmothers used to tell when he was a boy. Again
and again he thought of it, the story of the treasure of King
Arthur.
Historians state that when the ruler of Camelot was
killed in the battle of Mount Badon, he was buried at
Glastonbury, but the Welsh country folk say that is not
true. They declare Merlin carried him straight to the lovely
Vale of Neath, where he sleeps on his arms, with his Round
Table Knights beside him and all the wealth of his realm
piled at his feet. There he and his warriors will rest until
the ringing of a warning bell, when the Black and Golden
Eagles go to war. Then they will rise up and destroy every
enemy of Cambria, when Britain will be governed with
justice and peace will reign as long as the world endures.
Could it be that the broad stone at the foot of the hazel
tree covered the entrance to Arthur’s cave? This the
Welshman pondered until it was almost dark and time to
go to work again.
Cautiously they left the hut and approached the spot,
peering in every direction lest some one see and question
them. Sturdily they pulled and tugged at the rock, and
slowly, steadily moved it, until they found an opening like
a door. Then the Englishman said in a low tone, “Behold
King Arthur’s cave! Follow me and obey.”
The Welshman followed, and a wonderful sight met his
eyes. Thousands of warriors slept in a circle on their arms,
and in the midst of them, more splendid looking than any
other, lay the King of Camelot, the mighty Arthur himself.
His crown of gold was by his side, a pile of gold lay at his
feet, and beyond the circle of his followers were a thousand
steeds, all saddled and bridled as if ready for battle. Sometimes
they champed as if eager for the war cry, sometimes
they drooped their heads wearily.
Noticing a bell suspended just above the treasure heap,
the cobbler pointed to it.
“Do not touch it,” the Englishman warned. “But if by
accident you do, and the warriors waken and ask if it is day,
say, ‘No, sleep thou on.’ Otherwise a terrible fate will
overtake you.”
They helped themselves to the gold and left the cave,
and each man went his way. The Welshman, having all
the treasure he could carry, was no longer a poor cobbler
who must spend his time bending over shoe lasts. He was
richer than the mayor and could feast and ride in a coach,
dance at the fair, and live like the lords of the land.
But riches made that cobbler greedy. He had far more
gold than he needed, and the finest house in seven counties,
but still he wanted more. He kept thinking of the gold
piled high in Arthur’s cave; so one day he journeyed back
to the Vale of Neath and waited for nightfall.
Then, creeping to the place of the hazel bush, he moved
the rock and went into the cave.
Ah, it was a goodly sight, those thousand warriors slumbering
there beside the treasure heap and a thousand saddled
chargers beyond! He would take all the gold he could
carry, and very soon he would come back for more. But
in his greed to increase his wealth he bumped against the
bell, which clanged loudly. The warriors started up, asking
if it was day, but the man was so dazzled by the pile of
shining treasure that he did not have the answer ready.
They leaped to their feet, called him a robber, beat him, and
drove him from the cave.
Then what a change! He went limping homeward, to
discover that all his wealth had disappeared and where his
great house had stood was a miserable hut. He was as poor
as ever, and unless he could get more gold out of the cave
must go back to cobbling and never again ride in a coach.
But try as he would, he could not find the place where the
hazel bush had grown. Many a journey he made into the
Vale of Neath, but never did he catch a glimpse of the broad,
flat stone. He had to spend his days bending over shoe
lasts instead of riding in a coach, and was a cripple as long
as he lived.
By David Starr Jordan
(Science)
In the realm of the Northwest Wind, on the boundary
line between the dark fir forests and the sunny plains, there
stands a mountain—a great white cone two miles and a
half in perpendicular height. On its lower mile the dense
fir woods cover it with never changing green; on its next
half mile a lighter green of grass and bushes gives place in
winter to white; and on its uppermost mile the snows of
the great ice age still linger in unspotted purity. The
people of Washington Territory say that their mountain
is the great “King-pin of the Universe,” which shows that
even in its own country Mount Tacoma is not without
honor.
Flowing down from the southwest slope of Mount Tacoma
is a cold, clear river, fed by the melting snows of the mountain.
Madly it hastens down over white cascades and
beds of shining sands, through birch woods and belts of
dark firs, to mingle its waters at last with those of the great
Columbia. This river is the Cowlitz; and on its bottom,
not many years ago, there lay half buried in the sand a
number of little orange-colored globules, each about as large
as a pea. These were not much in themselves, but great
in their possibilities. In the waters above them little
suckers and chubs and prickly sculpins strained their mouths
to draw these globules from the sand, and vicious-looking
crawfishes picked them up with their blundering hands and
examined them with their telescopic eyes. But one, at least,
of the globules escaped their curiosity, else this story would
not be worth telling. The sun shone down on it through
the clear water, and the ripples of the Cowlitz said over it
their incantations, and in it at last awoke a living being.
It was a fish,—a curious little fellow, not half an inch long,
with great, staring eyes, which made almost half his length,
and with a body so transparent that he could not cast a
shadow. He was a little salmon, a very little salmon;
but the water was good, and there were flies and worms and
little living creatures in abundance for him to eat, and he
soon became a larger salmon. Then there were many more
little salmon with him, some larger and some smaller,
and they all had a merry time. Those who had been born
soonest and had grown largest used to chase the others around
and bite heads and swallow them whole; for, said they,
“even young salmon are good eating.” “Heads I win, tails
you lose,” was their motto. Thus, what was once two
small salmon became united into a single larger one, and
the process of “addition, division, and silence” still went on.
By and by, when all the salmon were too large to be
swallowed, they began to grow restless. They saw that
the water rushing by seemed to be in a great hurry to get
somewhere, and it was somehow suggested that its hurry
was caused by something good to eat at the other end of its
course. Then they all started down the stream, salmon
fashion,—which fashion is to get into the current, head
upstream, and thus to drift backward as the river sweeps
along.
At last they came to where the Cowlitz and the Columbia
join, and they were almost lost for a time; for they could
find no shores, and the bottom and the top of the water
were so far apart. Here they saw other and far larger salmon
in the deepest part of the current, turning neither to the
right nor to the left, but swimming right on upstream just
as rapidly as they could. And these great salmon would
not stop for them, and would not lie and float with the current.
They had no time to talk, even in the simple sign
language by which fishes express their ideas, and no time
to eat. They had important work before them, and the
time was short. So they went on up the river, keeping their
great purposes to themselves; and our little salmon and his
friends from the Cowlitz drifted down the stream.
By and by the water began to change. It grew denser,
and no longer flowed rapidly along; and twice a day it
used to turn about and flow the other way. Then the shores
disappeared, and the water began to have a different and
peculiar flavor,—a flavor which seemed to the salmon
much richer and more inspiring than the glacier water of
their native Cowlitz. There were many curious things to
see—crabs with hard shells and savage faces, but so good
when crushed and swallowed! Then there were luscious
squid swimming about; and, to a salmon, squid are like
ripe peaches and cream. There were great companies of
delicate sardines and herring, green and silvery, and it was
such fun to chase and capture them! Those who eat
sardines packed in oil by greasy fingers, and herrings dried
in the smoke, can have little idea how satisfying it is to
have a meal of them, plump and sleek and silvery, fresh from
the sea.
Thus the salmon chased the herrings about, and had a
merry time. Then they were chased in turn by great sea
lions,—swimming monsters with huge half-human faces,
long thin whiskers, and blundering ways. The sea lions like
to bite out the throat of a salmon, with its precious stomach
full of luscious sardines, and then to leave the rest of the fish
to shift for itself. And the seals and the herrings scattered
the salmon about, till at last the hero of our story found
himself quite alone, with none of his own kind near him.
But that did not trouble him much, and he went on his
own way, getting his dinner when he was hungry, which was
all the time, and then eating a little between meals for his
stomach’s sake.
So it went on for three long years; and at the end of this
time our little fish had grown to be a great, fine salmon of
twenty-two pounds’ weight, shining like a new tin pan, and
with rows of the loveliest round black spots on his head and
back and tail. One day, as he was swimming about, idly
chasing a big sculpin with a head so thorny that he never
was swallowed by anybody, all of a sudden the salmon
noticed a change in the water around him.
Spring had come again, and the south-lying snowdrifts
on the Cascade Mountains once more felt that the “earth
was wheeling sunwards.” The cold snow waters ran down
from the mountains and into the Columbia River, and made
a freshet on the river. The high water went far out into the
sea, and out in the sea our salmon felt it on his gills. He
remembered how the cold water used to feel in the Cowlitz
when he was a little fish. In a blundering, fishy fashion
he thought about it; he wondered whether the little eddy
looked as it used to look and whether caddis worms and
young mosquitoes were really as sweet and tender as he
used to think they were. Then he thought some other
things; but as the salmon’s mind is located in the optic
lobes of his brain, and ours is in a different place, we cannot
be quite certain what his thoughts really were.
What our salmon did, we know. He did what every
grown salmon in the ocean does when he feels the glacier
water once more upon his gills. He became a changed being.
He spurned the blandishment of soft-shelled crabs. The
pleasures of the table and of the chase, heretofore his only
delights, lost their charms for him. He turned his course
straight toward the direction whence the cold water came,
and for the rest of his life never tasted a mouthful of food.
He moved on toward the river mouth, at first playfully, as
though he were not really certain whether he meant anything
after all. Afterward, when he struck the full current
of the Columbia, he plunged straight forward with an unflinching
determination that had in it something of the heroic.
When he had passed the rough water at the bar, he was not
alone. His old neighbors of the Cowlitz, and many more
from the Clackamas and the Spokane and Des Chutes and
Kootanie,—a great army of salmon,—were with him.
In front were thousands pressing on, and behind them were
thousands more, all moved by a common impulse which
urged them up the Columbia.
They were all swimming bravely along where the current
was deepest, when suddenly the foremost felt something
tickling like a cobweb about their noses and under their
chins. They changed their course a little to brush it off
and it touched their fins as well. Then they tried to slip
down with the current, and thus leave it behind. But, no!
the thing, whatever it was, although its touch was soft,
refused to let go, and held them like a fetter. The more
they struggled, the tighter became its grasp, and the whole
foremost rank of the salmon felt it together; for it was a
great gill net, a quarter of a mile long, stretched squarely
across the mouth of the river.
By and by men came in boats, and hauled up the gill
net and the helpless salmon that had become entangled in
it. They threw the fishes into a pile in the bottom of the
boat, and the others saw them no more. We that live outside
the water know better what befalls them, and we can
tell the story which the salmon could not.
All along the banks of the Columbia River, from its mouth
to nearly thirty miles away, there is a succession of large
buildings, looking like great barns or warehouses, built on
piles in the river, high enough to be out of the reach of
floods. There are thirty of these buildings, and they are
called “canneries.” Each cannery has about forty boats,
and with each boat are two men and a long gill net. These
nets fill the whole river as with a nest of cobwebs from
April to July, and to each cannery nearly a thousand great
salmon are brought every day. These salmon are thrown
in a pile on the floor; and Wing Hop, the big Chinaman,
takes them one after another on the table, and with a great
knife dexterously cuts off the head, the tail, and the fins;
then with a sudden thrust he removes the intestines and the
eggs. The body goes into a tank of water; and the head is
dropped into a box on a flatboat, and goes down the river
to be made into salmon oil. Next the body is brought to
another table; and Quong Sang, with a machine like a
feed cutter, cuts it into pieces each just as long as a one-pound
can. Then Ah Sam, with a butcher knife, cuts
these pieces into strips just as wide as the can. Next Wan
Lee, the “China boy,” brings down a hundred cans from the
loft where the tinners are making them, and into each can
puts a spoonful of salt. It takes just six salmon to fill a
hundred cans. Then twenty Chinamen put the pieces of
meat into the cans, fitting in little strips to make them
exactly full. Ten more solder up the cans, and ten more
put the cans into boiling water till the meat is thoroughly
cooked, and five more punch a little hole in the head of each
can to let out the air. Then they solder them up again,
and little girls paste on them bright-colored labels showing
merry little cupids riding the happy salmon up to the cannery
door, with Mount Tacoma and Cape Disappointment
in the background; and a legend underneath says that this is
“Booth’s” or “Badollet’s Best,” or “Hume’s,” or “Clark’s,”
or “Kinney’s Superfine Salt Water Salmon.” Then the
cans are placed in cases, forty-eight in a case, and five
hundred thousand cases are put up every year. Great ships
come to Astoria, and are loaded with them; and they carry
them away to London and San Francisco and Liverpool
and New York and Sydney and Valparaiso; and the man
at the corner grocery sells them at twenty cents a can.
All this time our salmon is going up the river, eluding
one net as by a miracle, and soon having need of more
miracles to escape the rest; passing by Astoria on a fortunate
day,—which was Sunday, the day on which no
man may fish if he expects to sell what he catches,—till
finally he came to where nets were few, and, at last, to
where they ceased altogether. But there he found that
scarcely any of his companions were with him; for the nets
cease when there are no more salmon to be caught in them.
So he went on, day and night, where the water was deepest,
stopping not to feed or loiter on the way, till at last he came
to a wild gorge, where the great river became an angry torrent,
rushing wildly over a huge staircase of rocks. But
our hero did not falter; and summoning all his forces, he
plunged into the Cascades. The current caught him and
dashed him against the rocks. A whole row of silvery scales
came off and glistened in the water like sparks of fire, and
a place on his side became black and red, which for a salmon
is the same as being black and blue for other people. His
comrades tried to go up with him; and one lost his eye,
one his tail, and one had his lower jaw pushed back into
his head like the joint of a telescope. Again he tried to
surmount the Cascades; and at last he succeeded, and an
Indian on the rocks above was waiting to receive him.
But the Indian with his spear was less skillful than he was
wont to be, and our hero escaped, losing only a part of one
of his fins; and with him came one other, and henceforth
these two pursued their journey together.
Now a gradual change took place in the looks of our
salmon. In the sea he was plump and round and silvery,
with delicate teeth in a symmetrical mouth. Now his silvery
color disappeared, his skin grew slimy, and the scales sank
into it: his back grew black, and his sides turned red,—not
a healthy red, but a sort of hectic flush. He grew poor;
and his back, formerly as straight as need be, now developed
an unpleasant hump at the shoulders. His eyes—like
those of all enthusiasts who forsake eating and sleeping for
some loftier aim—became dark and sunken. His symmetrical
jaws grew longer and longer, and projected from
his mouth, giving him a savage and wolfish appearance,
quite at variance with his real disposition. For all the desires
and ambitions of his nature had become centered into
one. We may not know what this one was, but we know
that it was a strong one; for it had led him on and on,—past
the nets and horrors of Astoria; past the dangerous
Cascades, past the spears of Indians; through the terrible
flume of the Dalles, where the mighty river is compressed
between huge rocks into a channel narrower than a village
street; on past the meadows of Umatilla and the wheat
fields of Walla Walla; on to where the great Snake River
and the Columbia join; on up the Snake River and its
eastern branch, till at last he reached the foot of the Bitter
Root Mountains in the Territory of Idaho, nearly a thousand
miles from the ocean which he had left in April. With him
still was the other salmon which had come with him through
the Cascades, handsomer and smaller than he, and, like
him, growing poor and ragged and tired.
At last, one October afternoon, our finny travelers came
together to a little clear brook, with a bottom of fine gravel,
over which the water was but a few inches deep. Our fish
painfully worked his way to it; for his tail was all frayed
out, his muscles were sore, and his skin covered with unsightly
blotches. But his sunken eyes saw a ripple in the
stream, and under it a bed of little pebbles and sand. So
there in the sand he scooped out with his tail a smooth round
place, and his companion came and filled it with orange-colored
eggs. Then our salmon came back again; and
softly covering the eggs, the work of their lives was done,
and, in the old salmon fashion, they drifted tail foremost
down the stream.
They drifted on together for a night and a day, but they
never came to the sea. For the salmon has but one life to
live, and it ascends the river but once. The rest lies with
its children. And when the April sunshine fell on the
globules in the gravel, these were awakened into life. With
the early autumn rains, the little fishes were large enough
to begin their wanderings. They dropped down the current
in the old salmon fashion. And thus they came into the
great river and drifted away to the sea.
