the good Bishop, “the young maidens went to the Lord's Table. Roses
were blushing and pale roses shining on their fresh cheeks. A young girl
stood there. She looked with all the love and purity of her spirit up to
heaven. That was the expression of the highest and purest love.”
“May she be blessed,” said the wise man, “but not one of you has yet
named the loveliest rose in the world.”
Then there came into the room a child, the queen's little son.
“Mother,” cried the boy, “only hear what I have read.”
And the child sat by the bedside and read from the Book of Him who
suffered death upon the cross to save men, and even those who were not
yet born. “Greater love there is not.”
And a rosy glow spread over the cheeks of the queen, and her eyes
gleamed, for she saw that from the leaves of the Book there bloomed the
loveliest rose, that sprang from the blood of Christ shed on the cross.
“I see it!” she said, “he who beholds this, the loveliest rose on earth,
shall never die.”
MAY DAY
(MAY 1)
THE SNOWDROP [1]
BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (ADAPTED)
[Footnote 1: From For the Children's Hour, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey and
Clara M. Lewis. Copyright by the Milton Bradley Company.]
The snow lay deep, for it was winter-time. The winter winds blew cold,
but there was one house where all was snug and warm. And in the house
lay a little flower; in its bulb it lay, under the earth and the snow.
One day the rain fell and it trickled through the ice and snow down into
the ground. And presently a sunbeam, pointed and slender, pierced down
through the earth, and tapped on the bulb.
“Come in,” said the flower.
“I can't do that,” said the sunbeam; “I'm not strong enough to lift the
latch. I shall be stronger when springtime comes.”
“When will it be spring?” asked the flower of every little sunbeam that
rapped on its door. But for a long time it was winter. The ground was
still covered with snow, and every night there was ice in the water. The
flower grew quite tired of waiting.
“How long it is!” it said. “I feel quite cramped. I must stretch myself
and rise up a little. I must lift the latch, and look out, and say
'good-morning' to the spring.”
So the flower pushed and pushed. The walls were softened by the rain
and warmed by the little sunbeams, so the flower shot up from under the
snow, with a pale green bud on its stalk and some long narrow leaves on
either side. It was biting cold.
“You are a little too early,” said the wind and the weather; but every
sunbeam sang: “Welcome,” and the flower raised its head from the snow
and unfolded itself--pure and white, and decked with green stripes.
It was weather to freeze it to pieces,--such a delicate little
flower,--but it was stronger than any one knew. It stood in its white
dress in the white snow, bowing its head when the snow-flakes fell,
and raising it again to smile at the sunbeams, and every day it grew
sweeter.
“Oh!” shouted the children, as they ran into the garden, “see the
snowdrop! There it stands so pretty, so beautiful,--the first, the only
one!”
THE THREE LITTLE BUTTERFLY BROTHERS
(FROM THE GERMAN)[2]
[Footnote 2: From Deutsches Drittes Lesebuch, by W. H. Weick and C.
Grebner. Copyright, 1886, by Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. American Book
Company, publishers.]
There were once three little butterfly brothers, one white, one red, and
one yellow. They played in the sunshine, and danced among the flowers in
the garden, and they never grew tired because they were so happy.
One day there came a heavy rain, and it wet their wings. They flew away
home, but when they got there they found the door locked and the key
gone. So they had to stay out of doors in the rain, and they grew wetter
and wetter.
By and by they flew to the red and yellow striped tulip, and said:
“Friend Tulip, will you open your flower-cup and let us in till the
storm is over?”
The tulip answered: “The red and yellow butterflies may enter, because
they are like me, but the white one may not come in.”
But the red and yellow butterflies said: “If our white brother may not
find shelter in your flowercup, why, then, we'll stay outside in the
rain with him.”
It rained harder and harder, and the poor little butterflies grew wetter
and wetter, so they flew to the white lily and said: “Good Lily, will
you open your bud a little so we may creep in out of the rain?”
The lily answered: “The white butterfly may come in, because he is like
me, but the red and yellow ones must stay outside in the storm.”
Then the little white butterfly said: “If you won't receive my red and
yellow brothers, why, then, I'll stay out in the rain with them. We
would rather be wet than be parted.”
