Another very striking genus (_Astrocaryum_) is remarkable for being

clothed in every part--stem, leaves, and spathe--with sharp spines,

which are sometimes twelve inches long. _Astrocaryum murumura_ is

edible. The pulp of the fruit is said to be like that of a melon, and it

has a musky odour. It is a native of tropical America, and abundant on

the Amazon. Cattle wander about the forests in search of it, and pigs

fatten on the nut, which they crunch with their teeth, though it is

exceedingly hard.

The date palm yields a wine called toddy, or palm wine, and from the

Princes of Vegetation is also distilled a strong spirit called arrack.

And speaking again of the Judæan palms, I must here say a word of those

which we associate with Palm Sunday--the willow palms--for which we used

to hunt when we were children.

It is hardly necessary to state that these willow branches, with their

soft silvery catkins, the crown of the earliest spring nosegays which

the hedges afford, are not even distantly related to the Princes of

Vegetation, though we call them palms. They are called palms simply from

having taken the place of real palm-branches in the ceremonies of the

Sunday of our Lord's Entry into Jerusalem, where these do not grow.

A very old writer, speaking of the Jews strewing palm-branches before

Christ, says: "And thus we take palm and flowers in procession as they

did ... in the worship and mind of Him that was done on the cross,

worshipping and welcoming Him with song into the Church, as the people

did our Lord into the city of Jerusalem. It is called Palm Sunday for

because the palm betokeneth victory; wherefore all Christian people

should bear palm in procession, in token that He hath foughten with the

fiend our enemy, and hath the victory of hym."

A curious old Scotch custom is recorded in Lanark, as "kept by the boys

of the Grammar-school, beyond all memory in regard to date, on the

Saturday before Palm Sunday. They then parade the streets with a palm,

or its substitute, a large tree of the willow kind (_Salix caprea_), in

blossom, ornamented with daffodils, mezereon, and box-tree. This day is

called Palm Saturday, and the custom is certainly a popish relic of very

ancient standing."

But to return to palms proper. Before taking leave of them, there is one

more word to be said in their praise which may endear this noble race to

eyes which will never be permitted to see the wonders of tropical

forests.

As pot-plants they are not less remarkable for the picturesqueness of

their forms, than for the patience with which they endure those

vicissitudes of stuffiness and chill, dryness, dust, and gas, which

prove fatal to so many inmates of the flower-stand or the window-sill.

Pot-palms may be bought of any good nurseryman at prices varying from

two or three shillings to two or three pounds. _Latania borbonica_ and

_Phoenix reclinata_ are good and cheap. Sandy-peaty soil, with a

little leaf-mould, is what they like, and this should be renewed (with a

larger pot) every second year. Thus, with the most moderate care, and an

occasional sponging, or a stand-out in a soft shower, the exiled Princes

of Vegetation, whose shoots in their native forests would have been of

giant luxuriance, will live for years, patiently adapting themselves by

slow growth to the rooms which they adorn, easier of management than the

next fern you dig up on your rambles, and, in the incomparable beauty of

their forms, the perpetual delight of an artistic eye.

LITTLE WOODS.

By little woods are here meant--not woods of small extent, but--woods in

which the trees never grow big, woods that are to grown-up woods as

children to grown-up people, woods that seem made on purpose for

children, and dwarfs, and dolls, and fairies.

These little woods have many names, varying with the trees of which they

are composed, or the districts in which they are found. One of the

best-known names is that of copse or coppice, and it brings with it

remembrances of the fresh beauty of spring days, on which--sheltered by

the light copse-wood from winds that are still keen--we have revelled in

sunshine warm enough to persuade us that summer was come "for good," as

we picked violets and primroses to the tolling of the cuckoo.

Things "in miniature" have a natural charm for little people, and most

of my young readers have probably been familiar with favourite copses,

or miniature pine-forests. Perhaps some of them would like to know why

these little woods never grow into big ones, and something also of the

history and uses of those trees of which little woods are composed.

They are not made of dwarf trees. There are little woods, as well as big

woods, of oak, elm, ash, pine, willow, birch, beech, and larch. In some

cases the little woods are composed of the growth which shoots up when

the principal trunk of the tree has been cut down, but they are

generally little merely because they are young, and are cut down for use

before they have time to grow into forest-trees. The object of this

little paper is to give some account of their growth and uses. It will

be convenient to take them alphabetically, by their English names.

The Ash (_Fraxinus excelsior_ and other varieties) is a particularly

graceful and fine tree at its full growth. It is a native of Great

Britain, and of many other parts of the world. It is long lived. The

most profitable age for felling it as a forest-tree is from eighty to a

hundred years. The flower comes out before the leaves, which are late,

like those of the oak. The bunches of seed-vessels, or "ash-keys," as

they are fancifully called, were pickled in salt and water and eaten in

old times. The Greeks and Romans made their spears of ash-wood. The wood

is not so durable as that of some other trees, but it is tough, and is

thus employed for work subject to sudden strains. It is good for

kitchen-tables, as it scours well and does not easily splinter.

In little woods, or ash-holts, or ash-coppices, the ash is very

valuable. They are either cut over entirely at certain intervals, or

divided into portions which are cut yearly in succession. At four or

five years old the ash makes good walking-sticks, crates to pack glass

and china in, hoops, basket handles, fences, and hurdles.

Croquet-mallets are also made of ash. At twelve or fourteen it is strong

enough for hop-poles. There are many old superstitions in connection

with the ash, and there is a midland counties saying that if there are

no keys on the ash, within a twelvemonth there will be no king.

There are several fine American varieties, and both in the States and in

Canada the wood is used for purposes similar to ours.

The Alder (_Alnus glutinosa_, &c.) is never a very large tree. It is

supposed to be in maturity when it is sixty years old. It will grow in

wetter places than any other tree in Europe--even than the willow.

Though the wood is soft, it is very durable in water. Virgil speaks of

it as being used for boats. It is highly valued in Holland for piles,

and it is said that the famous bridge of the Rialto at Venice is built

on piles of alder-wood. Though invaluable for water-pipes, pump-barrels,

foundations for bridges, &c., alder-wood is of little use on dry land

unless it can be kept _perfectly_ dry. Wooden vessels and sabots,

however, are made of it.