(History)
In one of the upland valleys of Italy, shut away from the
rest of the world by the high, white peaks men call the
Dolomites, there lived, about five hundred years ago, a little
boy named Leonardo. He dwelt in a tiny hut with his
black-eyed peasant mother, fed the pigeons and milked the
goats each day, and in the evening, the pleasant summer
evening that spread rainbow-colored draperies over the
Dolomite peaks, he lay in the shadows under the plum
tree, thinking about his brother Vittorio, who was a soldier
down in the great city of Venice.
“I wish brother would come home,” he said to his mother
one morning as they ate their breakfast of macaroni and
mountain bread, “because he always tells such wonderful
things about the city. Some day I mean to go there and be
a soldier, too.”
His dark eyes gleamed as he spoke, and he sat very
straight in his heavy oaken chair, as of course a soldier ought
to do.
Everybody knows that wishes do not always come true,
but sometimes they do, and when that happens the whole
world seems brighter and lovelier than it seemed before.
The next afternoon, as Leonardo was turning the goats into
their inclosure, he gave a shout so joyous that even Armando
the weaver, in his shop at the other end of the village, heard
and ran to see what it meant. He soon found out, for he
saw Leonardo hurrying toward a man who was moving
along the highway. Vittorio, the soldier brother, was coming
home, coming back to the mountain village with many a
tale of the splendid city beside the Adriatic, and perhaps
with a goody that would taste very sweet after the coarse
fare of weeks and months.
Far into the night the brothers sat and talked together,
talked of palaces and gliding gondolas, of great lords and
ladies, of soldiers moving in splendid uniforms about the
Piazza of St. Mark. They talked of Carnival time too, of
the merry pranks the people played on each other, of the
procession on the water and the presents given to the Doge.
“And sometimes,” Vittorio exclaimed proudly, “they
are very splendid. Sometimes they are of gold and silver,
and of silk stuffs brought from the Indies.”
Leonardo sat silent for a minute. He knew little of
present giving, for in the mountains where he lived there
was no money to spend on such things. But always when
he made his mother a garland of flowers on her birthday,
she seemed so happy about it that he thought it must be
very lovely to bestow gifts. So he said softly, “I should
like to send a present to the Doge. It would seem like doing
something for Venice. But I have nothing to give.”
“Wait until you are a man and can be a soldier,” the big
brother answered. “Then you will be doing much.”
The next morning he was up at daybreak. Vittorio had
only two days’ leave, which meant that he must start back
at noon, and his mother had promised that Leonardo might
go with him to the edge of the village if he finished his tasks
in time. So he milked the goats before there was a bit of
stirring about the hut, and led the geese from their pen to
crop the green grass on the hillside. Then he cut some
grass and threw it to the old horse that was their most
prized possession, and by the time his brother came from the
hut he called to him, “I have only to feed the pigeons yet.”
Vittorio smiled and stood watching as the boy whistled
to the birds.
The gentle creatures flew up at Leonardo’s call, and as
he scattered crumbs to them, he thought again of the great
carnival at Venice and the gifts that would be made to the
Doge. He wished that he too might join that throng of
givers, but he possessed nothing but his pigeons, and a bird
would seem a very poor present to offer a ruler. But he
happened to think that the schoolmaster had once told him
that it is not the cost or the beauty of an offering that
makes it precious, but the good will of the giver, and that a
beggar’s portion may be a lovelier gift than that of a prince.
The schoolmaster was very wise. He could both read and
write, which only a few could do in that day, so anything
that he said must be true; and the memory of the words
brought an idea to Leonardo that made the boy’s eyes dance.
“Vittorio,” he exclaimed suddenly, “I have thought of
something.”
Vittorio wondered what excited his brother so.
“Well?” he asked as he walked near.
“Will you take a pair of pigeons back to the city with
you?”
“A pair of pigeons,” the soldier repeated. “Why?”
“I want to send a present to the Doge, and I have nothing
else,” he answered. “But the birds are so gentle I am
sure he will like them. They are fine carriers, too.”
Vittorio smiled. Being in the army of the Doge, he was
pleased that his brother showed such loyalty to the master
he served. It meant that he would probably grow up to
be a good soldier, and in those days nothing was considered
finer than that. So he answered pleasantly: “Of course I
will, Leonardo, if you are sure you can give up your pets.
I will ask my captain, who knows the Doge well, to take
them to him and say that they are the gift of a mountain
boy.”
Leonardo’s eyes sparkled with delight. It seemed a
glorious thing that he too might give with the rich and
great; so he selected the handsomest pair in the covey,
birds of a soft gray, with shadings of blue and purple along
their delicate wings, and he and Vittorio made a rude cage
in which to carry them to the city.
Then they walked together to the edge of the village, and
Leonardo watched his brother go along the road that wound
down to the low country. He waved good-by until Vittorio
passed from sight, then went back to the hut, happy in the
thought that he was doing something for Venice.
Many months passed. It was September when Vittorio
went away, and now the blossom time had come and hills
were bright with touches of summer. All through that
long period Leonardo wondered much about the pigeons,
but no word came from his brother; for letters went only
by courier in those days, and poor folk could not pay for
the carrying. But he was sure the birds had reached the
Doge, for Vittorio had promised and a soldier never broke
his word.
Then one day in the autumn, when the brightness on the
mountains had faded to bronze and gray, and squirrels
were stocking their houses as nuts dropped in the woods,
Vittorio came back. He looked older and graver than
the year before, and some worrying thing seemed on his
mind.
“It is just to say good-by,” he said, as the gray-haired
mother stroked his hands and Leonardo looked at him
with loving eyes. “The war has begun, and we soldiers of
Venice must sail away to Candia for the fighting.”
Leonardo’s eyes grew wide, and tears came into them as
he exclaimed, “If only I were old enough to go with you
and help serve our glorious city of St. Mark!”
The big man laid his hand lovingly on the dark head.
“Never mind, brother,” he said. “You have already
done much. I gave your birds to my captain, who took
them to the Doge, and the Doge is proud of them because
they are splendid carriers. So Dandolo, our general, will
take them along with the army to bring back news of the
war. And now good-by. When the fighting is over, I
will come again.”
He mounted his horse and rode away, and two pairs of
dewy eyes looked after him as he went.
The days that followed seemed very long to the two who
waited in the highlands. They knew that the army had
gone, and that away on the eastern island perhaps the fighting
had begun. But what of the fate of the Venetian hosts,
and what of the son and brother who had sailed under the
standard of the Lion? As to that they could only hope
and wonder.
Slowly, slowly dragged the days, but no word came back.
One morning, while Leonardo and his mother prayed
and waited in the mountain cabin, down in Venice in the
splendid Palace of the Doges, the Council of Ten sat and
pondered. They talked much about the absent army,
wondering if victory or defeat had been its share, and while
they wondered there came a fluttering of soft gray wings.
“Pigeons!” some one called. “See, they are carriers!”
The dignified assemblage broke up in excitement, for they
knew the tiny birds were messengers, and the men hurried
to read the missives fastened to their crimson feet.
“They come from Dandolo,” said one of the nobles,
“bringing news of the war.”
“From Candia!” another exclaimed. “It cannot be
that they have flown so far!”
But it was true, for upon reading they learned that the
Venetian army had been victorious and the soldiers would
soon sail home in triumph. The tiny birds had flown all
the long leagues across the sea to carry the glad news to
the waiting people.
Up in the hut in the Italian highlands Leonardo and his
mother still watched and wondered, when one evening a few
days later Armando, the village weaver, came by on his
way home from the city. He was greatly excited and called
to them as he stopped at the door.
“Rejoice,” he said, “for the war is over!”
“How do you know?” the mother asked. “Are the
soldiers back?”
“No. But the pigeons brought the word, and every one
is glad.”
“Pigeons!” exclaimed Leonardo. “My pigeons! Then
after all I did something for Venice.”
And he spoke the truth. So much did the message mean
to the anxious people, that the lawmakers said they would
always keep the birds, they and their young and their children’s
young. And although hundreds of years have
passed since then, still the gray-winged creatures fly about
St. Mark’s Square, and the people love and feed them.
For they know they are descended from the pair sent to
the Doge by a mountain boy, Leonardo’s pigeons, that long
ago flew across the wide seas, bringing word of the victory
of the Venetian hosts.
Retold from an Arabian Legend
(Geography—Nature Study)
Abi Ben Ahmed was a chief of Araby, and there was no
sweeter child in the land than his little daughter Zuleika.
She was fair to look upon, with eyes slender as an almond
and soft as a gazelle’s, and the goodness of her heart was
known to every one in the tribe. Lowly slave and mighty
sheik alike loved her, and when she was with her father he
forgot all his trouble.
One evening when the sun was dropping low over the
desert, Zuleika sat in front of the tent waiting for a chance
to have her supper. Her father was eating just then, for
by the laws of Arabian politeness women and children must
wait for meals until their lords and masters have finished.
She was hungry, yet she did not mind the delay, because
she knew nothing else, and when you think all the world
does things as you do, your way does not seem hard. So
she watched the color flame across the western sky, hummed
snatches of song, and made pictures in the sand with her
fingers.
Suddenly, away to the south, a yellow cloud seemed to
rise out of the desert. It moved nearer, and as Zuleika
watched it her dark eyes began to sparkle. She knew what
it meant and it made her glad.
“Father,” she called, “some one is riding this way.”
Abi Ben Ahmed left his supper and came from the tent
to see. The Arab is fond of his food and very loth to leave
it, but when strangers almost never come by it is worth
going without a meal to see them.
“Yes,” he agreed, as his piercing eyes scanned the southern
horizon, “some one is traveling across the desert.”
Zuleika danced with delight. Only once or twice since she
could remember had any one come to the camp, for it was
in the very heart of El Nedjed, and there was little traveling
in those far-off days. Long before, when she was a tiny
girl, a traveler had come that way, and while he lingered
at camp, told of the blue Persian Gulf beyond the Oman
shore, and of the music of its plashing waves. No word
has such a magical sound to the Arab as “water,” and
to hear of lakes and rivers of it is like some exquisite
fairy tale.
“It is a desert of water more beautiful than the land,”
he said in the soft, sweet tongue of the East. “Houris
dwell there, and often when the moon is shining they come
out and sport upon the sands.”
The tale fascinated her at the time, and had always
stayed in her memory. That is why she was happy to see a
stranger approaching. She thought he might tell her of the
lovely realm beyond.
As the cloud rolled nearer they saw a rider on a milk-white
steed. Abi Ben Ahmed called to his men to come
and welcome the stranger, for an Arab who lets even one
slave stay away when a guest arrives, is lacking in courtesy.
So they advanced, stalwart, dark-skinned men, whose turbaned
heads were bowed almost to the ground as they gave
the low salaam of the East, while the chief spoke words of
welcome to his camp.
Very swarthy was the rider, and of proud demeanor that
proclaimed him a person of much consequence, and as he
returned Ben Abi’s salute he spoke with dignity befitting his
bearing.
“I bring greeting from the sheik Ben Nedi,” he announced.
“He rides this way tomorrow.”
The chief replied, “Mighty is Ben Nedi, and a man of
high esteem among his people. He shall have welcome and
all that Arab hospitality can offer.”
Then, leading the way, Ben Ahmed took the stranger to
the tent, where camel’s milk and dried goat’s flesh were set
before him.
Zuleika, on the sand without, could hear their words,
but the joyous light was no longer in her eyes. Her face
was drawn in wrinkles, and her lip quivered as if she were
about to cry. She knew that the man expected on the
morrow was not only a powerful chieftain, but a teacher
and prophet as well, and that according to the Arab custom
every person in camp, even to the lowliest slave, would lay
gifts before him. For it is believed by the desert people
that to do so brings a blessing. But Zuleika, although she
was a chieftain’s daughter, had nothing to offer, for the
wealth of Arab rulers is in their flocks and lands, and the
poorest child of the West has more treasures than had this
little princess of the desert.
“If I had my baby camel I could give that,” she thought
as she listened to the murmurs in the women’s tent and
knew that all was excitement there over the coming of the
stranger.
But the camel she had loved and petted had died a few
weeks before, and she had nothing else.
“Do not grieve,” her mother said when she saw tears in
the big almond eyes and asked the reason they were there.
“The law of giving does not apply to children, and the
sheik Ben Nedi, who is as wise as he is powerful, knows
that sometimes empty hands give most of all. The blessing
comes of having the great desire, not through the treasure
that is offered.”
But Zuleika did grieve, and the world seemed very dark.
And after she went to bed she thought about it until she
grew so restless she could not lie quietly. So she crept outside
and sat on the ground.
It was midnight, and Abi Ben Ahmed and the stranger
slept in the tent. The slaves, both men and women, were
sleeping too, and nothing broke the stillness of the desert
night save an occasional breeze that shifted the loose sand,
or a stirring among the animals just beyond. She sat there
for a minute, then stole out across the waste. Past the
camel keep she went, hurrying through the silver of the
moonlight until she came to a rock that rose out of the
desert like a grizzled head facing westward. It was her
favorite spot, for her mother had told her that a lovely houri
(fairy) once made her haunt there, and she hoped she might
come back and do wonderful things for her as she was said
to have done in the long ago. So she climbed up and
looked across the desert.
Away to the west, glowing more brightly than any other
in the sky, was the star that according to Arab teaching
shines always over Mecca, the city of the Prophet. The
sight of it made her grieve more than ever over the thought
of her empty hands, and she began to cry.
Then, with a sound of wonderful music, a white creature
rose out of the sands. Her beauty was more radiant than
any of which Zuleika had ever dreamed, and jewels of many
colors glistened in her hair. Her smile was wonderfully
sweet, and the girl knew it must be the good fairy returned
to her old haunt.
“Why do you weep?” she asked.
Zuleika answered with a low salaam, “The prophet comes
tomorrow, and I have nothing to offer him because the
baby camel I would have given is dead.”
“But you have a gift more precious than the others,”
the fairy spoke.
The little girl was amazed.
“I!” she exclaimed. “Why, I have nothing!”
“Ah, but you have,” came the low reply. “The desire
in the heart. That is the only thing worth giving, and
that you have. But you shall have still another. Come
here in the morning at sunrise, and you will find it on the
sands.”
The radiant creature glided away in the light, that dimmed
as she went, and in a moment Zuleika could see only the
desert and her father’s camp beyond the rock.
Creeping down, she went back to the tent to bed. But
the beauty of the shining creature was in her eyes and
brain, and she could not sleep. Eagerly she waited for the
coming of morning, and as soon as she heard a stirring beyond
the tents, and knew that Hassan, the camel keeper, was
looking after the animals, she bounded out of bed and down
to the place of rock. Her mother saw her go, but thought
nothing about it, for it was the time of gray dawn when
every Arab looks in prayer toward Mecca, and she was
probably going to the fairy rock for her devotions. But
Zuleika thought of something besides her prayers.
When she came to the spot she stared around, wondering
if it could be the place she had visited in the night. Then
only a glittering waste stretched far as the eye could reach.
Now there was a tree, straight and branchless almost to
the crown, where from beneath wide-spreading leaves hung
bunches of pulpy fruit. Nothing like it had been seen on
the desert before.
Wild with delight, she rushed back to camp and told of
the wonder.
“A tree on the desert!” her father exclaimed. “It cannot
be.”
Nor could she make him believe so strange a thing had
happened until she led him to the spot. But there it stood,
with head held high like an Arab sheik, and when he tasted
of the fruit he found it good.
In the late afternoon of the following day the caravan of
the sheik Ben Nedi came to the camp of Abi Ben Ahmed.
The women within the tents received him with singing,
and the men with low salaams. Then the gifts were brought:
the finest camels of the herd, turban cloth enough for all
the men of his train, and silk, a portion of her mother’s
marriage dower worth the price of many camels. It had
been brought by ship across the sea and by caravan over
the desert, and was rainbow-hued and fine, such as is woven
only in the Vale of Cashmere. The great man received
them with gratitude, and spoke words of praise for the
tribe of Ben Ahmed. “Surely nothing more splendid can be
set before a sheik,” he said.