So the three little butterflies flew away.
But the sun, who was behind a cloud, heard it all, and he knew what good
little brothers the butterflies were, and how they had held together in
spite of the wet. So he pushed his face through the clouds, and chased
away the rain, and shone brightly on the garden.
He dried the wings of the three little butterflies, and warmed their
bodies. They ceased to sorrow, and danced among the flowers till
evening, then they flew away home, and found the door wide open.
THE WATER-DROP
BY FRIEDRICH WILHELM CAROVE'
(ADAPTED FROM THE TRANSLATION BY SARAH AUSTIN)
There was once a child who lived in a little hut, and in the hut there
was nothing but a little bed and a looking-glass; but as soon as the
first sunbeam glided softly through the casement and kissed his sweet
eyelids, and the finch and the linnet waked him merrily with their
morning songs, he arose and went out into the green meadow.
And he begged flour of the primrose, and sugar of the violet, and butter
of the buttercup. He shook dewdrops from the cowslip into the cup of the
harebell, spread out a large lime-leaf, set his breakfast upon it, and
feasted daintily. And he invited a humming-bee and a gay butterfly to
partake of his feast, but his favorite guest was a blue dragon-fly.
The bee murmured a good deal about his riches, and the butterfly told
his adventures. Such talk delighted the child, and his breakfast was the
sweeter to him, and the sunshine on leaf and flower seemed more bright
and cheering.
But when the bee had flown off to beg from flower to flower, and the
butterfly had fluttered away to his play-fellows, the dragon-fly still
remained, poised on a blade of grass. Her slender and burnished body,
more brightly and deeply blue than the deep blue sky, glistened in the
sunbeam. Her net-like wings laughed at the flowers because they could
not fly, but must stand still and abide the wind and rain.
The dragon-fly sipped a little of the child's clear dewdrops and blue
violet honey, and then whispered her winged words. Such stories as the
dragon-fly did tell! And as the child sat motionless with his blue
eyes shut, and his head rested on his hands, she thought he had fallen
asleep; so she poised her double wings and flew into the rustling wood.
But the child had only sunk into a dream of delight and was wishing he
were a sunbeam or a moonbeam; and he would have been glad to hear more
and more, and forever.
But at last as all was still, he opened his eyes and looked around for
his dear guest, but she was flown far away. He could not bear to sit
there any longer alone, and he rose and went to the gurgling brook. It
gushed and rolled so merrily, and tumbled so wildly along as it hurried
to throw itself head-over-heels into the river, just as if the great
massy rock out of which it sprang were close behind it, and could only
be escaped by a breakneck leap.
Then the child began to talk to the little waves and asked them whence
they came. They would not stay to give him an answer, but danced away
one over another; till at last, that the sweet child might not be
grieved, a water-drop stopped behind a piece of rock.
“A long time ago,” said the water-drop, “I lived with my countless
sisters in the great Ocean, in peace and unity. We had all sorts of
pastimes. Sometimes we mounted up high into the air, and peeped at the
stars. Then we sank plump down deep below, and looked how the coral
builders work till they are tired, that they may reach the light of day
at last.
“But I was conceited, and thought myself much better than my sisters.
And so, one day, when the sun rose out of the sea, I clung fast to one
of his hot beams and thought how I should reach the stars and become one
of them.
“But I had not ascended far when the sunbeam shook me off, and, in spite
of all I could say or do, let me fall into a dark cloud. And soon a
flash of fire darted through the cloud, and now I thought I must surely
die; but the cloud laid itself down softly upon the top of a mountain,
and so I escaped.
“Now I thought I should remain hidden, when, all on a sudden, I slipped
over a round pebble, fell from one stone to another, down into the
depths of the mountain. At last it was pitch dark and I could neither
see nor hear anything.
“Then I found, indeed, that 'pride goeth before a fall,' for, though I
had already laid aside all my unhappy pride in the cloud, my punishment
was to remain for some time in the heart of the mountain. After
undergoing many purifications from the hidden virtues of metals and
minerals, I was at length permitted to come up once more into the free
and cheerful air, and to gush from this rock and journey with this happy
stream. Now will I run back to my sisters in the Ocean, and there wait
patiently till I am called to something better.”