Alders are chiefly grown in little woods. Planted by the side of rivers,

too, their tough and creeping roots bind and support the banks.

Alder-coppices are very valuable to the makers of--gunpowder! Every five

or six years the little alders are cut down and burned to charcoal, and

the charcoal of alder-wood is reckoned particularly good by gunpowder

manufacturers.

The Aspen, or Trembling Poplar (_Populus tremula_), like the alder, is

fond of damp situations. It has also a white soft wood, used by the

turner and engraver, and for such small articles as clogs, butchers'

trays, &c, &c.

The quivering of its leaves is a favourite topic with poets, and there

is a curious old Highland superstition that the Cross of Christ was made

of aspen-wood, and that thenceforward the tree could never rest.

In "little woods" it may be cut every seven or eight years for faggots,

and at fifteen or twenty years old for poles.

The Beech (_Fagus sylvatica_). With this beautiful tree all our young

readers must be familiar. There may be those whose minds are not quite

clear about wych-elms and sycamores, but the appearance of the

beech-tree is too strongly marked to allow of any confusion on the

subject.

The beech is spoken of by Greek and Roman writers, and old writers on

British agriculture count it among the four timber trees indigenous to

England: the beech, the oak, the ash, and the elm.

It is said, however, not to be a native of Scotland or Ireland. It

attains its full growth in from sixty to eighty years, but is believed

to live to be as old as two hundred. The timber is not so valuable as

that of the other three British trees, but it is used for a great

variety of purposes. Like the alder, it will bear the action of water

well, and has thus been used for piles, flood-gates, mill-wheels, &c. It

is largely used by cabinet-makers for house furniture. It is employed

also by carriage-makers and turners, and for various small articles,

from rolling-pins to croquet-balls. The dried leaves are used in

Switzerland to fill beds with, and very nice such beds must be! Long ago

they were used for this purpose in England. Evelyn says that they remain

sweet and elastic for seven or eight years, by which time a straw

mattress would have become hard and musty. They have a pleasant

restorative scent, something like that of green tea. When we think how

many poor people lie on musty mattresses, or have none at all, whilst

the beech-leaves lie in the woods and go very slowly to decay, we see

one more of the many instances of people remaining uncomfortable when

they need not be so, because of their ignorance. The fact that

beech-leaves are very slow to rot makes them useful in the garden for

mulching and protecting plants from frost.

In Scotland the beech-chips and branches are burned to smoke herrings,

and pyroligneous acid (a form of which is probably known to any of our

young readers who suffer from toothache as _creosote_!) is distilled

from them. Mr. Loudon tells us that the word "book" comes from the

German word _buch_, which, in the first instance, means a beech, and was

applied to books because the old German bookbinders used beech-wood

instead of paste-board for the sides of thick volumes. Beech-wood is

especially good for fuel. Only the sycamore, the Scotch pine, and the

ash give out more heat and light when they burn. Beech-nuts--or

beech-mast, as it is called--are eaten by many animals. Pigs, deer,

poultry, &c., are turned into beech-woods to fatten on the mast.

Squirrels and dormice delight in it. In France it is used to make

beech-oil. This oil is used both for cooking and burning, and for the

latter purpose has the valuable property of having no nasty smell.

Of the beauty of the beech as a forest-tree--let artists rave! Its

smooth and shapely bole does not tempt the sketcher's eye alone. To the

lover and the school-boy (and, alas! to that inartistic animal the

British holiday-maker) it offers an irresistible surface for cutting

names and dates. Upon its branches and beneath its shadow grow many

_fungi_, several of which are eatable. Truffles are found there; those

underground dainties which dogs (and sometimes pigs!) are trained to

grub up for our benefit. They discover the whereabouts of the truffle by

scent, for there is no sign of it above ground. Nothing else will grow

under beech-trees, except holly.

Scarcely less charming than the beech-forests are beech-hedges. They cut

and thrive with cutting like yew-hedges.

"Little woods" of beech are common in Buckinghamshire. They are chiefly

grown for the charcoal, which is valuable for gunpowder.

"Copper-Beeches"--red-leaved beech-trees, very beautiful for ornamental

purposes--all come from one red-leaved beech, a sort of freak of nature,

which was found about a century ago in a wood in Germany.

The Birch (_Betula alba_, &c.) is also a tree of very distinctive

appearance. The silver-white bark, which peels so delightfully under

childish fingers, is not less charming to the sketcher's eye, whether as

a near study or as gleaming points of high light against the grey

greens and misty purples of a Highland hillside. It is emphatically the

tree of the Highlands of the North. It bends and breaks not under the

wildest winds, it thrives on poor soil, and defies mist and cold. So

varied are its uses that it has been said that the Scotch Highlander

makes everything of birch, from houses to candles, and beds to ropes!

The North American Indians and the Laplanders apply it almost as

universally as the Chinese use paper. The wigwams or huts of the North

American Indians are made of birch-bark laid over a framework of

birch-poles or trunks, and their canoes or boats are cased in it. The

Laplander makes his great-coat of it,--a circular _poncho_ with a hole

for his head,--as well as his houses and his boots and shoes. It will be

easily believed that birch-bark was used in ancient times for writing on

before the invention of paper.

Birch-wood makes good fuel. It is also used by cabinet-makers. Its uses

in "little woods" are many. The charcoal is good for gunpowder, and it

is that of which _crayons_ are made. Birch-coppices are cut for brooms,

hoops, &c., at five to six years old, and at ten to twelve for

faggot-wood, poles, fencing, and bark for the tanners. Birch-spray (that

is, the twigs and leaves) is used for smoking hams and herrings, and for

brooms to sweep grass. It is also used to make birch-rods; but as we

think very ill of the discipline of any household in which the children

and the pets cannot be kept in order without being beaten, we hope our

own young readers are only familiar with birch-rods in picture-books.

The (Sweet or Spanish) Chestnut (_Castanca vesca_) is grown in "little

woods" for hop-poles, fence-wood, and hoops. The wood of the full-grown

tree is also valuable.