But the chief smiled and answered, “Not so, O mighty
prophet! Zuleika’s gift, the finest of all, is yonder on the
desert.”
Then he led the way to the place of rock and pointed to
the wonder tree that had sprung up in the night. Ben Nedi
found the fruit cooling and sweet, and as he listened to the
story, he stood with dewy eyes.
“The gift of a child’s tears!” he exclaimed. “Yes, that
is most precious of all. The Arab will bless the day it
came to be.”
And the prophecy was fulfilled. It still grows in the
depths of the desert, the wonder tree of the East that men
call the date palm, and the Arab blesses it whenever he rides
that way. He knows that for a thousand years and more
it has been the salvation of the solitary wanderer across the
wastes, and that as long as it lifts its stately head above
the sands he will have food from its fruit, clothing from its
fiber, and shelter from the noonday heat.
The Swiss Legend of the Alp Horn
(Geography—Ethics)
In the days of long ago a chamois hunter, caught in a
storm on the mountains, took refuge in a deserted hut. The
floor was so wet and cold that to stay there was almost as
bad as being out in the rain and hail, and so he climbed
into the loft and lay down on a pile of straw.
Just how long he slept he did not know, but after a while
he was awakened by the tinkle of bells and the lowing of
many cattle. That seemed very strange, for it was almost
winter, and Swiss herdsmen drive their flocks to the valley
early in the autumn. Yet as he looked out through the tiny
window he saw herds on every alp, herds hundreds strong,
cropping luxuriant grass that grew out of the snow.
Then he heard a noise below in the hut, and peeping down
through a knot hole, saw three strange-looking little men.
They were warming themselves beside a fire that blazed on
the hearth, and by their long green cloaks and red caps he
knew that they were gnomes of the Alps.
They were bustling about and seemed to be making cheese.
One of them stirred the milk in a big silver kettle, one
scurried in and out of the hut bringing fresh milk to add to
that which was already cooking, and one fed the fire with
moss and dry branches, which piled up out of the earth.
After a while one of the gnomes poured something into
the kettle, the second one brought out three golden bowls,
and the third blew a blast on a horn that was seven times
as large as himself.
Then the hunter heard the sound of cattle lowing nearer
and nearer, as if they were drawn by the music of the horn,
and a moment later a voice called out, “Come down from
the loft, Moni, and taste of the good things in the bowls.”
This amazed him, for he was sure they had not seen him,
and how could they know his name? But he crept down
from his straw pile, as he was bid, and into the room.
“Choose whichever you please,” the little man said, “and
besides the drink in the bowl you will receive a gift that
goes with the liquid of your choice.”
The golden bowls stood side by side on the floor, and
each one contained a different-colored liquid. One was
red, like the wine of Geneva, one yellow as the honey of
Zurich, and the third was white like goat’s milk. Moni
looked from one to the other, deciding which to take. He
was hungry from his long tramp over the crags in the storm
and needed milk far more than honey or wine, so he chose
that bowl and drank greedily.
Then the little gnomes began to dance.
“Ah,” the cheese maker shouted, “you have won the
Alp horn!”
“Yes,” another exclaimed, “and it is a precious gift.
You can make other horns like it, and teach the people how
to call their herds, which will not stray away and be lost as
happens now. Thus the herdsmen will become very prosperous.”
“But remember, if you wish to be happy, you must give
up chamois hunting, and never again kill a harmless wild
creature.”
The gnomes disappeared, and with them went the cattle,
the kettle, and the shining bowls. But the horn lay where
the little man had dropped it, and as the hunter looked at
it he found it was pure silver. Catching it up, he ran down
the mountain side to the hut where his sweetheart lived.
He told her the story and showed her the Alp horn, and she
was very happy; for she never had wanted him to be a
chamois hunter, as the life was full of danger, and she loved
the poor little animals that he killed. Now he would tend
flocks as she did, and they would be happy in the life of
herding.
At first the hunter thought he could not change his ways,
for he loved to roam over the mountains and bound from
crag to crag in pursuit of the fleet-footed creatures, but the
promise of the gnomes and the pleas of Heidi persuaded
him, and he gathered a herd and tended it all summer.
He made an Alp horn like the one he had received in the
hut and gave it to the maiden, and sometimes as they tended
their cattle on different sides of the valley, they would call
across to each other, and they were happy and contented—until,
one evening, he forgot the warning of the gnomes
and shot a chamois.
Then he raised his horn to call good night to his sweetheart.
But she did not answer. He blew blast after blast,
but only the echoes came back, instead of the sound of the
voice he knew and loved. Darkness fell and stars flashed
like diamonds above the snowy Jungfrau, and still he called
and sought her, but found no trace. The next morning, as
he moved with his herd, a boy told him of a strange happening.
“Last night at sunset time I was watching my goats,”
he said, “and saw a girl standing on the mountain side
above her cattle. She smiled as the wine color of the Alpine
glow crept down toward Chamounix, and throwing back
her head, sang one of our herd songs. Suddenly she disappeared,
but she could not have fallen, and just then an
arrow whizzed through the air and fell on the spot where
she had been standing.”
He took the arrow out of his peasant blouse and showed
it to the hunter, who recognized it as his own, the one he
had shot at the chamois.
Then Moni remembered the words of the gnomes, and
knew that because he had forgotten their warning he had
lost Heidi. He burned his arrows and sorrowfully went back
to herding, never again to shoot a wild creature of the hills.
By day he followed the cattle, and by night made Alp
horns, always thinking of his sweetheart. But he never
saw her again. Some of the herdsmen say that she fled in
grief because he broke his word to her, and some declare that
the gnomes carried her away to an ice palace in a crevasse.
But nobody knows. They know only that from that time
forth he tended flocks and made Alp horns, until every
herdsman in the mountains had one, and because they
could keep the cattle from straying and getting lost, they
became more prosperous than they had ever dreamed of
being.
Since then every peak and valley in Switzerland has resounded
to the notes of the Alp horn. Throughout the summer
time they are heard around the lakes of Zug and Geneva,
and the cattle follow them as the children of Hamelin town
followed the music of the piper. They echo along the
Jungfrau as the shepherds behind Interlaken call their
flocks together, and their weird sweet blasts mingle with
the songs of herd girls as they yodel to each other across the
ravines. Travelers from every land smile at the sound of
them, for one of the charms of going to Switzerland is in
hearing the Alp horns; but very few of these strangers
know that the mountain people say the reason the sound is
so magical to the cattle is because in the beginning the
horn came from the gnomes.
(Biography—Music—Ethics)
More than a hundred years ago a man and his two children
were journeying from their home in Salzburg to Vienna.
They traveled by the Danube boat, and Marianne, the sister,
stood by the rail tossing pebbles into the water and watching
the turbulent river swallow them up. Her dress was
worn almost threadbare, but her face was so sweet and her
eyes were so large and bright that she looked pretty for all
her shabbiness.
Just behind her on the deck her father and brother were
talking. “If we make some money in the city you’ll buy
sister a new dress, won’t you, Father?” little Wolfgang
asked.
Marianne whirled and started toward him. She knew
that was sure to make her father sad, and she called, “Don’t
coax, Wolfgang. My dress will do very well until we can
afford to buy another, and a new one will seem all the nicer
because of my having worn this one so long.”
Her brother turned his big, earnest eyes upon her, and
answered, “But, Marianne, I know you want one. I heard
you wish for it by the evening star, and last night you
put it in your prayer.”
Father Mozart turned from them with a sad look on his
face, and walked up and down the deck, wishing very much
he could do what Wolfgang asked. But he was just a poor
orchestra conductor with an income so small he had to
stretch it hard to provide food and shelter for his family.
Marianne must wear the shabby frock until better times
began, which he hoped would be soon. They were to give
some concerts in the Austrian capital, and maybe in that
rich, music-loving city would earn enough to make them
more comfortable than they had been before. But until
then they must not spend a penny save what was needed
for food and shelter, because the customs fee on the harp
they carried must be paid, and that would reduce their
little fund to a very small amount.
Wolfgang, too, thought about it as the boat crept in and
out between the hills, and wondered much if there was no
way in which Marianne might have the dress before they
played in Vienna. His old teacher in Salzburg had often
told him that there is a way out of every difficulty if one is
clever enough to think of it, and there must be out of this.
But although he tried and tried he could not find one. His
own suit was bright and new, for his birthday was just past
and it had been his uncle’s gift. But Marianne was a very
shabby little girl, and he knew she was unhappy even though
she was brave and sweet about it.
They were gliding past the ruins of the castle that once,
men said, had been the prison of Richard the First, England’s
Lion-Hearted King, when his enemies took him captive
on his return from the holy wars. Wolfgang thought
of the many brave things that soldier ruler had done during
the Crusades, for often in the twilight time at Salzburg, as
they waited for the father to come from his work, the mother
told his tale, and of how the faithful servant Blondel found
him at last by singing a song he knew the master loved.
“He was very brave and wise, too,” the boy thought as he
looked at the crumbling pile. “He would have found a way
for Marianne to have a new dress if she had been his sister.”
Was it the prayer being answered, or just the fulfillment
of the wish made by the evening star? For while he thought,
an idea came into his head. It was a good idea, it seemed
to him, so good that it made him smile. If it worked out,
and he believed it would, Marianne might have the dress
she wanted so much, because then his father would have
more money to spend.
Just to the south they could see the great spire of St.
Stephens, a tall, gray finger against the sky, which told
that Vienna was not far away. As it grew nearer and nearer,
looming up bigger and plainer before them, Wolfgang thought
more and more of his idea, until when they reached the
mooring his eyes were dancing and his cheeks were aflame.
His father believed the thought of seeing the great capital
had excited him, but that was not it at all. He had a secret
plan and could hardly wait until he knew whether or not it
would work out.
The journey was ended and the people were going ashore.
“Please loosen the cover, Father,” he said as Leopold
Mozart carried the harp toward the customs gate.
“Ah, you are proud of it!” the man answered with a
smile.
Wolfgang did not reply, thinking what a poor guesser his
father was. He watched him as he set the instrument down
and undid the wrapping, bringing the polished frame and
glistening strings into full view. Then he went over and
took his place beside the harp as the customs officer drew
near, and Marianne came and stood beside him. She had
forgotten all about her shabby dress in her eagerness to find
out how much duty they would have to pay.
“What have you to declare?” the man asked.
“Only a harp,” Leopold Mozart answered, as he laid his
hand on their one treasure.
“It is a beautiful instrument and valuable,” the official
said as he looked at it, and named as the price of the duty
an amount so big as to cut their little hoard almost in half.
Father Mozart’s face grew very serious, and the merriment
went out of Marianne’s eyes. But Wolfgang did not
worry at all. He still had that idea in his mind, and believed
it would work out.
Leopold Mozart reached into his pocket for the little
sack containing his savings, but it was not necessary to open
it, for just as he was about to do so Wolfgang started to
play. The customs officer turned with a start and listened,
and the people gathered there forgot all about duty charges
as they crowded around the little musician. His tiny hands
swept the strings as if his fingers had some magic power,
and the melody they made was sweeter than any ever heard
on that old wharf. For five minutes, ten, he kept at it,
and there was not a whisper or a murmur, only a sort of
breathless surprise that one so young could play so wonderfully.
“What!” one exclaimed as he finished, “a lad of his age
to perform like that!”
“Yes,” the father answered with a smile, “he does well at
the harp.”
“Amazing,” the officer murmured, “’tis amazing! I’ve
heard many a good harpist in my day, but never anything
sweeter than that. Play some more, boy,” he said.
Wolfgang smiled. The idea was working out, and he
was very glad. Already he had visions of a happy sister in
a handsome new gown, and turning again to the instrument,
he played even more beautifully than before, for the gladness
that crept into his heart was creeping also into the
music.
For some minutes he picked the strings, while the people
listened as if held in a spell, until the father said, “We must
go now, for it is getting late, and we have yet to find lodgings
in the city.” And he handed the money to the officer.
But the man shook his head. “No,” he said, and his
eyes were very tender as he spoke. “A boy who can give
as much pleasure as that deserves something. Keep the
money and buy a present for him.”
As Wolfgang heard the words he gave a bound. “Father,”
he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes, “buy the dress for
Marianne. You can do it now, since you have saved the
customs money.”
The officer looked at him in amazement. “He is a wonderful
lad, truly,” he exclaimed, “and as kind as he is
wonderful!”
“Yes,” came the low reply. “He has wanted nothing so
much as a new dress for his sister, and now he is happy
because he thinks she will get it.”
And she did get it, too, a beautiful one of soft, bright red,
all trimmed with shining buttons. Wolfgang danced with
delight when he saw it, and there was no happier child in all
that great capital.
They gave many concerts there, some before the royal
family; and Maria Theresa, the empress, became greatly
attached to both brother and sister, gave them handsome
clothes and beautiful gifts, and forgot all about affairs of
state while Wolfgang played. She called him the “little
sorcerer,” and agreed with the customs officer that he was a
wonderful child.
Then, after some weeks, they went back to the home in
Salzburg, where the boy kept on at his music, doing such
marvelous things that his fame traveled far. He grew to
be the great master, Mozart, at whose glorious music the
world still wonders, and he was a generous and sweet-souled
man, just as he was a big-hearted and thoughtful child.
Many lovely acts are told of him, but none that shows his
kindness and tenderness in a more delightful way than
when as a boy on the Vienna wharf he charmed the customs
officer and all others who heard, and Marianne had the
dress for which she had wished by the evening star with
the duty money that wasn’t paid.
(Biography—Art Teaching)
It was summer time, and a boy named Rembrandt van
Rijn was lying on top of the ramparts that walled in the
city of Leyden, his eyes fixed on the yellow highroad that
stretched away toward The Hague. It was good to be there
in the shadow of the mill sails, for the trees beyond were
beautifully green, and he loved to watch the market folk
coming and going, loved to see strangers journeying from
far away and to dream of the time when he, too, would fare
forth to see the world. Instead of being a miller like his
father and living always beside the Leyden ramparts, he
would go to Amsterdam, where ships sailed in from the
Indies, and perhaps he would board one of those wonderful
craft and journey over leagues of ocean to distant realms
of the East. The thought brought a smile to his face and
a deeper blue to his eyes, and he whistled a strain from an
old Dutch song of rejoicing.
Suddenly he started up in surprise, for a familiar figure
was coming along the Rhine road. It looked like his Uncle
Peter, but that seemed impossible, for it was Saturday morning,
and his uncle was an industrious merchant who was
never known to leave his shop on business days. Then as
the man hurried through the great gate that opened into
the city, Rembrandt saw that it was his Uncle Peter; and
his surprise changed to alarm, for he believed his uncle’s
coming would mean trouble for him.
The day before, in the Latin school, he had drawn pictures
on his cousin Wilhelmina’s wooden shoes and had been
caught. She was quite willing to have them decorated,
and laughed merrily at sight of the ducks and chickens and
spotted pigs marching from heel to toe; but Mynheer Speelburg,
the teacher, had a very different idea. He considered
that it was defacing property, and wasting one’s time as
well. Although Wilhelmina declared it was all her fault,
Rembrandt was severely scolded, and the master sent a
note home to his uncle. Now the uncle was probably coming
to tell the boy’s father about it, and the thought sent
all the brightness out of the day.
The merchant did not notice Rembrandt until he had
passed the ramparts and a cawing crow caused him to turn
and see the boy on top of the wall. Then he looked up and
smiled, which did not seem like anger, and yet—what
else could have taken him from the shop on Saturday
morning?
“I’ve come to have a talk with your mother,” he said as
he stopped a moment.
Rembrandt climbed down to go with him, hoping that
something besides the shoes had brought him, but the man
shook his head.
“No, stay where you are,” he said. “I want to see your
mother alone.”