So said the water-drop to the child, but scarcely had she finished her
story, when the root of a For-Get-Me-Not caught the drop and sucked her
in, that she might become a floweret, and twinkle brightly as a blue
star on the green firmament of earth.
THE SPRING BEAUTY
AN OJIBBEWAY LEGEND
BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT (ADAPTED)
An old man was sitting in his lodge, by the side of a frozen stream. It
was the end of winter, the air was not so cold, and his fire was
nearly out. He was old and alone. His locks were white with age, and he
trembled in every joint. Day after day passed, and he heard nothing but
the sound of the storm sweeping before it the new-fallen snow.
One day while his fire was dying, a handsome young man approached and
entered the lodge. His cheeks were red, his eyes sparkled. He walked
with a quick, light step. His forehead was bound with a wreath of
sweet-grass, and he carried a bunch of fragrant flowers in his hand.
“Ah, my son,” said the old man, “I am happy to see you. Come in! Tell me
your adventures, and what strange lands you have seen. I will tell you
of my wonderful deeds, and what I can perform. You shall do the same,
and we will amuse each other.”
The old man then drew from a bag a curiously wrought pipe. He filled it
with mild tobacco, and handed it to his guest. They each smoked from the
pipe and then began their stories.
“I am Peboan, the Spirit of Winter,” said the old man. “I blow my
breath, and the streams stand still. The water becomes stiff and hard as
clear stone.”
“I am Seegwun, the Spirit of Spring,” answered the youth. “I breathe,
and flowers spring up in the meadows and woods.”
“I shake my locks,” said the old man, “and snow covers the land. The
leaves fall from the trees, and my breath blows them away. The birds fly
to a distant land, and the animals hide themselves from the cold.”
“I shake my ringlets,” said the young man, “and warm showers of soft
rain fall upon the earth. The flowers lift their heads from the ground,
the grass grows thick and green. My voice recalls the birds, and they
come flying joyfully from the Southland. The warmth of my breath unbinds
the streams, and they sing the songs of summer. Music fills the groves
where-ever I walk, and all nature rejoices.”
And while they were talking thus a wonderful change took place. The sun
began to rise. A gentle warmth stole over the place. Peboan, the Spirit
of Winter, became silent. His head drooped, and the snow outside the
lodge melted away. Seegwun, the Spirit of Spring, grew more radiant, and
rose joyfully to his feet. The robin and the bluebird began to sing on
the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur at the door, and the
fragrance of opening flowers came softly on the breeze.
The lodge faded away, and Peboan sank down and dissolved into tiny
streams of water, that vanished under the brown leaves of the forest.
Thus the Spirit of Winter departed, and where he had melted away, there
the Indian children gathered the first blossoms, fragrant and delicately
pink,--the modest Spring Beauty.
THE FAIRY TULIPS
ENGLISH FOLK-TALE
Once upon a time there was a good old woman who lived in a little house.
She had in her garden a bed of beautiful striped tulips.
One night she was wakened by the sounds of sweet singing and of babies
laughing. She looked out at the window. The sounds seemed to come from
the tulip bed, but she could see nothing.
The next morning she walked among her flowers, but there were no signs
of any one having been there the night before.
On the following night she was again wakened by sweet singing and babies
laughing. She rose and stole softly through her garden. The moon was
shining brightly on the tulip bed, and the flowers were swaying to and
fro. The old woman looked closely and she saw, standing by each tulip,
a little Fairy mother who was crooning and rocking the flower like a
cradle, while in each tulip-cup lay a little Fairy baby laughing and
playing.
The good old woman stole quietly back to her house, and from that time
on she never picked a tulip, nor did she allow her neighbors to touch
the flowers.
The tulips grew daily brighter in color and larger in size, and they
gave out a delicious perfume like that of roses. They began, too, to
bloom all the year round. And every night the little Fairy mothers
caressed their babies and rocked them to sleep in the flower-cups.
The day came when the good old woman died, and the tulip-bed was torn
up by folks who did not know about the Fairies, and parsley was planted
there instead of the flowers. But the parsley withered, and so did all
the other plants in the garden, and from that time nothing would grow
there.