Evelyn says, "A decoction of the rind of the tree tinctures hair of a

golden colour, esteemed a beauty in some countries." It would be

entertaining to know if this is the foundation of the "auricomous

fluids" advertised by hair-dressers!

Amongst "little woods" the dearest of all to the school-boy must surely

be the hazel-copse! The Hazel (_Corylus avellana_) is never a large

tree. It is, however, long lived, and of luxuriant growth. When cut it

"stoles" or throws up shoots very freely, and when treated so will live

a hundred years. With a single stem, Mr. Loudon assures us, it would

live much longer. Filbert-hazels are a variety with longer nuts. Hazels

are cultivated not only for the nuts, but for corf-rods,[1] hoops,

fencing, &c., and hazel-charcoal, like beech-charcoal, is used for

crayons. Like many other plants, the hazel has two kinds of flowers,

which come out before the leaves. The long pale catkins appear first,

and a little later tiny crimson flowers come where the nuts are

afterwards to be.

Many old superstitions are connected with the hazel. Hazel-rods were

used to "divine" for water and minerals by professors of an art which

received the crack-jaw title of Rhabdomancy. Having tried our own hand

at Rhabdomancy, we are able to say that the freaks of the divining-rod

in sensitive fingers are sometimes as curious as those of a table among

table-turners; and are probably susceptible of similar explanations.

The Larch (_Larix Europæa_, &c.). Though traceable in England for two

hundred years, it is within this century that the larch has been

extensively cultivated for profit. The exact date of its introduction

from the mountain ranges of some other part of Europe is not known, but

there is a popular tradition that it was first brought to Scotland with

some orange-trees from Italy, and having begun to wither under hot-house

treatment, was thrown outside, where it took root and throve thereafter.

The wood of full-grown larch-trees is very valuable. To John, Duke of

Athol, Scotland is indebted for the introduction of larch plantations on

an enormous scale. He is said to have planted 6500 acres of

mountain-ground with these valuable trees, which not only bring in heavy

returns as timber, but so enrich the ground on which they grow, by the

decayed _spicula_ or spines which fall from them, as to increase its

value in the course of some years eight or tenfold. The Duke was buried

in a coffin made of larch-wood! This sounds as if the merits of the

larch-tree had been indeed a hobby with him, but when one comes to

enumerate them one does not wonder that a man should feel his life very

usefully devoted to establishing so valuable a tree in his native

country, and that the pains and pride it brought him should have

awakened sentiment enough to make him desire to make his last cradle

from his favourite tree.

Larch-wood is light, strong, and durable. It is used for beams and for

ship-building, for railroad-sleepers and mill-axles, for water-pipes,

and for panels for pictures. Evelyn says that Raphael, the great

painter, painted many of his pictures on larch-wood. It will stand in

heat and wet, under water and above ground. It yields good turpentine,

but trees that have been tapped to procure this are of no use afterwards

for building purposes. The larch is said not to make good masts for

ships, but its durability in all varieties of temperature and changes of

weather make it valuable for vine-props. When made of larch-poles these

are never taken up as hop-poles are. Year after year the vines climb

them and fade at their feet, and they are said to have outlasted at

least one generation of vine-growers.

In "little woods" the larches are planted very close, so that they may

"spindle up" and become tall before they grow thick. They are then used

for hop-poles and props of various kinds.

The Oak (_Quercus robur_, &c.) is pre-eminently a British tree. Of its

beauty, size, the venerable age it will attain, and its historical

associations, we have no space to speak here, and our young readers are

probably not ignorant on the subject.

The durability of its wood is proverbial. The bark is also of great

value, and though the slow growth of the oak in its earlier years

postpones profit to the planter, it does so little harm to other wood

grown with it (being in this respect very different from the beech),

that profitable coppice-wood and other trees may be grown in the same

plantation.

The age at which the oak should be felled for ship-timber, &c., depends

on many circumstances, and is fixed by different authorities at from

eighty to a hundred and fifty years.

Oaks are said to be more liable than other trees to be struck by

lightning.

Oak-coppices or "little woods" are cut over at from twelve to thirty

years old. The bark is valuable as well as the wood.

The Pine (_Pinus sylvestris_, &c.), like the larch, will flourish on

poor soils. It is valuable as a protection for other trees. The

varieties and variations of this tree are very numerous.

It is a very valuable timber-tree, the wood being loosely known as

"deal"; but "deals" are, properly speaking, planks of pine-wood of a

certain thickness, "boards" being the technical name for a thicker kind.

Pine trunks are used for the masts of ships. "In the north of Russia and

in Lapland the outer bark is used, like that of the birch, for covering

huts, for lining them inside, and as a substitute for cork for floating

the nets of fishermen; and the inner bark is woven into mats like those

made from the lime-tree. Ropes are also made from the bark, which are

said to be very strong and elastic, and are generally used by the

fishermen."

In the north of Europe great quantities of tar are procured from the

Scotch pine. Torches are made from the roots and trunk.

Varieties of the pine are grown in "little woods" for hop-poles.

_Pinus sylvestris_ (the "Scotch Pine"), though a native of Scotland, has

only been planted and cultivated in Great Britain for about a century.

On the subject of "thinning and pruning" in plantations planters--like

doctors--differ. An amusing story was sent to Mr. Loudon by the Duke of

Bedford, in reference to his grandfather, who was an advocate for

vigorous thinning in the pine plantations.

"The Duke perceived that the plantation required thinning, in order to

admit a free circulation of air, and give health and vigour to the young

trees. He accordingly gave instructions to his gardener, and directed

him as to the mode and extent of the thinning required. The gardener

paused and hesitated, and at length said: 'Your Grace must pardon me if

I humbly remonstrate against your orders, but I cannot possibly do what

you desire; it would at once destroy the young plantation; and,

moreover, it would be seriously injurious to my reputation as a

planter.' My grandfather, who was of an impetuous and decided character,

but always just, instantly replied, 'Do as I desire you, and I will take

care of your reputation.' The plantation was accordingly thinned

according to the instructions of the Duke, who caused a board to be

fixed in the plantation, facing the wood, on which was inscribed, '_This

plantation has been thinned by John, Duke of Bedford, contrary to the

advice and opinion of his gardener._'"

The Willow (_Salix caprea_, &c.). The species of willow are so numerous

that we shall not attempt to give a list of them.