Again the uneasy feeling surged over the lad. After all,
it must be those wooden shoes, and he felt very uncomfortable;
and a little later, when both mother and uncle
came from the house and hurried to the mill, he wished
very much that he never had seen pigs and fowls—most of
all that he had not drawn them on his cousin’s shoes. Then
his father called to him, and although he wanted to creep
away and hide, he went on the run.
“Here’s the young rascal,” the uncle said as the boy
went in at the broad, low door. Rembrandt noticed that
he held one of Wilhelmina’s shoes, and his heart sank.
But a moment later he was as much amazed as he had
been alarmed, for his mother spoke pleasantly and asked,
“Would you really like to be a painter?”
“A painter?” he answered quickly. “More than anything
else in the world.”
Then his father smiled, too, which seemed strange indeed,
for he had declared that his son never should become an
artist. Often Rembrandt had dreamed of being one, and
when he spoke to his mother about it the idea seemed to
please her. But the sturdy Dutch miller shook his head
and announced that his boy must become a syndic, one of
the wise lawgivers of Holland, or else a miller like himself.
So, instead of being allowed to spend his days drawing the
pictures that were constantly running through his fancy,
Rembrandt had been sent to the Latin school to do sums
and conjugations. It seemed impossible that the miller
could have changed his mind; but he had changed it, for
he said, “Very well. We will see about it.”
Then, while the mill sails whirred above them, and the
voices of passing market folk came in through the open
window, the merchant uncle told what seemed to Rembrandt
a wonderful story.
“This morning, as I was opening the shop,” he began,
“Speelburg, the schoolmaster, came to talk about the pictures
on Wilhelmina’s shoes. He urged me not to be too hard on
the lad because he had thought much about it during the
night and had come to believe that perhaps Rembrandt
cannot help drawing. He is a wise man, this Speelburg,
and told me much of how the young masters Giotto, Cimabue,
and Raphael had made pictures on stones, sand, and
anything that would hold a drawing, and that their parents
could no more prevent it than they could keep water from
running downhill. He thinks our Rembrandt may be like
them, and so he offered to tend the shop for me if I would
come and ask you, his father, to let him study with Master
Swannenburg.”
Those words were music to Rembrandt’s ears, for Swannenburg
was the master painter of Leyden.
An hour later, miller and merchant went through the old
White Gate into the city, and Rembrandt trudged along
beside them, carrying a roll of paper. As they hurried along
the highway his eyes gleamed, for it seemed to him like a
dream come true, and the stern Dutch schoolmaster began
to appear in the guise of a fairy godfather. He did not see
the market folk they passed on the way, did not hear the
murmur of the Rhine sweeping seaward just beyond them,
for the thought that he might become a painter had crowded
out all other things.
Very soon they reached the workshop of the artist, and
knew what the great man thought of the sketches, for as
he looked them over he murmured, “H’m, h’m! Pretty
good! The old woman’s head is too small for her body,
and a pig never had legs as crooked as that; but he will
learn, and if he is willing to work I’ll gladly take him as a
pupil.”
So Rembrandt went into the studio of the painter, for
his father had come to believe that he was intended for
neither a syndic nor a miller. He was so eager to learn that
he worked with all his might, and his progress amazed his
teacher, who, although he knew he had talent, had not
dreamed he could advance so rapidly. Before two years
were gone his pictures were better than those of Swannenburg
himself, who said sadly one day, “I am no longer the
master painter of Leyden.”
But that artist had a great, good heart, and he was so glad
to see the boy’s progress that he helped him all he could.
Now it happened, about the time the work of the miller’s
son was causing Leyden folk to open their eyes, that Jan
Lievens, who was a successful painter in Amsterdam, came
home to visit his parents, who were neighbors of Rembrandt’s
family. He was greatly excited over the work of his young
friend and exclaimed, “You must go back to Amsterdam
with me, for the best masters of Holland are there, and you
must study with them.”
The idea seemed good to the miller, who was very proud
of the progress of his son; so to Amsterdam young Rembrandt
went, where he progressed as amazingly as he had
done in the studio of Swannenburg. The great harbor city
fascinated him, and he loved to roam along its splendid
streets watching the people hurrying to and fro or idling in
groups on the corners, laughing and chatting in their merry
Dutch way; loved to go to the docks where ships came in
from the Indies, and to see the sunrise and sunset painting
marvelous-hued pictures on the waves of the wild North
Sea. Then he would go back to the studio and work, picturing
the men and women he saw on his rambles, the mill
by the old White Gate, and the market folk he used to watch
from the Leyden ramparts. His paintings delighted the
great of Amsterdam just as the pigs and chickens he drew
on Wilhelmina’s shoes had delighted the boys and girls in
the Latin school, and he became rich and famous. He lived
in a palace fine enough for a prince, and could have bought
whole cargoes of those ships that sailed in from the Indies;
and his wealth seemed all the more glorious because he had
earned it with the labor of his hand and brain. He married
a great and gracious lady, and as his children drove through
the streets in their fine carriage the people would say, “See,
the son and daughter of Rembrandt van Rijn, the wonderful
painter.”
But all his good fortune and all the honors heaped upon
him did not make him selfish and overbearing. He never
forgot or ceased to love his native Leyden. He lived in
the harbor city because it fascinated him and was a better
place for an artist than his childhood town, but he never
tired of going back to the old home or lost interest in the
pigs and cows and the market folk on the Rhine road. Sometimes
on these visits he would lie on the ramparts just as
he had done when a boy, and strangers journeying to and
from The Hague had no idea that the grave-eyed man dreaming
there in the shadow of the mill sails was the famous
painter of Amsterdam.
Then, one day he died, and they laid him to rest in the
harbor city where for so many years he had lived and worked.
The people of Leyden asked to have him taken back there,
and those who know how he loved it wish it had been done;
for it would be pleasant to think of him sleeping in the
shadow of the mill sails, and perhaps if he could have been
asked he would have wanted it, too.
Years passed, but instead of dimming the glory of Rembrandt’s
name they brightened it. After his death his works
became priceless, and the world still prizes them just as
Amsterdam prized them two hundred years ago. To own a
canvas by this king of Dutch painters is to be rich and
envied, for it requires a great deal of money to buy one of
his paintings. Even the crude drawings of his boyhood are
now treasured by princes, and one of the most prized possessions
of a great museum in Holland is a pair of wooden shoes.
They are brown and clumsy and covered with marks, half
of which have been worn away by the staining finger of
Time; but a fortune could not buy them, because ever so
long ago they were worn by little Wilhelmina van Rijn to
the Latin school of Leyden, and were decorated by the
hand of a mill boy, and who would not be proud to own
them? That mill boy became the immortal Flemish painter,
Rembrandt, whose work will be treasured as long as the
world loves beautiful things.
Retold from a Dutch Legend
(Geography—Ethics)
There was once, in Holland, a great and beautiful city
called Stavoren. It stood beside the sea, and many of the
inhabitants were proud and rich. They had houses stately
enough for royal palaces. They had gold and silver plate
and diamonds without number, and great oaken chests
filled with money. Their vessels sailed to the farthest parts
of the ocean and brought back treasures from every land,
and as the wealth of the people increased their selfishness
increased, until they thought of nothing but their good fortune
and had no pity for the poor.
Richest of all the rich folk in the city was a stately, beautiful
woman. There was no home in Stavoren as princely
as hers, there were no jewels as gorgeous or silks and velvets
as lustrous as those she possessed, and when she drove
through the streets in her gold-blazoned carriage her splendor
dazzled the eyes of all who saw. But she was as selfish
as she was rich and powerful, and always she pondered in
her mind the question, “How can I become richer still?”
One day she summoned the captain of her largest vessel
and said, “Make ready to sail at once.”
“Yes, madame,” the officer replied, “but where shall I
go and upon what mission?”
“Where you go you must decide for yourself, for I care
nothing about that. But you must bring back the most
precious cargo in all the world.”
The man looked at her in surprise.
“That shall I gladly do, madame,” he said, “if you will
but tell me what you wish. Is it to be gold and silver,
diamonds and jewels, or rare laces, tapestries, and velvets?”
The rich woman tossed her head and replied haughtily,
“There is but one thing in the world more precious than
all others, and what it is you must find out. I have given
my orders. Go now and fulfill them.”
The captain was greatly troubled, for he feared the anger
of his mistress. She was so powerful that she could have
him thrown into prison or even put to death if she chose,
and as he walked down the street from the house he thought,
“What is the most precious thing in all the world?”
Sometimes he thought it was one thing and sometimes
another, but when he reached the shipyard he had not
decided. He called to the officers and sailors standing there,
told them of the woman’s strange order, and said sadly,
“But, alas! I know not what it may be. If any among
you can tell, let him speak.”
Every one thought a minute, then came a chorus of suggestions.
One officer suggested gold, another silver, and
another precious stones, but the captain was not sure which
was right. He must not decide too quickly, for to make a
mistake would be a terrible thing.
Silently listening the sailors stood, for according to the
law of the city they must not open their lips until the officers
had had their say. Then one of the group, a slender, blue-eyed
fellow, who seemed no more than a boy, said, “No, my
captain! The most precious thing in the world is neither
gold and silver, pearls and diamonds, nor costly laces and
velvets. It is wheat, for without it we could have no bread,
and without bread we cannot live.”
Some of the officers laughed at this idea, for common
sailors were not supposed to know much. But the captain
quieted them, saying, “He is right. We will sail away
and bring back a cargo of wheat.”
So they sailed out of the harbor, and across the Baltic to
Dantzic. There they bought a great cargo of wheat, the
largest that had ever been started out to sea, and the captain,
delighted with the purchase, turned the ship’s prow
back toward Stavoren town.
He could hardly wait to get to his mistress and tell her
what a wise and wonderful choice he had made. She
frowned when she saw him, displeased that he had returned
so soon.
“You must have flown like a pigeon,” she said. “Have
you brought me the cargo I ordered?”
“Yes, madame,” he replied, bowing low before her. “I
have the finest cargo of wheat that ever went out of a port.”
The woman screamed in anger. “Wheat!” she yelled.
“A cargo of wheat! I told you to bring me the most precious
thing in the world, and do you mean to say that you have
brought a common, cheap thing like wheat?”
The captain was terribly frightened, but he did not regret
his selection. He believed in the value of his cargo, and
tried to lead the woman to see that he had made a wise
purchase.
“Pardon, madame,” he spoke. “Wheat is not cheap
and common. It is in truth the most precious thing in the
world, for without it we could have no bread, and without
bread we could not live.”
But he could not convince his mistress. She tossed her
head and wrung her hands in anger and exclaimed, “Wheat!
Wheat! Go to the port and throw your precious cargo of
wheat into the sea.”
The captain was horrified.
“Madame!” he exclaimed, “surely you do not command
me to do that! Wheat is precious. If you will not
have it yourself, give it to the poor and hungry, of whom
there are many in Stavoren.”
But she drove him from the house, saying, “Do as I bid
you. In a few minutes I shall come myself to see if you
have carried out my order.”
Sadly the man went down the street, wondering how one
so rich and beautiful could be so hard and unkind. But he
had no thought of executing the order. Instead, he told all
the poor he met, and dispatched messengers to tell others,
that his mistress had refused to accept the cargo of wheat
and perhaps, if they came to the port and asked her, she
would give it to them.
A little later the great lady of Stavoren drove in her
gold-emblazoned carriage to the shipyard, where a group of
men, women, and children had joined the sailors and stood
looking at the splendid vessel piled high with the best wheat
that ever came out of Dantzic. But when she saw them
her anger increased.
“Have you carried out my orders?” she said to the
captain, as he came in answer to her summons and stood
beside the carriage.
“No, madame, not yet,” he replied.
“Then,” the woman commanded, “do it at once. Throw
the cargo of wheat into the sea. I want to see, myself.”
But the captain shook his head. “See these poor people,”
he said, pointing to the hollow-eyed men, women, and
children who were standing there. “Give them the wheat,
for they are hungry.”
But the haughty woman silenced him and commanded,
“Throw it into the sea!”
Then the captain seemed afraid no longer. He stood
straight and fearless before her and declared, “Never,
madame!”
But she shouted word to the officers, who dared not disobey,
and amid the cries and pleas of the poor, the cargo
that would have meant bread for thousands, was thrown into
the sea.
The woman watched the waters swallow it up and smiled
heartlessly. Then she called to the people, “Did you see
it go into the waves?”
“Yes, madame,” they answered sadly.
“Yes, madame,” repeated the captain, “and a day will
come when you will regret what you have done. A day will
come when you will be hungry, and no one will pity and help
you.”
The mistress looked at him in amazement. Then she
laughed loudly. “I, go hungry,” she exclaimed, “I, the
richest of all the rich of Stavoren! It is impossible!”
Then she took a diamond ring, held it up for the people
to see, and tossed it into the ocean. “When that ring returns
into my hand,” she said, “I shall believe what the
captain has said.” And she drove away in her splendid
carriage, and boasted to the citizens of what she had done.
The next day one of her servants came running to her in
wild excitement. “Madame,” she cried, “the cook has found
this in the stomach of a fish he is preparing for dinner.”
And she held up the diamond ring the woman had tossed
into the sea the day before.
The great lady of Stavoren opened her eyes wide and
wider. She was amazed and frightened, for she remembered
the captain’s words. “Can it be,” she thought, “that they
are to come true?”
It proved to be just as she feared, for that same afternoon
she received word of the destruction of all her ships, of the
loss of all her houses and lands, of the pillaging of her chests
of gold. She was no longer the richest woman in Stavoren,
but was as poor as any beggar. She went from house to
house, begging for food as pitifully as the people at the port
had begged her for wheat, but no one helped her, and at last
she died from cold and hunger.
The other rich folk of Stavoren still lived on in the old
selfish way. They drove through the streets in sumptuous
carriages. They wore costly clothing and jewels, they
danced and feasted and sailed their vessels out across the
seas, forgetful of every one but themselves. There were
still many poor in the city, but they neither thought nor
cared about them. They believed themselves to be so great
and powerful that nothing could harm them, and they refused
to listen to advice.
After a while the port of Stavoren became blocked by a
great sandbank. It rose just at the spot where the lady’s
cargo had been thrown into the sea, and was covered with
wheat. Ships could no longer go in and out. Commerce
was ruined, and because there were no vessels to unload, the
poor lost the only way they had of making a living. They
begged the rich people to help them dig the bar away, but
they refused. They had enough to eat and plenty of gold,
so what cared they for the distress of the laborers?
Then something else happened. One night as they
feasted, a man came running into the banquet hall. “I
have found two fish in my well,” he said. “The dike is
broken. Protect the city! Protect the houses of the poor
that are close to the sea wall and will be swept away.”
But one of the great folk said haughtily, “Let the beggars
take care of themselves. The sea cannot harm us. We
must finish the banquet.” They turned away from him and
went on with their revelry, but only for a short time. A
few hours later the entire dike gave away, and the ocean
rolled in and covered the houses,—not only the huts of the
poor which were in the low quarter of the city, but even the
palaces of the rich who had declared they could not be harmed.
The great perished as well as the humble, and the waves of
the Zuider Zee rolled where the banquet laughter had sounded.
It rolls there still. The sailors say that sometimes when
the weather is fine and the sea is smooth as glass, they see
spires and domes and stately columns far down under the
water. They declare, too, that often strange, weird music
like the sound of distant bells falls upon their ears, and then
they look and listen and nod to each other, for they think
of the palaces and chimes of Stavoren, once the fairest city
of the Netherlands, submerged hundreds of years ago while
the poor cried for help and the mighty danced.
A Swiss Legend
(Geography)
The Alpine herdsmen say that in the marvelous long ago
an enchanted boat was seen gliding up and down the blue
waters of Lake Geneva. Neither oars nor sails were needed
to speed it over the waves, for it was drawn by singing swans
and carried a fairy crew. A radiant creature in a robe whiter
than goat’s milk stood on the prow, her gleaming hair rippling
down over the hem of her garment. She bore a golden
basket of rare fruits and flowers, and although she scattered
the contents with lavish hand upon the sprites at her feet,
it was never empty. Sometimes the vessel touched the
shore, and then the soil around that spot produced as never
soil produced before or since, and if any peasant was so
fortunate as to catch a glimpse of the boat, he and his children
became rich beyond want and were blessed and happy
to the end of their days.