But the good old woman's grave grew beautiful, for the Fairies sang
above it, and kept it green; while on the grave and all around it there
sprang up tulips, daffodils, and violets, and other lovely flowers of
spring.
THE STREAM THAT RAN AWAY
BY MARY AUSTIN (ADAPTED)
In a short and shallow canyon running eastward toward the sun, one may
find a clear, brown stream called the Creek of Pinon Pines; that is not
because it is unusual to find pinon trees in that country, but because
there are so few of them in the canyon of the stream. There are all
sorts higher up on the slopes,--long-leaved yellow pines, thimble cones,
tamarack, silver fir, and Douglas spruce; but in the canyon there
is only a group of the low-headed, gray nut pines which the earliest
inhabitants of that country called pinons.
The Canyon of Pinon Pines has a pleasant outlook and lies open to the
sun. At the upper end there is no more room by the stream border than
will serve for a cattle trail; willows grow in it, choking the path
of the water; there are brown birches here and ropes of white clematis
tangled over thickets of brier rose.
Low down, the ravine broadens out to inclose a meadow the width of a
lark's flight, blossomy and wet and good. Here the stream ran once in a
maze of soddy banks and watered all the ground, and afterward ran out at
the canyon's mouth across the mesa in a wash of bone-white boulders as
far as it could. That was not very far, for it was a slender stream. It
had its source on the high crests and hollows of the near-by mountain,
in the snow banks that melted and seeped downward through the rocks. But
the stream did not know any more of that than you know of what happened
to you before you were born, and could give no account of itself except
that it crept out from under a great heap of rubble far up in the Canyon
of the Pinon Pines.
And because it had no pools in it deep enough for trout, and no trees on
its borders but gray nut pines; because, try as it might, it could never
get across the mesa to the town, the stream had fully made up its mind
to run away.
“Pray, what good will that do you?” said the pines. “If you get to
the town, they will turn you into an irrigating ditch, and set you to
watering crops.”
“As to that,” said the stream, “if I once get started I will not stop at
the town.”
Then it would fret between its banks until the spangled frills of the
mimulus were all tattered with its spray. Often at the end of the summer
it was worn quite thin and small with running, and not able to do more
than reach the meadow.
“But some day,” it whispered to the stones, “I shall run quite away.”
If the stream had been inclined for it, there was no lack of good
company on its own borders. Birds nested in the willows, rabbits came to
drink; one summer a bobcat made its lair up the bank opposite the brown
birches, and often the deer fed in the meadow.
In the spring of one year two old men came up into the Canyon of Pinon
Pines. They had been miners and partners together for many years. They
had grown rich and grown poor, and had seen many hard places and strange
times. It was a day when the creek ran clear and the south wind smelled
of the earth. Wild bees began to whine among the willows, and the meadow
bloomed over with poppy-breasted larks.
Then said one of the old men: “Here is good meadow and water enough; let
us build a house and grow trees. We are too old to dig in the mines.”
“Let us set about it,” said the other; for that is the way with two who
have been a long time together,--what one thinks of, the other is for
doing.
So they brought their possessions, and they built a house by the water
border and planted trees. One of the men was all for an orchard but the
other preferred vegetables. So they did each what he liked, and were
never so happy as when walking in the garden in the cool of the day,
touching the growing things as they walked, and praising each other's
work.
They were very happy for three years. By this time the stream had become
so interested it had almost forgotten about running away. But every year
it noted that a larger bit of the meadow was turned under and planted,
and more and more the men made dams and ditches by which to turn the
water into their gardens.
“In fact,” said the stream, “I am being made into an irrigating ditch
before I have had my fling in the world. I really must make a start.”
That very winter, by the help of a great storm, the stream went roaring
down the meadow, over the mesa, and so clean away, with only a track of
muddy sand to show the way it had gone.
All that winter the two men brought water for drinking from a spring,
and looked for the stream to come back. In the spring they hoped still,
for that was the season they looked for the orchard to bear. But no
fruit grew on the trees, and the seeds they planted shriveled in the
earth. So by the end of summer, when they understood that the water
would not come back at all, they went sadly away.