Willow-wood wears well in water, and has been used in shipbuilding and

carpentery, and especially for small ware, cricket-bats and toys.

Full-grown willows of all kinds are picturesque and very graceful trees.

The growth of the tree kinds when young is very rapid.

Willows are largely cultivated in "little woods" for basket-making,

hoops, &c. Shoots of the _Salix caprea_ of only a year's growth are

large enough to be valuable for wicker-work. It appears to be held by

cultivators that the poorer the soil in which they are grown the oftener

these willows should be cut over. "In a good soil a coppice of this

species will produce the greatest return in poles, hoops, and rods every

five, six, seven, or eight years; and in middling soil, where it is

grown chiefly for faggot-wood, it will produce the greatest return every

three, four, or five years."

Horses and cattle are fed on the leaves of the willow in some parts of

France.

Willows are often "pollarded." That is, their tops are cut off, which

makes a large crop of young shoots spring out, giving a shock-headed

effect which in gnarled old pollards by river-banks is picturesque

enough.

The "little woods" of willow on the river Thames and the Cam are well

known. They are small islands planted entirely with willows, and are

called osier-holts.

Osier-beds of all kinds are very attractive "little woods." One always

fancies one ought to be able to make something of the long pliable

"sally-withys"--as the Wiltshire folk call willow switches. Indeed, as a

matter of fact, the making of rough garden-baskets is a very simple art,

especially on the Scotch and German system. Let any ingenious little

prowler in an osier-bed get two thickish willow-rods and fasten them at

the ends with a bit of wire, so as to make two hoops. These hoops are

then to intersect each other half-way up, one being perpendicular, to

form the handle and the bottom of the basket, the other being placed

horizontally, to form the rim. More wire will be needed to fix them in

their positions. Much finer willow-wands are used to wattle, or weave,

the basket-work; ribs of split osiers are added, and the wattling goes

in and out among them, and at once secures them and rests upon them.

This account is not likely to be enough to teach the most intelligent of

our readers! But one fancies that a rough sort of basket-making might

almost be devised out of one's own head, especially if he had been

taught (as we were, by a favourite nursemaid) to plait rushes.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: A corf is a large basket used for carrying coals or other

minerals in a mine.]

MAY-DAY,

OLD STYLE AND NEW STYLE.

"Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her

The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose."--Milton.

On the whole, perhaps, May is the most beautiful of the English months,

especially the latter half of it; and yet I suppose very few May-days

come round on which we are not disposed to wonder why our ancestors did

not choose a warmer, and indeed a more flowery season for Maypoles and

garlands and out-door festivities.

Children who live in the north of England especially must have a

painfully large proportion of disappointments out of the few May-days of

childhood.

Books and pictures, old stories told by Papa or Mamma of clattering

chimney-sweeps and dancing May Queens, such as they saw in their young

days, or heard of from their elders, have perhaps roused in us two of

the strongest passions of childhood--the love of imitation and the love

of flowers. We are determined to have a May-bush round the

nursery-window, duly gathered before sunrise. "Pretty Bessy," our

nursemaid, can do anything with flowers, from a cowslip ball to a

growing forget-me-not garland. The girls are apt pupils, and pride

themselves on their birthday wreaths. The boys are admirably adapted for

May sweeps. Clatter is melodious in their ears. They would rather be

black than white. Burnt cork will disguise them effectually; but they

would prefer soot. A pole is forthcoming; ribbons are not wanting; the

poodle will dance with the best of us. We have a whole holiday on

Saints' Days, and the 1st of May is SS. Philip and James'.

What then hinders our enjoyment, and makes it impossible to keep May-day

according to our hopes?

Too often this. It is "too cold to dawdle about." Flowers are by no

means plentiful; they are pinched by the east wind. The May Queen would

have to dance in her winter clothes, and would probably catch cold even

then. It is not improbable that it will rain, and it is possible that it

may snow. Worse than all, the hawthorn-trees are behind time, and are as

obstinate as the head-nurse in not thinking the weather fit for coming

out. The May is not in blossom on May-day.

And yet May-day used to be kept in the north of England as well as in

warmer nooks and corners. The truth is that one reason why we find the

weather less pleasant, and the flowers fewer than our forefathers did,

is that we keep May-day eleven days earlier in the year than they used

to do.

To explain how this is, I must try and explain what Old Style and New

Style--in reckoning the days of the year--mean.

First let me ask you how you can count the days. Supposing you wish to

remain just one day and night in a certain place, how will you know when

you have stayed the proper time? In one of two ways. Either you will

count twenty-four hours on the clock, or you will stay through all the

light of one day, and all the darkness of one night. That is, you will

count time either by the Clock or by the Sun.

Now we say that there are 365 days in the year. But there are really a

few odd hours and minutes and seconds into the bargain. The reason of

this is that the Sun does not go by the Clock in making the days and

nights. Sometimes he spends rather more than twenty-four hours by the

Clock over a day and night; sometimes he takes less. On the whole,

during the year, he uses up more time than the Clock does.

The Clock makes exactly 365 days of 24 hours each. The Sun makes 365

days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 49 seconds, and a tiny bit besides.

Now in time these odd hours added together would come to days, and the

days to years. About fifteen hundred years of this little difference

between the Sun and the Clock would bring it up to a year. So that if

you went by the Clock you would say, "It is fifteen hundred years since

such a thing happened." And if you went by the Sun you would say, "It is

fifteen hundred and one years since it happened."

Men who could think and calculate saw how inconvenient this would be,

and what mistakes it would lead to. If the difference did not come to

much in their lifetime, they could see that it would come to a serious

error for other people some day. So Julius Cæsar thought he would pull

the Clock and the Sun together by adding one day every four years to the

Clock's year to make up for the odd hours the Sun had been spinning out

during the three years before. The odd day was added to the month of

February, and that year (in which there are three hundred and sixty-six

days) is called Leap Year.

You remember the old saw--

"Thirty days hath September,

April, June, and November;

February hath twenty-eight alone,

All the rest have thirty-one;

_Except in Leap Year, at which time

February's days are twenty-nine_."