For hundreds of years the magic ship sailed the lake, and
as it touched the shore frequently and numbers of peasants
saw it, there was wonderful prosperity in Old Helvetia.
But a great misfortune befell the country and the glad,
abundant days became but a memory. A steamboat was
brought to Geneva, and it plowed, a screaming, snorting
monster, across the waters. The noise terrified the gentle
swans, and with one wild cry they flew away. Never again
did the peasants catch a glimpse of the white-robed fairy
and the shining sprites. Never again did the music of the
snowy pilots gladden their ears.
The Luck Boat disappeared, and with it went prosperity
from the land of Geneva. But marvelous things like that
are never forgotten. Those who had seen the fairy craft
in their youth told the story to their sons and daughters,
who passed it on to their children and their children’s children,
and although the mountain folk of today have never
beheld it, they know just how it looked. They have pictured
it so often in their minds, that their artists have pictured
it on paper, and so it has become the custom for the
peasants around Lake Geneva to send “Luck cards” to
their friends on New Year’s Day. These are gay, colored
postals containing a likeness of the Luck Boat, and to those
of whom a peasant is fondest he sends as many as he can
afford, because to receive them is supposed to bring good
fortune, just as a glimpse of the swan-drawn vessel was said
to do in the marvelous long ago.
A Japanese Legend
(Geography)
Ages ago, in the Japanese city of Nagasaki, there lived a
young and handsome noble named Vasobiove. Life seemed
very beautiful to him. He loved the blossoms that are so
sweet and abundant in his native Saikaido, loved the racing
and the wrestling matches, the sunset on the purple Gulf of
Sinabara, the evening festivals with the dances of the geisha
girls, and his only sorrow was the thought that he could not
live forever.
“Alas, to have to leave this beautiful world!” he often
sighed.
At which his old father would say, “Fear not, my son.
By the time you are threescore years and ten you will think
differently.”
But the young noble would shake his head and reply,
“Nay, nay, I want to live always, always.”
One day an aged pilgrim came into Nagasaki and rested
on a stone outside Vasobiove’s garden. The owner was
walking under the tulip trees, and seeing the sad-looking man
in the sun and dust of the road, called and bade him come
into the shade of his park.
Leaning heavily upon his staff, the wanderer came and
sat down beside the fountain, and the young noble asked him
many a question of lands and men he had seen.
“Is it throughout the world as here in Japan,” he questioned,
“that people must die even while they yearn to live?”
The aged pilgrim nodded.
“Yea,” he answered, “in all the lands through which I
have journeyed. But men have told me that there is a
region where death never comes.”
The young noble leaned forward eagerly. “Where is it,”
he questioned, “ah, where? Tell me, for I mean to go to
that land.”
The pilgrim shook his head, saying, “That you cannot do,
my son. It is in the Happy Islands of Everlasting Life, but
although mortals have seen them in the distance, never has
one succeeded in entering there.”
“But I must, I will reach that land!” Vasobiove exclaimed.
His father, who was old and wise, begged him not to go.
“You will perish on the way,” he said sorrowfully. “But
even if you reach and enter the islands, you will not be happy.
That which is best for us is given to us, and after a long life,
death is good.”
But Vasobiove shook his head and objected, “No, no!
I go to the Everlasting Islands.” And the next day he set
out from Nagasaki in a boat.
Straight southward he journeyed and eastward. Storms
raged and tropic heat beat fiercely on his head, but he pressed
onward, and at last, in spite of wave and tempest, reached
the green shore of Horaisan. It was the land no mortal
had ever entered, the Happy Islands of Everlasting Life.
Vasobiove’s cup of joy was full. There was no sorrow
there, no birth or death, no tempest and black weather or
flight of time—nothing but dancing, music, splendid men
and beautiful women, with enchanted flowers of unfading
beauty in the groves and gardens, and always iridescent
reaches of the sea beyond. There were wrestling matches,
such as were not dreamed of in Nagasaki, long days filled
with feasting, and long nights of dance and song.
Vasobiove smiled the smile of the contented.
“At last!” he said. “It is good to know that I shall live
forever.”
Two hundred years he spent in the eternal mirth of Horaisan,
and then, somehow, he longed for other things. The
music he had loved grew wearisome, the never ending dance
became hateful to his eyes.
He wanted to return to Nagasaki, but there was no way.
The boat that had carried him to the islands had long since
fallen into decay, and it was impossible to get another. He
must stay forever and ever in the land of dance and song,
and the thought became hideous.
Then he heard a weird cry. Looking behind him, he saw
a giant stork settling on the bank of a lake to catch some of
the rainbow fish within.
A happy thought came to him. No, he would not dwell
eternally in Horaisan. He would go back to Nagasaki.
Catching the bird, he tamed it, and one morning while the
islanders reveled and the sea was as many colored as the enchanted
blossoms in the gardens, he flew away, borne by the
giant stork back to the sweet land of Saikaido, back to the
shining Gulf of Sinabara, and his native Nagasaki. He
would live as his fathers had lived, he would die when his
time came, and never again would he pine for a land where
all was revelry and beauty and song.
Ever since that time the Japanese have loved the stork.
They picture it upon their royal banners and upon the walls
of their houses, and give it the freedom of their gardens.
Whenever a youth becomes dissatisfied and yearns for a
land where delights are never ending, they tell him the story
of the man who went to the Everlasting Islands, show a
picture of the stork that carried him back to Nagasaki, and
say,
“Even as it was with Vasobiove, so would it be with you.”
A Shasta Legend. Adapted from Bancroft
(Indian Folk Tale—Geography—Ethics)
Ages ago, before there were any mountains or valleys or
rivers flowing seaward, Great Spirit lived up in the sky,
higher than the most distant star. All about him were snow
heaps and white cloud billows, so thick he could not see
through them, and he wondered what lay beyond.
“I will make a hole and see,” he said.
So, taking a sharp rock, he bored an opening through the
cloud floor and looked below. A strange sight met his eyes.
There lay the world, but a very different world from the one
we know. It was flat like a table, with no hills or valleys,
or rivers, or growing things, and Great Spirit said, “I will
build a teepee there, and then I shall make it better.”
The snow heaps lying around him made him think of a
good way of building a wigwam; so he pushed some down
through the floor window, working day and night through
many, many moons, until he had the pyramid white men
call Mount Shasta. He built a fire and lived in the teepee,
and then he walked abroad.
It was a fine land for a home, but lonely and too flat. He
wanted mountains and valleys; so he created them. Then
he wanted living and growing things about him; so he said,
“I will make men and animals too.”
He dug holes in the ground with his fingers, some large,
some small, and when he breathed into them, trees of many
sizes and kinds rose out of the earth. Then he stripped
leaves from the branches and scattered them about, and
they became men. He caused snow from the mountain
sides to melt and flow in streams, and now, instead of the
flat, brown vastness, there were uplands and lowlands, green
fields and snowy peaks, and rivers running seaward, and
other leaves stripped from the branches and torn into bits
became fishes that swim.
“Now I shall make beasts of every kind,” he said, and as
he spoke he smote down a mighty tree. He broke it into
pieces, some large, some small, which he turned into animals
of various sizes and varying strength. Grizzly Bear he
created from the heaviest part of the trunk, and the bear
stood before him, on his hind legs, straight and powerful
like a young hunter, stronger than any other creature of the
earth.
It pleased Great Spirit to have living creatures around
him, and he did not go back to the cloud world, but stayed
in the teepee. The Indians knew he was inside, because
often they saw the smoke from his flaming coals curl far
above the peaks.
Many, many moons he dwelt there and grew so lonely
that he sent for Little Daughter. She came and lived with
him, made his moccasins and tended his fire, and was happy.
One day there was a mighty storm. The wind raged
fiercely, sending the smoke back through the smoke hole
into Great Spirit’s face. He did not like that, and bade
Little Daughter go up to command the wind to stop.
She did as she was told, and put her head out through the
hole to call to the wind. But never having beheld the world
before, she grew very curious at the strange sights that met
her eyes, and leaned out far, far, to see all she could.
Suddenly she fell, and the wind carried her to the land of
the Grizzly Bear. Little Daughter did not want to stay there
and begged to be taken back to the teepee of her father.
“Let her stay here and work for me,” Mother Grizzly
growled, and Young Grizzly agreed, saying, “Yes, let her
work.”
So they would neither go with her nor let her try to find
the way herself.
Great Spirit knew Little Daughter was in the land of the
Grizzly Bear, and he went to take her home. When she told
him how she had begged to go back, but was forced to stay
and work, he was very angry.
“I shall punish you,” he said to the bears. “Never again
shall you walk upright like a man; always you must go on
all fours.”
Taking Little Daughter, he went back to the snow teepee,
and they lived there for ages and ages, always keeping the
fire burning, and always the Indians saw the smoke come out
through the smoke hole.
At last the white men came, and as Great Spirit did not
like the palefaces, he went away and the fire died out. But
the teepee they call Mount Shasta is still there, although
smoke no longer curls above it, and Grizzly Bear still goes on
all fours, never standing upright except when he is fighting.
(Geography—Ethics—Manual Training)
In a chalet high up among the Austrian mountains, blue-eyed
Franz was very unhappy because his mother and brother
Johan were going to Vienna and he had to stay at home with
his old grandfather. He bit his lips to keep back the tears
as he watched the packing of the box that was to carry their
clothing. Then his mother tried to comfort him.
“Never mind, lad,” she said. “I’ll send you a present
from Vienna, and we’ll call it a ‘luck gift’ and hope it will
bring good luck. If it does you’ll be a luck boy.”
He smiled even if he did feel sad. He had often heard of
luck children, for among the Tyrolean peasants there were
many stories of those who had been led by fairies to have
such wonderful good fortune that ever afterward they were
spoken of as the elf-aided, or “Glücks Kinder,” and it was
so delightful to think about being one of them that he forgot
his sorrow. Of course it would be very fine to travel down
to Vienna and go into the service of a rich noble there, as
his mother and brother were to do, but it would be still
better to be a “Glücks Kind,” and such things sometimes
did happen. So he did not feel sad any more, but whistled
and sang and helped with the packing.
Early next morning the post chaise rattled up to the door,
and Johan and the mother drove away. Franz watched
them go down the winding white road, calling after them
in sweet Tyrolean words of endearment until they were out
of sight. Then he went back into the hut and began to
sandpaper some blocks that his grandfather needed for his
work. The old man was a maker of picture frames, all
carved and decorated with likenesses of mountain flowers,
and these, when sent to Innsbruck and Vienna, brought the
money that gave him his living. The figures were too fine
and difficult for Franz to carve, but he could lend a hand at
fetching blocks and sandpapering. He worked with a vim,
for Tyrolean boys think it a disgrace to shirk, but all the
while his thoughts were on the luck gift.
“I wonder what it will be?” he said to his grandfather.
They took turns at guessing, until it was time to feed the
goats and house the chickens for the night.
A week later the man who had driven Johan and his
mother away came by on his return from Vienna, and Franz
fairly flew out to get his gift.
“It is something very big,” he called to the old frame
maker as he took a bulging bag. “See, it is stuffed full!”
And he expected to find something very wonderful.
But when he opened it, he thought it wasn’t wonderful
at all. There was a blue velvet jacket, trimmed with gold
braid and fastened with glittering buttons, such as Tyrolean
boys wore in those days, and in one of the pockets
he found a shining knife.
“Well, of all things!” he exclaimed as he held them up for
his grandfather to see. “It’s a splendid jacket, and the knife
is a beauty, but I don’t see where the luck part comes in.”
But Hals Berner was old and wise, and a knowing smile
played over his wrinkled face as he spoke. “It won’t be
the first time luck has hidden in a knife,” he said, as he bent
over his carving.
Franz did not know what he meant. He had always had
a knife, for being of a carver’s family he was taught to
whittle when he was a very little fellow, and he had become
remarkably skillful for one of his years. But no wonderful
good fortune had come to him, and he was very sure that
although each of the presents was nice, neither would bring
luck, and he sent that word to Johan. But the brother wrote
back from the city, “It will surely turn out to be a luck gift,
Franz. Just wait and see.” And still the boy wondered.
Winter came and icy winds blew down from the peaks.
There was no word from Vienna now, for the valley was shut
in by a glittering wall, and travel over the snow-drifted
passes was impossible. There were other boys in the village,
but each had his work indoors, and there was little time to
play, so Franz had no chance for games. He helped his
grandfather part of the day and sometimes whittled for his
own amusement. It was a lonely life there in the hut, with
just the old frame maker, who was often too busy to talk, so
Franz was glad to do something to keep him busy. Now he
made rings and tops and then just fantastic sticks or blocks.
One day, as he whittled, his grandfather said, “Why
don’t you make an animal, Franz?”
The boy looked up in surprise. “I don’t think I can,”
he answered.
“Not unless you try,” came the reply. “But if you do
that you may surprise yourself.”
Franz hated to have any one think he was afraid to make
an attempt, so he exclaimed, “I wonder if I could make a
sheep?”
“Begin and see,” the old man advised.
The boy went to work. At first it was discouraging. After
many minutes of whittling there was little to suggest what he
had in mind. But then, with an occasional turn of the knife
by the frame maker, and now and then a bit of advice, the
boy began to see that a sheep would grow out of the block,
and when it did he felt like a hero who has won a battle.
“It wasn’t a bit hard, was it, lad?” Hals Berner asked
when it was finished.
And Franz agreed that it was not.
That was the beginning, and every day thereafter Franz
worked at his whittling, and animal after animal grew under
his knife. He was so busy he did not have time to be lonely,
and had quite forgotten how sad he had felt over having to
stay at home. It was such fun to see the figures come out
of the wood and feel that he had made them. Of course
they were crude, and not half so handsome as those his
grandfather could have made; but any one could tell what
they were, and that was worth a great deal.
By spring he had a whole menagerie, and when his mother
came home she found he had been a busy boy, and a happy
one as well.
“All made with the luck knife,” Johan said as he looked
over the work.
“So grandfather says,” Franz answered. “It’s a splendid
knife, but I don’t see yet where the luck comes in.”
And again the knowing smile went over the old man’s face.
One day soon afterward his mother had word from the
man who had been her employer in Vienna that his little son
was not well, and he was sending him to regain his health in
the mountain air. A week later the child arrived with his
nurse, and the first thing that attracted his attention was
Franz’s menagerie.
“Oh! oh!” he exclaimed, “dogs, cats, sheep, goats,
lions, elephants, and all made of wood! I want them.”
“He means that he wants to buy them,” his nurse explained.
“Will you sell them, Franz?”
For a minute the boy hesitated. That menagerie had
meant many months of whittling, and he loved every animal
in it, and if Johan hadn’t interrupted, probably he would
have refused.
“Why, Franz,” the brother exclaimed, “it begins to look
like a luck knife after all.”
That put a thought into his mind that caused him to
answer, “Yes, take them. I can make some more.”
So, when the child went back to Vienna he took a wooden
menagerie from the Tyrolean mountains. Other Viennese
children, seeing it, wanted to possess one, and orders began
to pour in to Franz, far more than he could fill. Then other
villagers took up the work, until all over the valley people
were making animals and toys.
The work grew to be a big industry, and toys from the
Grödner Thal were sent all over Germany, and even to the
lands beyond. One generation after another went on with
the work, and although it is two hundred years since Franz
began it, the craft continues there to this day. At Christmas
time shops in every land are filled with toys from the Tyrolean
mountains, and although they do not know the story,
thousands of children have been happier because of a peasant
boy’s whittling.
So out of the bag sent back from Vienna there came in
truth a luck gift, and it wasn’t the fine jacket either, but the
knife with which Franz whittled his first sheep. The boy
had found out that luck doesn’t mean something sent by
fairies, but the doing a thing so well that it brings a rich
reward, and although he lived to be a very old man, he
never got over being grateful that his mother made him
stay behind when she and Johan went to the city.