Now the Creek of Pinon Pines did not have a happy time. It went out in
the world on the wings of the storm, and was very much tossed about and
mixed up with other waters, lost and bewildered.
Everywhere it saw water at work, turning mills, watering fields,
carrying trade, falling as hail, rain, and snow; and at the last, after
many journeys it found itself creeping out from under the rocks of the
same old mountain, in the Canyon of Pinon Pines.
“After all, home is best,” said the little stream to itself, and ran
about in its choked channels looking for old friends.
The willows were there, but grown shabby and dying at the top; the
birches were quite dead, and there was only rubbish where the white
clematis had been. Even the rabbits had gone away.
The little stream ran whimpering in the meadow, fumbling at the ruined
ditches to comfort the fruit trees which were not quite dead. It was
very dull in those days living in the Canyon of Pinon Pines.
“But it is really my own fault,” said the stream. So it went on
repairing the borders as best it could.
About the time the white clematis had come back to hide the ruin of the
brown birches, a young man came and camped with his wife and child in
the meadow. They were looking for a place to make a home.
“What a charming place!” said the young wife; “just the right distance
from town, and a stream all to ourselves. And look, there are fruit
trees already planted. Do let us decide to stay!”
Then she took off the child's shoes and stockings to let it play in
the stream. The water curled all about the bare feet and gurgled
delightedly.
“Ah, do stay,” begged the happy water. “I can be such a help to you, for
I know how a garden should be irrigated in the best manner.”
The child laughed, and stamped the water up to his bare knees. The young
wife watched anxiously while her husband walked up and down the stream
border and examined the fruit trees.
“It is a delightful place,” he said, “and the soil is rich, but I am
afraid the water cannot be depended upon. There are signs of a great
drought within the last two or three years. Look, there is a clump of
birches in the very path of the stream, but all dead; and the largest
limbs of the fruit trees have died. In this country one must be able
to make sure of the water-supply. I suppose the people who planted them
must have abandoned the place when the stream went dry. We must go on
farther.”
So they took their goods and the child and went on farther.
“Ah, well,” said the stream, “that is what is to be expected when has a
reputation for neglecting one's duty. But I wish they had stayed. That
baby and I understood each other.”
It had made up its mind not to run away again, though it could not be
expected to be quite cheerful after all that had happened. If you go to
the Canyon of Pinon Pines you will notice that the stream, where it goes
brokenly about the meadow, has a mournful sound.
THE ELVES
AN IROQUOIS LEGEND
BY HARRIET MAXWELL CONVERSE (ADAPTED)
The little Elves of Darkness, so says the old Iroquois grandmother, were
wise and mysterious. They dwelt under the earth, where were deep forests
and broad plains. There they kept captive all the evil things that
wished to injure human beings,--the venomous reptiles, the wicked
spiders, and the fearful monsters. Sometimes one of these evil creatures
escaped and rushed upward to the bright, pure air, and spread its
poisonous breath over the living things of the upper-world. But such
happenings were rare, for the Elves of Darkness were faithful and
strong, and did not willingly allow the wicked beasts and reptiles to
harm human beings and the growing things.
When the night was lighted by the moon's soft rays, and the woods of
the upper-world were sweet with the odor of the spring-flowers, then the
Elves of Darkness left the under-world, and creeping from their holes,
held a festival in the woods. And under many a tree, where the blades of
grass had refused to grow, the Little People danced until rings of green
sprang up beneath their feet. And to the festival came the Elves of
Light,--among whom were Tree-Elves, Flower-Elves, and Fruit-Elves. They
too danced and made merry.
But when the moonlight faded away, and day began to break, then the
Elves of Darkness scampered back to their holes, and returned once more
to the under-world; while the Elves of Light began their daily tasks.
For in the springtime these Little People of the Light hid in sheltered
places. They listened to the complaints of the seeds that lay covered in
the ground, and they whispered to the earth until the seeds burst their
pods and sent their shoots upward to the light. Then the little Elves
wandered over the fields and through the woods, bidding all growing
things to look upon the sun.
The Tree-Elves tended the trees, unfolding their leaves, and feeding
their roots with sap from the earth. The Flower-Elves unwrapped the baby
buds, and tinted the petals of the opening flowers, and played with the
bees and the butterflies.