This is called the Old Style of reckoning.

Now I dare say you think the matter was quite settled; but it was not,

unfortunately--the odd day every four years was just a tiny little bit

too much, and now the Clock was spending more time over her years than

the Sun. After more than sixteen hundred years the small mistake was

becoming serious, and Pope Gregory XIII decided that we must not have so

many leap years. For the future, in every four hundred years, three of

the Clock's extra days must be given up, and ten days were to be left

out of count at once to make up for the mistakes of years past.

This change is what is called the New Style of Reckoning. Pope Gregory

began it in the year 1582, but we did not adopt it in England till 1752,

and as we had then nearly two hundred years more of the little mistake

to correct, _we_ had to leave _eleven_ days out of count. In Russia,

where our new Princess comes from, they have not got it yet. The New

Style was begun in England on September the 2nd. The next day, instead

of being called September the 3rd, was called September the 14th. Since

then we have gone on quite steadily, and played no more tricks with

either the Sun's year or the Clock's year.

I wonder what happened in the year 1752 to all the children whose

birthdays came between September the 2nd and September the 14th! I hope

their birthday presents did not drop through because his Majesty George

the Second had let eleven birthdays slip out of that year's calendar, to

get the Clock and the Sun to work comfortably together.

Now I think you will be able to see that in the next year after this

change, May-day was kept eleven days earlier in the Sun's year than the

year before; and it has been at an earlier season ever since, and

therefore in colder weather. May-day in the Old Style would have come

this year about the middle of the month; and as years rolled on it would

have been kept later and later in the summer, and thus in warmer and

warmer weather, because of that little mistake of Julius Cæsar. At last,

instead of complaining that the May is not out by May-day, people would

have had to complain that it was over.

Now in the New Style we keep May-day almost in Spring, and, thanks to

Pope Gregory's clever arrangement, we shall always keep it at the same

season.

It is not always cold on a May-day even in the north of England. I have

a vivid remembrance of at least one which was most balmy; and, when they

are warm enough for out-door enjoyment, the early days of the year seem,

like the early hours of the day, to have an exquisite freshness

peculiarly their own. Then the month of May, as a whole, is certainly

the month of flowers in the woods and fields. Autumn is the gayest

season of the garden, but Spring and early Summer give us the prettiest

of the wild-flowers.

"Among the changing months May stands confest

The sweetest, and in fairest colours drest."

That fine weather is not quite to be relied upon for May-day, even in

the Old Style, some of the old May-day customs seem to suggest. In the

Isle of Man it was the custom not only to have a "Queen of May," but

also a "Queen of Winter." The May Queen was, as elsewhere, some pretty

and popular damsel, gaily dressed, and with a retinue of maids of

honour. The Winter Queen was a man or boy dressed in woman's clothes of

the warmest kind--"woollen hood, fur tippet," &c. Fiddles and flutes

were played before the May Queen and her followers, whilst the Queen of

Winter and her troop marched to the sound of the tongs and cleaver. The

rival companies met on a common and had a mock battle, symbolizing the

struggle of Winter and Summer for supremacy. If the Queen of Winter's

forces contrived to capture the Queen of May, her floral majesty had to

be ransomed by payment of the expenses of the day's festivity.

Whether the Queen of Winter conquered in bad weather, and her fairer

rival when the season was warm and the flowers abundant, we are not

told.

This ceremony was probably learnt from the Danes and Norwegians, who

were long masters of the Isle of Man. _Olaus Magnus_, speaking of the

May-day customs of the Goths and Southern Swedes, says, "The captain of

one band hath the name and appearance of Winter, is clothed in skins of

beasts, and he and his band armed with fire-forks. They fling about

ashes, by way of prolonging the reign of Winter; while another band,

whose captain is called Florro, represents Spring, with green boughs

such as the season affords. These parties skirmish in sport, and the

mimic contest concludes with a general feast."

A few years ago in the Isle of Man the hillsides blazed with bonfires

and resounded to horns on the 11th of May (May-eve, Old Style). "May

flowers" were put at the doors of houses and cattle-sheds, and these

were not hawthorn blossoms, but the flowers of the kingcup, or marsh

marigold. Crosses made of sprays of mountain ash were worn the same

night, and they, the bonfires and May flowers, were reckoned charms

against "wizards, witches, enchanters, and mountain hags."

At Helston, in Cornwall, May-day seems to have been known by the name of

Furry Day. Perhaps a corruption of "Flora's Day." People wore hawthorn

in their hats, and danced hand-in-hand through the town to the sound of

a fiddle. This particular performance was known as a "faddy."

It is probable that some of our May-day customs came from the Romans,

who kept the festival of Flora, the goddess of flowers, at this season.

Others, perhaps, have a different, if not an older source. One custom

was certainly common to both nations. When the feast of Flora was

celebrated, the young Romans went into the woods and brought back green

boughs with which they decked the houses.

To "go a-Maying" is in fact the principal ceremony of the day wherever

kept, and for whatever reason. In the north of England children and

young folk "were wont to rise a little after midnight on the morning of

May-day, and walk to some neighbouring wood accompanied with music and

the blowing of horns, where they broke down branches from the trees, and

adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. This done, they

returned homewards with their booty about the time of sunrise, and made

their doors and windows triumph in the flowery spoil." Stubbs, in the

_Anatomie of Abuses_ (A.D. 1585), speaks of this custom as

common to "every parish, town, and village." The churches, as well as

the houses, seem in some places to have been dressed with flowers and

greenery.

In an old MS. of the sixteenth century it is said that on the feast of

SS. Philip and James, the Eton boys were allowed to go out at four

o'clock in the morning to gather May to dress their rooms, and sweet

herbs to perfume them, "if they can do it without wetting their feet!"

Thirty or forty years ago May-day decorations, in some country places,

consisted of strewing the cottage doorsteps with daisies, or other

flowers.

In Hertfordshire a curious custom obtained of decking the neighbours'

doors with May if they were popular, and with nettles if they were the

reverse.

In Lancashire rustic wags put boughs of various trees at the doors of

the girls of the neighbourhood. Each tree had a meaning (well known in

the district), sometimes complimentary, and sometimes the reverse.