The little valley among the Austrian Alps is still called
Grödner Thal on the maps, but because of the animals and
toys that have come out of it, it is almost as well known by
another name. If you are good guessers you can surely tell
what it is, especially if you know that the peasants still speak
of the lad who made the first menagerie there as the Luck
Boy of Toy Valley.
Adapted from the Swedish of Selma Lagerlöf
From Lagerlöf’s Christ Legends. Copyright, 1908, by Henry
Holt & Co.
(Medieval Legend—Ethics)
When Augustus was Emperor of Rome and Herod was
King of Jerusalem, a great and holy night sank down over
the earth. It was the darkest night that any one had seen,
and one could not find the way on the most familiar road.
How could it be otherwise, since all the stars stayed at home
in their houses and the fair moon hid her face?
The silence was as profound as the darkness. The rivers
stood still in their courses, the wind did not stir, and even the
aspen leaves had ceased to quiver. Everything was as
motionless as if turned to stone, and the grass was afraid to
grow, lest it disturb the holy night.
There was no cruelty or wickedness. Wild beasts did not
seek their prey, but lay in the forest depths and wondered;
serpents did not sting or dogs bark, and no false key could
have picked a lock, no knife could have drawn a drop of
blood.
In Rome, the mighty city, a group of people came from
the Emperor’s palace at the Palatine and took the path across
the Forum which led to the Capitol. During the day the
senators had asked the Emperor if he had any objection to
their erecting a temple in his honor on Rome’s sacred hill,
but he had given no answer. He did not know if it would be
agreeable to the gods for him to own a temple next to theirs,
and he wanted to ascertain their will in the matter by offering
a sacrifice. Therefore he and his trusted friends were
on their way to the Capitol.
Augustus let them carry his litter, for he was old and the
stairs leading to the Capitol were long. He held in his hands
the cage of doves for the sacrifice. No priests or soldiers
accompanied him, only his nearest friends. Torch bearers
walked in front of him to light the ways through the black
darkness, and behind him followed slaves who carried the
tripod, knives, and charcoal for the sacred fire. He chatted
gayly with his followers, and all were so interested in the
conversation that they did not notice the stillness over the
earth. Only when they reached the highest point on Capitol
Hill did they realize that something unusual was taking place.
There they saw a most remarkable thing. An old woman,
so bent and twisted that at first they thought it must be a
distorted olive tree, was standing on the very edge of the
cliff, and they knew her to be the sibyl who had lived as
many years as the sand grains by the sea.
“Why does she come from her cave tonight?” they
whispered. “What does she foretell for the Emperor and
the Empire?”
She stood there as if she had gone up on the hillside that
she might see what was happening far away, and the night
was so dark, so dark!
Then Augustus and his retinue remarked how profound
was the stillness. They could not hear even Tiber’s hollow
murmur, and they feared some disaster was impending.
But no one cared to show that he was afraid. They told
Augustus it was a good omen, and counseled him to hurry
with the sacrifice.
The sibyl seemed not to notice the Emperor’s train moving
up to the Capitol. In fact, she did not see them. She
was in a distant land making her way over something higher
than grass tufts. She was walking among great flocks of
sleeping sheep.
Then she saw a shepherd’s fire. It burned in the middle
of the field, and she groped her way to it. The shepherds
lay asleep in its glow, and beside them were the long, spiked
sticks with which they defended their flocks from wild
beasts. Jackals with glittering eyes and bushy tails stole
up toward the blaze, but the men did not hurl the sticks
at them. The dogs continued to sleep, the sheep did not
flee, and the beasts of prey lay down to rest beside human
beings.
Only this the sibyl saw. She did not know that a sacrificial
fire was being kindled behind her. She did not see
the Roman Emperor take a dove from the cage to use as an
offering. She was in the far hills of Galilee, among slumbering
shepherds and sheep.
Then, wonderful sight, a company of angels singing gloriously
flew back and forth above the wide plain. They
moved in long, swaying lines like migratory birds. Some
held lutes in their hands, some zithers and harps, and their
songs rang out as merry as child laughter, as carefree as
lark trills. The shepherds wakened, marveling at what they
heard and saw, then rose up to go to the mountain city to
tell of the miracle.
Behind the sibyl, on the summit of Capitol Hill, still
stood the train of Augustus. But he did not make the
sacrifice. Although he exerted his full strength to hold
the dove’s frail body, it flung itself free and disappeared
into the night.
And the shepherds, what of them?
They groped their way forward on a narrow, winding path.
Suddenly, in the light up there on the mountain, a great
heavenly body kindled, and the city beneath it glittered
like silver in the starlight.
All the fluttering angel throngs hastened thither, shouting
for joy, and the shepherds hurried so that they almost ran.
Upon reaching the city, they found the angels had assembled
over a stable near the gate. It was a wretched structure
with a roof of straw, and a naked cliff for a wall. But over
it hung the star, and thither flocked more and more angels.
Some seated themselves on the roof or alighted on the steep
mountain wall back of the house, others poised themselves
in air on outspread pinions, while high up, high up, the sky
was illuminated by creatures with wings as white as pearl.
The instant the star kindled over the mountain city all
nature awoke. Trees swayed, the Tiber began to murmur,
stars twinkled, and the moon stood out of the sky and lighted
the world. Out of the clouds a dove circled down and
alighted on the shoulders of Augustus.
The Emperor was proud and happy, and his friends and
slaves fell at his feet.
“Hail, Cæsar!” they cried. “Thou art the god who shall
be worshiped on Capitol Hill!”
This cry of homage was so loud that the sibyl heard it
and roused from her vision. She turned from her place at
the edge of the cliff and came down among the people, so
twisted, so shriveled, so terrifying in her tangled hair and
marks of age, that they fell back in awe. With one hand
she clutched the hand of the Emperor, with the other she
pointed toward the east.
“Look!” she commanded.
The vaulted heavens opened before his eyes, and his
glance traveled slowly to the distant Orient. He saw a
lowly stable behind a steep rock wall and shepherds kneeling
in an open doorway. He saw a young mother with a
child upon her knees, resting on a bundle of straw.
The sibyl’s big, knotty fingers pointed toward the Babe.
“Hail, Cæsar!” she cried in a burst of scornful laughter.
“There is the God who shall be worshiped on Capitol Hill!”
Augustus shrank back from her as from a maniac. But
upon the sibyl fell the mighty spirit of prophecy. Her dim
eyes began to burn, her hands were stretched toward heaven,
her voice rang out with such resonance and power that it
must have been heard throughout the world. And she
uttered words which she seemed to be reading among the
stars.
“Upon Capitol Hill shall the Redeemer of the world be
worshiped—Christ, but not frail mortals.”
When she had said this she strode past the terror-stricken
men and disappeared down the mountain.
On the following day Augustus forbade the people to raise
a temple to him on Capitol Hill. In place of it he built a
sanctuary to the new-born God-Child, and called it Heaven’s
Altar—Ara Cœli.
Retold from a Syrian Legend
(Ethics)
This is a story they tell in Palestine when the Christmas
stars shine out and Syrian children sit, cross-legged and big-eyed,
in front of the old grandfather, listening to his tales
by the light of the charcoal fire, while the moon flings its
veil across the jagged Hebron Hills and the far, high peaks
out Moab way are white as wool.
On the wonderful night when the star in the east proclaimed
glad tidings to the Magi, and these three wise ones
started away from their pleasant homes on a long and perilous
journey, marvelous things are said to have happened in
every quarter of the earth. Away in imperial Rome, the
Emperor Augustus, straight and proud in his litter, was
borne up the long stairway leading to Capitol Hill to invoke
his gods on the spot where the people were to erect a temple
to him. But suddenly the darkness broke away and he
beheld a manger in a distant land and a Babe wrapped in
swaddling clothes, and as the voices of his subjects shouted,
“Hail, Cæsar, thou art the god who shall be worshiped on
Capitol Hill!” instead of feeling great and exalted like a
sovereign he felt very small and humble, for he knew that
One just born was mightier than Cæsar, and would rule not
only Rome, but all the earth.
And on that same night, where the mountains break
southward from Bethlehem to form the high plateau of Bêt
Sahûr, there were shepherds guarding their white-fleeced
charges—six in all, five of whom slept by the gate of the
sheepfold while one walked up and down, starting whenever
he heard a stirring among the flocks and going in the
direction of the sound to make sure that all was well.
Sometimes he added wood to the fire, for the night was
cold and a wind from the white peaks eastward brought
numbness to his hands, and sometimes he stood and looked
over the scene he knew so well—the pools of Solomon,
shimmering darkly under the moon, and the broad vales
of Boaz, bare and lifeless now, but yellow with ripened
grain and gay with reapers’ songs in harvest time. As a
child he had played there with his brothers, as a boy he had
roamed up and down the ravines, and now, alone in the
darkness, it gladdened him to live again those days in memory.
Midnight drew near, yet he had no desire to sleep. The
world was very silent, very still, for the wind had died away,
and the Ilwa, in its rocky bed below, seemed to rest instead
of surging Jordan-ward. Into the hoot of the owls came a
note of unwonted tenderness, and even the cries of the
jackals, that always made the night watch hideous and sent
terror to the hearts of the herders, softened to a sound like
a song. The man felt the calm and it soothed him, and
although he had followed the flocks all day long and the
hills were steep and jagged, he knew no weariness, but a
strange sense of peace and delight, and as he looked at his
companions wrapped in their rough skin coats and dreaming
beside the embers, he wondered if they felt in sleep a
sensation as exquisite as the one he experienced awaking.
“How bright the heavens are tonight!” he thought as he
looked up to where a golden haze began to gleam around
the crescent of the moon. Billions of stars glittered in the
purple spaces, and directly over the center of the fold was
a cluster large and brilliant that he had not seen before.
It grew warmer, too, and instead of the sting of winter
that had kept the men close by the fire after darkness fell,
a balm came into the air, a softness like that of May. Never
had he dreamed there could be such a winter night, and
almost he felt tempted to rouse his companions that they
too might enjoy it.
But suddenly he stiffened and stood watching, cold with
fear. A glory came, and across the sky, which flamed as
if on fire, floated a white-winged heavenly host singing the
glad tidings of the Messiah come. The flocks started up
and ran wildly about the fold. The sleeping shepherds
wakened and crouched on the ground, half dazed with fear.
The bright ones flew about the heavens. They moved
in shining columns down from the heights and fluttered
above the fold, whiter than the sheep, then glided across to
the rugged cliffs, and sat there as if on couches of down. And
ever as they marched or floated or poised on glittering pinions
ready for another flight, they blended their voices in a
triumphal chorus as if all the hosts of heaven had descended
to make melody among the Judean hills.
“What is it?” one of the shepherds asked in a voice that
shook.
Then, like an answering message, came a jubilant anthem,
“Fear not, for unto you is born this day in the city of David,
a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.”
As if a soothing hand had touched their fleeces, the sheep
settled to rest again; the fear left the hearts of the shepherds,
and in a radiance which dimmed and paled as they went,
the shining ones floated upward out of sight, singing, “Glory
to God in the Highest, Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men.”
For several minutes the keepers of the flocks stood silent,
too bewildered either to think or to speak. Then, by the
peace among the sheep and the perfect calm of the night,
they realized a marvelous thing had happened, and one of
the herders lifted his voice.
“Didst hear?” he spoke in tones of reverence. “They
say the Christ is born.”
“Aye,” a companion answered, “in the city of David,
which is Bethlehem. Let us go and seek him.” And his
comrades, speaking agreement, said they would journey
there together.
Now, when subjects go into the presence of a loved sovereign,
they bear with them tokens of loyalty and affection.
Those who are rich give priceless gifts, and those who are
poor offer the best out of their scanty possessions and the
fullness of their hearts. And so these herders of Bêt Sahûr,
having nothing but their flocks, each chose the lamb he
prized most, and cradling it tenderly in his firm, warm arms,
left the sheepfold and started for the town.
Down over the cliffs they hurried, along perilous slopes
and across chasms that seemed like great black mouths
agape; yet they did not fear, for a light from above showed
the path as plain as noontide and there was no danger of
falling. From one rock to another they proceeded, from
ledge to ledge they made their way, and soon were well down
into the ravine, from the bottom of which the road led to
the town. Directly above, so close that had they looked
up they could have counted some of them, the sheep lay
white and shining under the stars; but the thoughts of the
shepherds were on Bethlehem, which, straight ahead, still
showed a few flickering tapers, and not on the flocks behind.
Ben Ezra, he who had stood on the night watch, was the
most stalwart of the six, and he it was who led the descent
to the valley.
“Ah,” he exclaimed when at last their feet struck the white
firmness of the road, “from here on the way is smooth and
easy. Let us hasten, brethren, and soon we shall be there.”
And as he spoke he smoothed the fleece of the warm,
white bundle he carried, which bleated softly at his caress.
Just then was heard the cry of a lamb.
The shepherds stopped and listened, for having spent
their lives among the flocks, they knew the helplessness of
the sheep, and although rugged, fierce-looking men, their
hearts were tender toward the weak and appealing. The
bleat of a ram or ewe never failed to call them from their
meals by day or their rest by night; and now other thoughts
left their minds, and they remembered only their charges
alone on the hill. Then, thinking of the glory in the sky
and the word of the heavenly host that the Christ was born
in Bethlehem, one of them said, “Come. Methinks all is
well. Did we not feel on the hills that God would take care
of the sheep? Let us on to Bethlehem and seek the King.”
But another of the number, he who stood sentinel while
his comrades slept, shook his head and demurred.
“Nay,” he said. “Take my lamb and say ’tis the gift
of Ben Ezra, but I must go back. It is my night on the
watch, and a good shepherd is not deaf to the cry of a sheep.”
He gave his tiny white burden into the keeping of one of
his companions and turning, hurried back to the cliffs,
while the others went ahead to Bethlehem. He knew it
would take much longer to make the climb than it had taken
for the descent, and a fear seized him that perhaps jackals
had broken upon the flock and he might reach the fold too
late to save the sheep. But as he moved forward the mounting
of the first cliff seemed no task at all. Hands invisible
seemed to lift him up the mountain way, and he reached the
sheepfold easily and quickly.
A great relief came. The flocks lay silent, stirring only
when a lamb or ewe moved a white leg and turned as it
slept, but there was no sign or sound of danger, not even
the howl of a jackal away on the mountain side or the moving
shadow of a panther creeping stealthily upon the fold.
Then he knew that in truth God was watching over the sheep,
and that the lamb had probably cried out in wonder, even
as he and his brethren might have done.
Secure in the thought that the flock was safe, he started
down the mountain toward Bethlehem, musing upon the
strange things that had come to pass that night. His comrades
were far ahead, and he knew he could not overtake
them. Perhaps already they had reached the town and
found the place of the Child, while he yet had a long way to
go. But his feet sped over the spaces and he swung lightly
along, the shaggy skin of his shepherd’s cloak flapping as
he went. He was not sorry he had gone back, even though
it meant he must journey alone, for there was a peace in his
heart that could not have been there had he gone ahead
hearing the cry of a lamb.
At last he reached Bethlehem and asked one of the soldiers
who guarded the gate, “Where is it that the Christ is born?”
“The Christ?” the man repeated like one dazed. “He
is not in Bethlehem. Better get you back to the hills, which
is the place of shepherds.”
Ben Ezra stood firm.
“He must be here,” he insisted, “for so sang the angels
at Bêt Sahûr, saying, ‘In the city of David,’ which is Bethlehem.”
Whereupon some of the guardsmen smiled and pointed to
their heads, and some laughed jeeringly.
There was one, however, a tall, gentle-faced archer, who
smiled and spoke kindly, “They say a man child has come
to the stable beyond the khan, where Joseph ben David the
Nazarene and his wife have taken shelter. You might try
there.”
The shepherd nodded and thanked him, his dark eyes
moistly tender and in his face a light that silenced the
mockers.
“Thither will I go,” he exclaimed, and hurried on his way,
bowing his head reverently as he came in sight of the place.
Now it happened when Ben Ezra reached the stable
where Joseph ben David was abiding because of the multitude
in the khan, that he found the Child lying in a manger,
and the other shepherds who had gone before knelt beside
Him, looking into His gentle eyes and marveling. Around
them on the ground, softly bleating as if they too understood
the marvel and rejoiced in it, were the lambs the men
had brought as offerings to the Babe; and some of the
townsfolk too were there, murmuring in awed tones and
looking on the scene in wide-eyed wonder. No one noticed
the herder who entered late, or saw him fall on his knees
beside the manger. But as his sturdy head drooped low,
the Child lifted His tiny hand as if in blessing and smiled
down on Ben Ezra’s upturned face; and then the keepers
of the sheep knew that thus God had chosen to reward him
who had not been deaf to the cry of a lamb.
For many a year after that time, the Syrian herders say,
Ben Ezra tended his sheep on the hills. Through summer
and winter he abode in the pasture place, his only respite
from toil being the rare visits he made to the village where
his wife and wee ones dwelt; but he never was weary, and
his flocks never went astray. To his children and his children’s
children he told the story of how he went back to the
hills that night and how he was rewarded, bidding them to
be ever mindful of the fact that he who is tender to the sheep
serves well a higher Master. And as years rolled into decades
and centuries passed away, all the herders of Judea
came to know the story and to shape their lives by it, so that
to this day the Syrian shepherds have remained men of tender
heart and simple faith. And when strangers visit the land
and wonder at the gentleness of the keepers of the flocks,
some old grandfather or brown-eyed boy is ever ready to
explain what it is that has kept them sweet and serene, and
tells the story of Ben Ezra, the shepherd who on the wonderful
night went back to the hills, and so came late to
Bethlehem.
A Legend of the Rhine
(Geography—Ethics)
One autumn morning a thousand years ago, a boy and a
girl stood in a forest path beside the Rhine. His great eyes,
brown and full of feeling, looked wistfully into the face of the
golden-haired maiden, while his clumsy hands stroked
tenderly the glossy feathers of a young raven.
“Father says it is a poor gift to offer a princess,” he said
as he held the bird toward her, “but I have nothing else.
Will you please take it?”
Blue-eyed Willeswind smiled. She was the petted child
of a baron and accustomed to receiving gifts, but something
about this boy’s earnestness touched her in an unusual way.
He was only a forester’s son, with but little to break the
monotony of his life of toil, and it seemed wonderful that he
should be willing to part with his only treasure.
“I cannot take your only pet, Rupert,” she said kindly,
“but it is good of you to offer it.”
Disappointment crept into the boy’s dark eyes.
“Oh, please,” he pleaded. “I want you to have it, because
you bound up my foot with healing herbs when I tore it on
the brambles in the wood. Please take it.”
The girl answered with a smile that made her face very
lovely, “Of course I shall take it, and I will keep it always
because you gave it to me.” Reaching over, she took the
fluttering creature from the big dark hands, and stroked it
gently as it quivered at the strange touch. Then she made
her way back to the castle over a carpet of fallen leaves, while
Rupert the forester’s son hurried to the hunting lodge, happy
in the thought that he had made a gift to her who had been
kind to him.
“She will keep it and feed it and be glad I did not forget,”
he thought as he fed the falcons that evening, while up in the
castle court Willeswind was busy with her pet.
“See how glossy its feathers are!” she said as her brother
Othmar came near. “Rupert gave it to me, and I promised
to keep it always.”
The young squire laughed. “A raven is sure to be a
bother,” he said. “Better let it fly into the woods.”
Willeswind shook her golden head. “No, no,” she exclaimed,
“I like it. Your horses and hounds and falcons are
far more bother than one raven, yet you would not think of
being without them.”
Othmar mounted his horse and rode out to his archery
practice, thinking how soon his sister would tire of the bird.
But she did not tire of it. It was different from any pet she
had ever owned, and she cared for it and trained it.
Seven years passed, and the brother had grown from a
squire to a knight, and upon the death of his father the baron,
became lord of the castle. Willeswind too had changed from
the slender maid who stood under the November trees with
Rupert the forester’s son. She was now the stateliest of all
the great ladies on the Rhine. But her hair was still the
color of sun-kissed straw, and her eyes the same sympathetic
ones, as blue as wood gentians. Rupert was tall and stalwart,
one of the sturdiest vassals of Castle Stolzenfels, and
although Willeswind seldom saw him, she remembered him
kindly because he had given her the pet raven which she
still kept and loved. She spent many hours teaching it
tricks, and the bird was so clever that it learned rapidly.
Sometimes it flew into the forest and came back with flowers
and leaves for its mistress. Sometimes it winged its way
across the river and brought sprigs of the sweet wild berries
growing there.
Everything was bright about the castle, for the young
master and mistress were kind to those who served them,
and there were no happier vassals along the Rhine than theirs.
One day in springtime, when the elder flowers were creamiest
and swallows were teaching their nestlings to fly, a
stranger came riding along the river. Past the postern gate
his armored steed dashed, and straight he sat in his saddle
as he called to Lord Othmar.
“I bring a challenge from the great lord who is my master,”
he spoke defiantly as the young knight moved forth to meet
him. With flashing eyes he tossed his gauntlet to the ground.
A murmur went among the vassals who stood by. To
throw down a gauntlet was to invite war, and all waited for
the master to act. But the silence was only for a minute.
Then came a shouting and clashing of arms, for with defiance
in his face Othmar picked up the glove and flung it back at
the rider. That meant war, which in those days was believed
to be a glorious thing.
The strange knight rode away along the Rhine shore as
rapidly as he had come, while in the great courtyard of Castle
Stolzenfels began the marshaling of vassals and preparation
for fighting. The women burnished arms and gave all the
aid they could, while the Lady Willeswind moved here and
there, making suggestions where they were needed. All
night long the sound of clanging armor was heard, and the
next morning, when the men of Castle Stolzenfels went out
of the castle gate to meet the enemy, Rupert the forester’s
son marched at the head of the vassals.
Willeswind stood at the tower window and watched them
go along the winding river road, thinking sadly of the days
and nights of danger into which they went. Perhaps they
would not return. Perhaps, too, some robber band might
pillage the castle while they were away, for all the able-bodied
men had gone to battle, and in those days many
brigand hordes ravaged the Rhine valley, which the handful
of old men at Stolzenfels would not be able to hold back.
But she was brave, and although danger threatened, she
faced it as a baron’s daughter should.
Autumn came, with swallows and martins flying southward,
and still the battling raged away in the northland,
sometimes with victory for Othmar and his men, sometimes
with defeat, but always with dread for the anxious hearts of
those who waited at home.
One night the wind raged like a mad thing, whipping the
Rhine into foam. As the castle mistress sat in the great
hall among the women, a servant entered, saying that a
pilgrim stood at the outer gate, begging shelter from the night
and storm.
“He is white and bent,” the man explained. “Shall I
let him come inside?”
Willeswind’s heart was big and tender. “Yes, let him
come,” she said.
A moment later he followed the servant through the hall
to the sleeping quarters, a hobbling figure leaning heavily
on a staff. Willeswind pitied him as he went by, but
thought his face seemed hard and cruel.
A few days later she sat alone with her maid, in that same
great hall, looking happier than she had looked for many
weeks. “A courier came by with word from Othmar,” she
said. “He sends greetings, says the worst of the fighting is
over, and soon they will be home. I feel quite safe again.”
Suddenly the door was violently thrust open. The maid
screamed and Willeswind turned pale, for a man in heavy
armor strode into the room. She knew he was one of the
dreaded robber barons who terrorized the Rhine valley, and
knew too, as she looked into his savage face, that it was the
same man who, in the guise of a pilgrim, had sought shelter
there a few nights before.
“I have come to take you with me,” he said in a voice of
thunder, “for I mean you to be my wife.”
Willeswind shuddered. She knew how wicked and cruel he
was, and that it was her great wealth he craved, for Stolzenfels
was one of the richest estates on the river. “That can
never be, sir,” she answered haughtily. “So go back whence
you came.”
He looked at her with an evil smile. “You give me a
blithe refusal now,” he exclaimed, “but in three days I will
come again and it will be sad for you if I get not a different
answer.”
The robber chief strode out, and Willeswind and the
trembling maid looked at each other in terror.
“My lady,” the woman spoke, as soon as the outer gate
clanged and they knew the man was beyond hearing, “you
must get away from here.”
“Yes,” answered the mistress, “I must leave Stolzenfels
and seek refuge at some other castle.”
So that same afternoon a little cavalcade wended its way
through the woods, over the carpet of leaves that late autumn
had whipped from the trees. It was Willeswind and her
attendants, bound for the home of another baron, where she
would be protected until the return of Othmar and his men.
Beside her rode Hulda the maid, and on her shoulder sat the
pet raven.
But they did not go far. Suddenly from behind some
thickly growing brush a band of horsemen appeared. One
rider, taller and heavier than the others, called out orders to
his men.
“To my castle!” he shouted.
Willeswind knew well they were the tones of the robber
baron, and that she was now a prisoner in his power.
Sad indeed was her heart as the men turned her horse’s
head away from her road to safety, and tears came into her
blue eyes as she caught a glimpse of the Stolzenfels towers.
“Oh, my home,” she murmured, “when shall I see you
again?”
On they went through the forest, along that part of the
river whose gray cliffs she had known since childhood, then
into unfamiliar country as they neared the castle of the
robber chief.
“If only they will let us stay together,” she murmured to
Hulda as they drew rein at the gate.
They rode in through the courtyard, and then, dismounting,
the baron led the two women up a winding stairway to
the tower.
“Here you may stay,” he said savagely, “and decide what
to do.”
Then, striding out, he bolted the heavy door.
They looked around. The windows were covered with
an iron grating, and there was no possible way of escape.
“We cannot get away,” said Hulda, “so let us make the
best of it and find something to eat, for I am hungry.”
But there was no food about the place, and they realized
then that he meant to starve Willeswind into obeying him.
But suddenly a bright thought came to her, and she smiled.
“He cannot do it, though, for I have my raven.” And
stroking its glossy wings she said, “Berries, pet, berries.”
Her hours of training had been well spent. For as if it
understood, the bird spread its shining wings and flew out
between the grating. After a while it returned with a sprig
of crimson berries, the fragrant, juicy Rhine buds, and laid
them in its mistress’ lap.
Many trips it made during the days that followed, and the
woodland fruit kept the women from starvation, for it contained
both nourishment and water.
So, instead of growing weak and wan, they kept their
strength, and the baron could not understand how, with
neither food nor water, Willeswind remained strong and well,
and as defiant as ever. But to Willeswind and Hulda it was
no mystery, and they were full of gratitude to the raven.
One morning Hulda stood by the window, looking out over
the woods at the sunlight on the river. Suddenly she gave
an excited cry. “Some horsemen are riding up the Rhine
road!” she exclaimed. “They are coming this way.”
Willeswind flew to the casement and watched as they drew
near. Straight along the forest path they advanced, so close
that the watchers could see their faces.
“Oh!” cried the lady of Stolzenfels. “It is Othmar and
his men. The war is over and they are coming home.”
She called loudly, waving her handkerchief between the
grating, and Othmar saw and heard. “We are up here,
prisoners in the tower!” she shouted, as he galloped nearer.
And a minute later the Stolzenfels men were battering at the
castle gate.
“For your mistress, comrades!” called Rupert the
forester’s son, as he led the charge.
The robber baron knew the Stolzenfels force was too strong
for him to hold out against, for with right on their side they
had even greater strength. He surrendered, and the captives
were freed.
The Stolzenfels towers never looked as fair to their owners,
as when on the return they beheld them through the trees.
It was a joyful homecoming to both lord and vassal, and to
the raven, for he flew in and out of its windows as if overcome
with gladness. Othmar watched its joyous flight with a
smile.
“We will always keep the bird,” he said, “for it saved you
from the baron’s power.”
And they did keep it until it died. Then, in memory of
its service, they placed its stone image on the castle gate and
carved its likeness on the Stolzenfels shield.
Centuries passed. The robber bands that had been the
terror of the Rhine valley became a part of the past, and
Castle Stolzenfels fell into decay, for hundreds of years being
one of the noblest ruins on the river. Then the German
emperor restored it. He rebuilt the crumbling towers and
bastions where bats made their nests, furnished it after the
fashion of long ago, and today it is a favorite summer home
of the imperial family. And still on the outer gate a stone
raven stands, and to all who know the Rhine stories it speaks
eloquently of that olden time when knights were bold, and
of a gratitude offering made by the forester’s son to the
daughter of the castle.
(Science—Nature Study)
In the year of Our Lord 1735, Joseph de Jussieu, the
famous botanist, came into the presence of Louis the Fifteenth
and besought him to give his royal sanction to a
mission that was considered very wonderful in those days.
“I would go to South America to study the plant life there,”
he said, “and mayhap I may discover something that will
bring glory to France.”
The king looked with favor upon the venture, and a little
later the botanist and his attendants sailed out of the port of
Havre, toward the distant land of the Andes.
Many months they were on the way, now tossing on the
high seas at the mercy of wind and wave, now threading a
perilous path through the selvas. At last they ascended the
snow-capped Cordilleras, examining every tree and plant they
found.
“We will take back seeds of every rare specimen,” Jussieu
said, “and great will be the rejoicing in France.”
One day, as the botanist and his men made their way from
a deep ravine up a sunny slope, they smelled something wonderfully
fragrant.
“Such a powerful odor must come from a gigantic, gorgeous
flower,” the naturalist said. And they searched eagerly,
each man anxious to discover the prize. But the only gorgeous
flower they found was a clump of flaming peonies,
which, although regally beautiful, were devoid of fragrance.
Then one of the men stumbled upon a plant bearing
clusters of tiny purple blossoms. The odor was very heavy
around it, and he knew he had found the perfume giver.
“Ah!” he exclaimed in disappointment, “it is not half so
stately as our fleur-de-lis.”
Jussieu came and examined it with great interest, and
although it was a small, unpretentious flower, thought it a
precious find. He noticed that the most perfect blossoms
were on the sunny side of the plant, and that they seemed to
reach the sun. He named it “heliotrope,” from Greek words
meaning “to turn toward the sun,” and when he returned to
France took with him some of the seeds, which were planted
in the royal garden.
The princesses, who were always looking for something
novel, became greatly excited about the purple blossoms
from the Andes. They called it the flower of love, and no
bouquet was deemed fit to offer a court lady that did not contain
at least a sprig of it. Being greatly in demand, it was
very costly. People speculated in it, and for a time fortunes
were won and lost, as during the tulip craze in Holland.
Then, after a while, when all the florists grew quantities
of heliotrope, it became so common that it went out of favor
as the court flower. But it was just as popular as ever, because
it had lost none of its grace and fragrance. It grew
in the gardens of the people, and there was no peasant too
poor to own a plant.
So the dainty heliotrope that is still the favorite of the
gardens is a traveled and storied flower. It grew on the slope
of the Andes. It crossed the broad seas and was planted in
a royal garden. It gladdened the peasants and townsfolk
of Lorraine and Brittany and Provence, and still it scatters
its fragrance and reaches out its petals toward the sun.
(History)
Almost everybody, whether he be ten or seventy-five, has
played the good old game of London Bridge, but not everybody
knows that once upon a time the bridge really did fall
down.
It was nine hundred years ago—before William the Conqueror
was born, and the United States had not even been
thought of. Up in the cold, white northland lived a race
of fearless vikings, and down in pleasant England reigned
a weak, unable king. His name was Ethelred, and because
he was always behind time with his plans and his work,
people called him the Unready, and in the day in which
he lived it was a very serious thing for a king to be
unready.