In France it was customary for lovers to deck over-night the houses of

the ladies they wished to please, and school-boys paid a like compliment

to their masters. They do not seem, however, to have been satisfied with

nosegays or even with green branches; they transplanted young trees from

the woods to the side of the door they wished to honour, and then decked

them with ribbons, &c. There is a curious record that "Henry II.,

wishing to recompense the clerks of Bazoche for their good services in

quelling an insurrection in Guienne, offered them money; but they would

only accept the permission granted them by the king, of cutting in the

royal woods such trees as they might choose for the planting of the

May--a privilege which existed at the commencement of the French

Revolution." In Cornwall, too, it seems to have been the custom to plant

"stumps of trees" before the houses, as well as to decorate them with

boughs and blossoms. And Mr. Aubrey (1686) says, "At Woodstock in Oxon

they every May-eve goe into the parke, and fetch away a number of

haw-thorne-trees, which they set before their dores; 'tis a pity that

they make such a destruction of so fine a tree."

One certainly agrees with Mr. Aubrey. Thorns are slow to grow, hard to

transplant, and very lovely when they are old. It is not to be regretted

that such ruthless destruction of them has gone out of fashion.

In Ireland "tall slender trees" seem to have been set up before the

doors, as well as "a green bush, strewed over with yellow flowers, which

the meadows yield plentifully." A writer, speaking of this in 1682,

adds, "A stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all signs of

ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses," referring to the old

custom of a bunch of green as the sign of an inn, which is illustrated

by the proverb, "Good wine needs no bush." I have an old etching of a

river-side inn, in which the sign is a garland hanging on a pole.

I fancy the yellow flowers must have been cowslips, which the green

fields of Erin do indeed "yield plentifully."

Besides these private May-trees, every village had its common Maypole,

gaily adorned with wreaths and flags and ribbons, and sometimes painted

in spiral lines of colour. The Welsh Maypoles seem to have been made

from birch-trees, elms were used in Cornwall, and young oaks in other

parts of England. Round these Maypoles the young villagers danced, and

green booths were often set up on the grass near them.

In many villages the Maypole was as much a fixture as the parish stocks,

but when a new one was required, it was brought home on May-eve in grand

procession with songs and instrumental music. I am afraid there is a

good deal of evidence to show that the Maypoles were not always honestly

come by! However, the Puritan writers (from whose bitter and detailed

complaints we learn most of what we know about the early English May-day

customs) are certainly prejudiced, and perhaps not quite trustworthy

witnesses. One good man groans lamentably: "What adoe make our young men

at the time of May? Do they not use night watchings to rob and steale

young trees out of other men's grounde, and bring them into their

parishe, with minstrels playing before?"

But as the theft must have been committed with all the publicity that a

fixed day, a large crowd, and a full band could ensure, and as we seem

to have no record of interference at the time, or prosecutions

afterwards, I hope we may infer that the owners of the woods did not

grudge one tree for the village Maypole. A quainter vengeance seems to

have sometimes followed the trespass. Honesty was at a discount. What

had been once stolen was liable to be re-stolen. There seems to have

been great rivalry among the villages as to which had the best Maypole.

The happy parish which could boast the finest was not left at ease in

its supremacy, for the lads of the other villages were always on the

watch to steal it. A record of this custom amongst the Welsh reminds one

that Wales was at once the land of bards and the home of Taffy the

Thief. "If successful," says Owen, speaking of these Maypole robbers,

they "had their feats recorded in songs."

In old times oxen were commonly used for farmwork, and it seems that

they had their share in the May fun. Another Puritan writer says, "They

have twentie or fortie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweete nosegaie

of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen draw home

this Maie poole."

How well one can imagine their slow swinging pace, unmoved by the

shouts and music which would stir a horse's more delicate nerves! Their

broad moist noses; their large, liquid eyes, and, doubtless, a certain

sense of pride in their "sweet nosegaies," like the pride of the Beast

of a Regiment in his badge.

Horses, too, came in for their share of May decorations. It was an old

custom to give the waggoner a ribbon for his team at every inn he passed

on May-day.

In the last century there was a fixed Maypole near Horncastle, in

Lincolnshire, to which the boys made a pilgrimage in procession every

May-day with May-gads in their hands. May-gads are white willow wands,

peeled, and dressed with cowslips.

There was a fixed Maypole in the Strand for many years--or rather a

succession of Maypoles. One, when only four years old, was given to Sir

Isaac Newton to make a stand for his telescope, and another seems to

have had a narrow escape from being handed over to a less celebrated

astronomer, some years later.

The wandering Maypole, with its Queen of the May and her chimney-sweeps,

is a modern compound of the village Maypole and May Queen with the May

games in which (as in the Christmas festivities) morris-dancers played a

part. The May-day morris-dancers, like the Christmas mummers, performed

sword-dances and sang appropriate doggerels in costume. The characters

represented at one time or another were Maid Marian or the May Queen,

Robin Hood or Lord of the May, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, Little John

Stokesley, Tom the Piper, Mad Moll and her Husband, Mutch, the Fool and

the Hobby Horse. Archery was amongst the May-day sports, especially in

the company of Robin Hood. The Summer King and Queen were perhaps the

oldest characters. They seem to be identical with the Lord and Lady, and

sometimes to have been merged in Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

"Maid Marian fair as ivory bone,

Scarlet, and Mutch, and Little John."

The King and Queen of May are spoken of in the thirteenth century, but

morris-dancing at May-time does not seem to date earlier than Henry

VII., and is not so old a custom as the immemorial one of going a-Maying

"To bring the summer home

The summer and the May-O!"

This was not confined to young people or to country-folk. Chaucer says

that on May-day early "fourth goth al the court, both most and lest, to

fetche the flowrès fresh, and braunch, and blome," and Henry VIII. kept

May-day very orthodoxly in the early years of his reign.

Milkmaids have been connected with May-day customs from an early period.

Perhaps because syllabub and cream were the recognized dainties of the

festival. In Northumberland a ring used to be dropped into the syllabub

and fished for with a ladle. Whoever got it was to be the first married

of the party. An odd old custom in Suffolk suggests that the hawthorn

was not always ready even for the Old Style May-day. Any farm-servant

who could find a branch in full blossom might claim a dish of cream for

breakfast. The milkmaids who supplied London and other places used to

dress themselves gaily on May-day and go round from house to house

performing a dance, and receiving gratuities from their customers. On

their heads--instead of a milk-pail--they carried a curious trophy,

called the "Milkmaids' Garland," made of silver or pewter jugs, cups,

and other pieces of plate, which they borrowed for the occasion, and

which shone out of a mass of greenery and flowers. Possibly these were

at first the pewter measures with which they served out the milk. The

music to which the milkmaids' dance was performed, was the jangling of

bells of different tones depending from a round plate of brass mounted

upon a Maydecked pole; but a bag-pipe or fiddle was sometimes

substituted.

Cream, syllabub, and dainties compounded with milk, belong in England to

the May festival. In Germany there is a "May drink" (said to be very

nice) made by putting woodruff into white Rhine wine, in the proportion

of a handful to a quart. Black currant, balm, or peppermint leaves are

sometimes added, and water and sugar.

The milkmaids' place has been completely usurped by the sweeps, who

clatter a shovel and broom instead of the old plate and bells, and who

seem to have added the popular Jack-in-the-green to the entertainment.

Jack-in-the-green's costume is very simple. A wicker-work frame of an

extinguisher shape, thickly covered with green, is supported by the man

who carries it, and who peeps through a hole left for the purpose.

May-day has become the Sweeps' Carnival. Mrs. Montague (whose son is

said to have been stolen for a sweep in his childhood, and afterwards

found) used to give the sweeps of London a good dinner every May-day, on

the lawn before her house in Portman Square.

Another May-day custom is that of the choristers assembling at five

o'clock in the morning on the top of the beautiful tower of Magdalen

College, Oxford, and ushering in the day with singing. At the same time

boys of the city armed with tin trumpets, called "May-horns," assemble

beneath the tower, and contribute more sound than harmony to the

celebration. Let us hope that it is not strictly a part of the old

ceremony, but rather a minor manifestation of "Town and Gown" feeling,

that the town boys jeer the choristers, and in return are pelted with

rotten eggs. The origin of this special Oxford custom is said to be a

requiem which was sung on the tower for the soul of Henry VII., founder

of the College. In the villages girls used to carry round May-garlands.

The party consisted of four children. Two girls in white dresses and gay

ribbons carried the garland, and were followed by a boy and girl called

"Lord and Lady," linked together by a white handkerchief, of which each

held an end. The Lady carried the purse, and when she received a

donation the Lord doffed his cap and kissed her. They sang a doggerel

rhyme, and the form in which money was asked was, "Please to handsel the

Lord and Lady's purse."

One cannot help thinking that some of our flowers, such as Milkmaids,

Lords and Ladies, and Jack-in-the-green Primrose, bear traces of having

got their common names at the great flower festival of the year.

In Cornwall boys carried the May-garland, which was adorned with painted

birds' eggs. Old custom gave these young rogues the privilege of

drenching with water from a bucket any one whom they caught abroad on

May-morning without a sprig of May.

Mr. Aubrey says (1686): "At Oxford, the boyes do blow cows' horns all

night; and on May-day the young maids of every parish carry about their

parish garlands of flowers, which afterwards they hang up in their

churches."

A generation or more ago the little boys of Oxford used to blow horns

early on May-day--as they said--"to call up the old maids." There was

once a custom in Lynn for the workhouse children to be allowed to go out

with horns and garlands every May-day, after which a certain worthy

gentleman gave them a good dinner.

In Cambridgeshire, within the present century, the children had a doll

dressed as the "May Lady," before which they set a table with wine and

food on it; they also begged money and garlands for "the poor May Lady."

There are some quaint superstitions connected with May-day and

May-blossom. To bathe the face in the dew of a May morning was reckoned

an infallible recipe for a good complexion. A bath of May dew was also

supposed to strengthen weakly children. Girls divined for dreams of

their future husbands with a sprig of hawthorn gathered before dusk on

May-eve, and carried home in the mouth without speaking. Hawthorn rods

were used at all seasons of the year to divine for water and minerals.

Bunches of May fastened against houses were supposed to keep away

witches and venomous reptiles, and to bring prosperity in various

shapes.

The Irish of the neighbourhood of Killarney have a pretty superstition

that on May-day the O'Donoghue, a popular prince of by-gone days,

returns from the land of Immortal Youth beneath the water to bless the

country over which he once ruled.

Some curious customs among the Scotch Highlanders (who call May 1st

_Beltan_ Day) have nothing in common with our Green Festival except as

celebrating the Spring. They seem to be the remains of very ancient

heathen sacrifices to Baal. They were performed by the herdsmen of the

district, and included an open-air feast of cakes and custard, to which

every one contributed, and which was cooked upon a fire on a turf left

in the centre of a square trench which had been dug for the purpose.

Some custard was poured out by way of libation. Every one then took a

cake of oatmeal, on which nine knobs had been pinched up before baking,

and turning his face to the fire threw the knobs over his shoulder, some

as offerings to the supposed guardians of the flock, and the rest in

propitiation of beasts and birds of prey, with the form "This to thee,

O Fox! spare my lambs! This to thee, O hooded Crow!" &c. In some places

the boys of the hamlet met on the moors for a similar feast, but the

turf table was round, and the oatcake divided into bits, one of which

was blackened with charcoal. These being drawn from a bonnet, the holder

of the black bit was held _devoted_ to Baal, and had to leap three times

over the bonfire.

I do not know of any children's games that were peculiar to May-day. In

France they had a May-day game called _Sans-vert_. Those who played had

to wear leaves of the hornbeam-tree, and these were to be kept fresh,

under penalty of a fine. The chief object of the players was to surprise

each other without the proper leaves, or with faded specimens.

A stupid old English custom of making fools of your friends on the 1st

of May as well as on the 1st of April hardly deserves the title of a

game. The victims were called "May goslings."