Ever since the Danes had discovered what a fair land
England was, they had wanted to take it. They came with
their armies in King Alfred’s time. They returned again
during the reign of his sons, and when young Ethelred ascended
the throne and word went forth of how unable and
unready he was, their boats brought a mighty army and surrounded
the island. Danish soldiers camped on the broad
English moorlands, Danish songs echoed through the woods
of Kent and Surrey and sounded in the streets of London
town. The invaders were in full possession of the city.
They held the royal castle, and their generals slept in King
Ethelred’s beds, while he had to take a bunk wherever he
could find one. They were bold, brave, and strong. They
had leaders who knew not the meaning of fear and were always
ready, and it seemed that this time they would take the
kingdom.
Yet they didn’t take it after all, for there were other brave,
bold men who came to Ethelred’s aid.
Twenty ships sailed down from the seas of Norway, twenty
goodly vessels bearing blue and crimson sails, for the boy
king Olaf, who dwelt in the far north country, had heard of
the plight of Ethelred the Unready and said to his men,
“Let us go and fight for him as we fight for our own land.”
At these words the soldiers cheered and bent to the oars,
and thus they went to England.
In from the sea they came and up the broad green Thames
toward London town. The people along the river despaired
at sight of their standard, for they thought another army
was coming to attack them. But the sorrow turned to rejoicing
when King Ethelred met them just below the city,
and Olaf said, in loud, clear tones, “I have brought my
soldiers to fight for thee.”
Then there rang out such a blast of welcome as never
English war horns sounded before or since.
Olaf lost no time. The men of the north country fought
for the love of fighting, and he was eager to hurl his army
against the Danes.
“First we will take the fort they have built to command
the Thames,” he exclaimed. “Then we will drive them
from the city.”
King Ethelred shook his head.
“It will not be easy to do that,” he said. “Thrice already
my army has tried it, but the Danish soldiers are thick on
London Bridge. We cannot get near enough to attack the
fort, because whenever the ships start up the river arrows
and spears and stones come down upon them and they are
driven back.”
King Olaf stood thinking and did not answer. Finally
he said, “Then we must tear down the bridge.”
Ethelred looked at him as if he thought him crazy. “Tear
down the bridge!” he repeated in amazement. “That is
impossible. London Bridge is strong, and neither of us has
an army of giants.”
Young Olaf looked at him and smiled, thinking how little
this man knew of warfare.
“Do as I bid you,” he said, “and you shall see it fall.”
Ethelred had little faith in the viking’s words, but he was
in so terrible a plight that he was willing to do anything that
might pull him out of it. Who wouldn’t be, with a Danish
general sleeping in his bed?
King Olaf gave some orders to his men. Then he said to
Ethelred, “Bring your ships alongside mine, and we will get
them ready.”
He ordered the men to make broad, flat roofs for every
vessel, for he knew they could not tear down London Bridge
unless protected from the spears and arrows of the Danes.
The enemy had seized so much of King Ethelred’s lumber
that he hadn’t half enough to make the roofs, so they tore
down houses that the command might be carried out.
Finally everything was ready, and the fleet of England
and the fleet of Norway moved side by side up the Thames.
The Danish soldiers laughed as they saw the queer-looking
vessels coming toward them, thinking what fun it would be
to drive back the boats of Ethelred the Unready, as they had
done several times before. But the Danes didn’t know as
much as they thought they knew, and although their spears
and arrows flew fast, the lumbering warships came on.
Then the soldiers on the bridge shot their bows and threw
their javelins as they had not done before. They hurled
great rocks down upon the vessels, damaging some of them
so much that they had to turn back. But they did not harm
or frighten Olaf the viking. He called to his men and cheered
them on, and nearer, nearer these good ships came, until they
were close to the piles of London Bridge.
Then they stopped a moment, still under the rain of stones
and spears and arrows, and the Danish soldiers wondered
what it meant. They could not see the thick, strong cables
that were wound around the heavy supports of the bridge.
They could not see the soldiers of Olaf lash the other ends
fast to the vessels. But a moment later they understood
all they had not seen. The ships turned with a sudden
spurt. The Danish soldiers felt a mighty tug and pull. The
roofed warships darted down the river, and then was heard
the fall of London Bridge.
How joyfully the men of England shouted, for now they
could push ahead and attack the fort. They took it too, and
drove the enemy out of the city. Danish warriors no longer
slept under satin covers in the castle of King Ethelred.
Danish songs no longer resounded through the woods of
Kent and Surrey and across the broad, sea-lapped moorlands.
The soldiers routed the Danes and drove them out of the
country, and Olaf the boy viking sailed back to his far, white
northland, rejoicing in the thought that he had saved his
kingdom to Ethelred, which he could not have done but for
the fall of London Bridge.
Retold from a Chinese Folk Tale
(Physical Education)
In the lovely province of Kwang Tung, a sage named
Ng Chew lived in the far-off time. He not only was versed in
the lore of past and present, but knew future events as well,
and used his knowledge and his power to benefit mankind.
One night in a vision he saw that a pestilence was about
to sweep over the valley in which he lived, and his first thought
was that he must save his people. He went from house
to house telling the news and bidding every one flee with
him to the mountains, and a few hours after he started on
his mission the homes in the lowlands were deserted.
Up on the heights the people were safe in the crisp, clean
air. But after many days had passed they wanted to return
to their homes. They thought of the growth in the rice
fields and of the approaching harvest time. “We have been
here long enough,” they declared. “By this time the danger
is over and we ought to go back.” But the wise Ng
Chew knew it was not safe to return, and urged them to stay.
There were a few who would not listen to his words. They
started back to the lowlands, and Ng Chew wondered how he
could keep the others on the mountain. Then a happy
thought crossed his mind. He set everybody to making
and flying kites, and soon had them so interested that they
were glad to stay.
Days afterward, when he knew the danger was past, he
led them back to the valley. Then they realized what a
blessed thing he had done in keeping them on the mountain,
for all who had refused to stay there with him had died of
the pestilence.
The people’s hearts were filled with gratitude toward the
man who had saved them.
“We will honor Ng Chew as long as he lives,” they said.
“When his birthday comes we will all fly kites.”
This they did. Each year, on the birthday of Ng Chew,
they left the rice fields and spent the day flying kites.
The word spread beyond the little valley and from province
to province, until all over the land kite flying marked
the birthday of the sage of Kwang Tung. The wise man
died and centuries passed, but still the Chinese keep Kite
Day, honoring him who in the long ago led his people to
safety in the mountains.
By David Starr Jordan
(Science)
Once on a time, a great many years ago, so many, many
years that one grows very tired in trying to think how long
ago it was; in those old days when the great Northwest consisted
of a few ragged and treeless hills, full of copper and
quartz, bordered by a dreary waste of sand flats, over which
the Gulf of Mexico rolled its warm and turbid waters as far
north as Escanaba and Eau Claire; in the days when Marquette
Harbor opened out towards Baffin’s Bay, and the
Northern Ocean washed the crest of Mount Washington and
wrote its name upon the Pictured Rocks; when the tide of
the Pacific, hemmed in by no snow-capped Sierras, came
rushing through the Golden Gate between the Ozarks and the
north peninsula of Michigan, and swept over Plymouth Rock
and surged up against Bunker Hill; in the days when it would
have been fun to study geography, for there were no capitals,
nor any products, and all the towns were seaports—in fact,
an immensely long time ago there lived somewhere in the
northeastern part of the state of Wisconsin, not far from the
city of Oconto, a little jellyfish. It was a curious little fellow,
about the shape of half an apple, and the size of a pin’s head;
and it floated around in the water, and ate little things, and
opened and shut its umbrella pretty much as the jellyfishes do
now on a sunny day off Nahant Beach when the tide is coming
in. It had a great many little feelers that hung down all
around like so many little snakes; so it was named Medusa,
after a queer woman who lived a long while ago, when all
sorts of stories were true. She wore snakes instead of hair,
and used to turn people into stone images if they dared to
make faces at her. So this little Medusa floated around,
and opened and shut her umbrella for a good while,—a
month or two, perhaps; we don’t know how long. Then
one morning, down among the seaweeds, she laid a whole
lot of tiny eggs, transparent as crab-apple jelly, and smaller
than the dewdrop on the end of a pine leaf. That was the
last thing she did; then she died, and our story henceforth
concerns only one of those little eggs.
One day the sun shone down into the water—the same sun
that shines over the Oconto sawmills now—and touched
these eggs with life; and a little fellow whom we will call
Favosites, because that was his name, woke up inside the
egg, and came out into the world. He was only a little piece
of floating jelly, shaped like a cartridge pointed at both ends,
or like a grain of barley, although very much smaller. He
had a great number of little paddles on his sides. These
kept flapping all the time, so that he was constantly in motion.
And at night all these little paddles shone with a rich green
light, to show him the way through the water. It would
have done you good to see them some night when all the little
fellows had their lamps burning at once, and every wave as
it rose and fell was all aglow with Nature’s fireworks, which
do not burn the fingers and leave no smell of sulphur.
So the little Favosites kept scudding along in the water,
dodging from one side to the other to avoid the ugly creatures
that tried to eat him. There were crabs and clams of a
fashion neither you nor I shall ever see alive. There were
huge animals with great eyes, savage jaws like the beak of a
snapping turtle and surrounded by long feelers. They sat
in the end of a long, round shell, shaped like a length of stove
pipe, and glowered like an owl in a hollow log; and there were
smaller ones that looked like lobsters in a dinner horn. But
none of these caught the little fellow, else I should not have
had this story to tell.
At last, having paddled about long enough, Favosites
thought of settling in life. So he looked around till he found
a flat bit of shell that just suited him. Then he sat down
upon it and grew fast, like old Holger Danske in the Danish
myth, or Frederick Barbarossa in the German one. He did
not go to sleep, however, but proceeded to make himself a
home. He had no head, but between his shoulders he made
an opening which would serve him for mouth and stomach.
Then he put a whole row of feelers out, and commenced
catching little worms and floating eggs and bits of jelly and
bits of lime,—everything he could get,—and cramming
them into his mouth. He had a great many curious ways,
but the funniest of them all was what he did with the bits of
lime. He kept taking them in, and tried to wall himself up
inside with them, as a person would “stone a well,” or as
though a man should swallow pebbles and stow them away
in his feet and all around under the skin, till he had filled
himself all full with them, as the man filled Jim Smiley’s
frog.
Little Favosites became lonesome all alone in the bottom
of that old ocean among so many outlandish neighbors. So
one night, when he was fast asleep and dreaming as only a
coral animal can dream, there sprouted out from his side,
somewhere near where his sixth rib might have been if he had
had any ribs, another little Favosites; and this one very
soon began to eat worms and to wall himself up as if for dear
life. Then from these two another and another little bud
came out, and other little Favosites were formed. They all
kept growing up higher and cramming themselves fuller and
fuller of stone, till at last there were so many and they were
so crowded together that there was not room for them to
grow round, and so they had to become six-sided like the cells
of a honeycomb. Once in a while some one in the company
would feel jealous because the others got more of the worms,
or would feel uneasy at sitting still so long and swallowing
lime. Such a one would secede from the little union without
even saying “good-by,” and would put on the airs of the
grandmother Medusa, and would sail around in the water,
opening and shutting its umbrella, at last laying more eggs,
which for all we know may have hatched out into more
Favosites.
So the old Favosites died, or ran away, or were walled up
by the younger ones, and new ones filled their places, and the
colony thrived for a long while, until it had accumulated a
large stock of lime.
But one day there came a freshet in the Menominee River,
or in some other river, and piles of dirt and sand and mud
were brought down, and all the little Favosites’ mouths were
filled with it. This they did not like, and so they died; but
we know that the rock house they were building was not
spoiled, for we have it here. But it was tumbled about a
good deal in the dirt, and the rolling pebbles knocked the
corners off, and the mud worked into the cracks, and its
beautiful color was destroyed. There it lay in the mud for
ages, till the earth gave a great, long heave that raised Wisconsin
out of the ocean, and the mud around our little
Favosites packed and dried into hard rock and closed it in.
So it became part of the dry land, and lay embedded in the
rocks for centuries and centuries, while the old-fashioned
ferns grew above it, and whispered to it strange stories of
what was going on above ground in the land where things
were living.
Then the time of the first fishes came, and the other animals
looked in wonder at them, as the Indians looked on Columbus.
Some of them were like the little gar-pike of our river here,
only much larger,—big as a stove pipe, and with a crust as
hard as a turtle’s. Then there were sharks, of strange forms,
and some of them had teeth like bowie knives, with tempers
to match. And the time of the old fishes came and went,
and many more times came and went, but still Favosites lay
in the ground at Oconto.
Then came the long, hot, wet summer, when the mists
hung over the earth so thick that you might have had to
cut your way through them with a knife; and great ferns
and rushes, big as an oak and tall as a steeple, grew in the
swamps of Indiana and Illinois. Their green plumes were
so long and so densely interwoven that the Man in the Moon
might have fancied that the earth was feathering out. Then
all about, huge reptiles, with jaws like the gates of doom and
teeth like cross-cut saws, and little reptiles with wings like
bats, crawled, and swam, and flew.
But the ferns died, and the reptiles died, and the rush
trees fell in the swamps, and the Illinois and the Sangamon
and the Wabash and all the other rivers covered them up.
They stewed away under layers of clay and sand, till at last
they turned into coal and wept bitter tears of petroleum.
But all this while Favosites lay in the rocks in Wisconsin.
Then the mists cleared away, and the sun shone, and the
grass began to grow, and strange animals came from somewhere
or nowhere to feed upon it. There were queer little
striped horses, with three or four hoofs on each foot, and no
bigger than a Newfoundland dog, but as smart as ever you
saw. There were great hairy elephants, with teeth like
sticks of wood. There were hogs with noses so long that
they could sit on their hind legs and root. And there were
many still stranger creatures which no man ever saw alive.
But still Favosites lay in the ground and waited.
And the long, long summer passed by, and the autumn, and
the Indian summer. At last the winter came, and it snowed
and snowed, and it was so cold that the snow did not go off
till the Fourth of July. Then it snowed and snowed till the
snow did not go off at all. And then it became so cold that
it snowed all the time, till the snow covered the animals, and
then the trees, and then the mountains. Then it would
thaw a little, and streams of water would run over the snow.
Then it would freeze again, and the snow would pack into
solid ice. So it went on snowing and thawing and freezing,
till nothing but snowbanks could be seen in Wisconsin, and
most of Indiana was fit only for a skating rink. And the
animals and plants which could get away, all went south to
live, and the others died and were frozen into the snow.
So it went on for a great many years. I dare not tell you
how long, for you might not believe me. Then the spring
came, the south winds blew, and the snow began to thaw.
Then the ice came sliding down from the mountains and hills
and from the north toward the south. It went on, tearing
up rocks, little and big, from the size of a chip to the size of
a house, crushing forests as you would crush an eggshell, and
wiping out rivers as you would wipe out a chalk mark. So
it came pushing, grinding, thundering along,—not very fast,
you understand, but with tremendous force, like a plow
drawn by a million oxen, for a thousand feet of ice is very
heavy. And the ice plow scraped over Oconto, and little
Favosites was torn from the place where he had lain so long;
but by good fortune he happened to fall into a crevice of the
ice where he was not much crowded, else he would have been
ground to powder and I should not have had this story to
tell. And the ice melted as it slid along, and it made great
torrents of water, which, as they swept onward, covered the
land with clay and pebbles. At last the ice came to a great
swamp overgrown with tamarack and balsam. It melted
here; and all the rocks and stones and dirt it had carried—little
Favosites and all—were dumped into one great
heap.
It was a very long time after, and man had been created,
and America had been discovered, and the War of the Revolution
and the Civil War had all been fought to the end, and
a great many things had happened, when one day a farmer
living near Grand Chute, in Outagamie County, Wisconsin,
was plowing up his clover field to sow to winter wheat. He
picked up in the furrow a curious little bit of “petrified
honeycomb,” a good deal worn and dirty, but still showing
plainly the honey cells and the bee bread. Then he put it
into his pocket and carried it home, and gave it to his boy
Charley to take to the teacher and hear what he would say
about it. And this is what he said.