One certainly would not expect to meet with anything like "Aunt Sally"

among May-day games, especially with the "May Lady" for butt! But not

the least curious part of a very curious account of May-day in

Huntingdonshire, which was sent to _Notes and Queries_ some years ago,

is the pelting of the May Lady as a final ceremony of the festival. The

May-garlands carried round in Huntingdonshire villages appear to have

been more like the "milkmaids' garland" than genuine wreaths. They were

four to five feet high, extinguisher-shaped, with every kind of spring

flower in the apex, and with ribbons and gay kerchiefs hanging down from

the base, by the round rim of which the garland was carried; the

flower-peak towering above, and the gay streamers depending below.

Against this erection (not unlike the "mistletoe boughs" of the North of

England) was fastened a gaily-dressed doll. The bearers were two little

girls, who acted as maids of honour to the May Queen. Mr. Cuthbert Bede

describes her Majesty as he saw her twenty years ago. She wore a white

frock, and a bonnet with a white veil. A wreath of real flowers lay on

the bonnet. She carried a pocket-handkerchief bag and a parasol (the

latter being regarded as a special mark of dignity). An "Odd Fellows'"

ribbon and badge completed her costume. The maids of honour bore the

garland after her, whose peak was crowned with "tulips, anemones,

cowslips, kingcups, meadow-orchis, wall-flower, primrose,

crown-imperial, lilac, laburnum," and "other bright flowers." Votive

offerings were dropped into the pocket-handkerchief bag, and with these

a feast was provided for the children. If the gifts had been liberal,

"goodies" were proportionately plentiful. Finally, the May-garland was

suspended from a rope hung across the village street, and the children

pelted the May-doll with balls provided for the occasion. Their chief

aim was to hit her nose.

Another correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ speaks of ropes with dolls

suspended from them as being stretched across every village street in

Huntingdonshire on May-day, and adds, that not only ribbons and flowers

were attached to these swinging May Ladies, but articles of every

description, including "candlesticks, snuffers, spoons, and forks."

There are no May carols rivalling those of Christmas, and the verses

which children sing with their garlands are very bald as a rule.

A Maypole song of the Gloucestershire children would do very well to

dance to--

"Round the Maypole, trit-trit-trot!

See what a Maypole we have got;

Fine and gay,

Trip away,

Happy is our New May-day."

I have read of a pretty old Italian custom for the friends of prisoners

to assemble outside the prison walls on May-day and join with them in

songs. They are also said to have permission to have a May-day feast

with them.

Under all its various shapes, and however adapted to the service of

particular heathen deities, or to very rude social festivity, the root

of the May-day festival lies in the expression of feelings both natural

and right. Thankfulness for the return of Spring, anxiety for the coming

harvests of the fruits of the earth, and that sense of exhilaration and

hopefulness which the most exquisite of seasons naturally brings--brings

more strongly perhaps in the youth of a nation, in those earlier stages

of civilization when men are very dependent upon the weather, and upon

the produce of their own particular neighbourhood--brings most strongly

of all to one's own youth, to the light heart, the industrious fancy,

the uncorrupted taste of childhood.

May-day seems to me so essentially a children's festival, that I think

it is a great pity that English children should allow it to fall into

disuse. One certainly does not love flowers less as one grows up, but

they are more like persons, and their ways are more mysterious to one in

childhood. The cares of grown-up life, too, are not of the kind from

which we can easily get a whole holiday. We should do well to try

oftener than we do. Wreaths do not become us, and we have allowed our

joints to grow too stiff for Maypole dancing. But we who used to sigh

for whole holidays can give them! We can prepare the cakes and cream,

and provide ribbons for the Maypole, and show how garlands were made in

our young days. We are very grateful for wild-flowers for the

drawing-room. To say the truth, they last longer with us than with the

children, and perhaps we combine the delicate hues of spring, and

lighten our nosegays by grass and sword-flags and rushes with more

cunning fingers than those of the little ones who gathered them.

For these is reserved the real bloom of May-day! And the orthodox

customs are so various, that families of any size or age may pick and

choose. One brother and sister can be Lord and Lady of the May. One

sister among many brothers must be May Queen without opposition. Those

of the party most apt to catch cold in the treacherous sunshine and damp

winds of spring should certainly represent the Winter Queen and her

attendants, in the warmest possible clothing and the thickest of boots.

The morning air will then probably only do them a great deal of good. It

is not desirable to dig up the hawthorn-trees, or to try to do so, even

with wooden spades. The votive offering of flowers for her drawing-room

should undoubtedly await Mamma when she comes down to breakfast, and I

heartily wish her as abundant a variety as Mr. Cuthbert Bede saw on the

Huntingdonshire garland. That Nurse should have a bunch of May is only

her due; and of course the nursery must be decorated. Long strips of

coloured calico form good ribbons for the Maypole. Bows and arrows are

easily made. It is also easy to cut one's fingers in notching the

arrows. When you are tired of dancing, you can be Robin Hood's merry

men, and shoot. When all the arrows are lost, and you have begun to

quarrel about the target, it will be well to hang up an old doll and

throw balls at her nose. Dressing-up is, at any time, a delightful

amusement, and there is a large choice among May-day characters. No

wardrobe can fail to provide the perfectly optional costumes of Mad Moll

and her husband. There are generally some children who never will learn

their parts, and who go astray from every pre-arranged plan. By any two

such the last-named characters should be represented. In these, as in

all children's games, "the more the merrier"; and as there is no limit

to the number of sweeps, the largest of families may revel in burnt

cork, even if dust-pans in proportion fail. If a bonfire is more

appropriate to the weather than a Maypole, we have the comfort of

feeling that it is equally correct.

It is hardly needful to impress upon the boys what vigour the blowing of

horns and penny trumpets will impart to the ceremonies; but they may

require to be reminded that Eton men in old days were only allowed to go

a-Maying on condition that they did not wet their feet!

Above all, out-door May Fun is no fun unless the weather is fine; and I

hope this little paper will show that if the 1st of May is chilly, and

the flowers are backward, nothing can be more proper than to keep our

feast on the 12th of May--_May-day, Old Style_. If the Clerk of the

Weather Office is unkind on both these days, give up out-door fun at

once, and prepare for a fancy-ball in the nursery; all the guests to be

dressed as May-day characters. Garland-making and country expeditions

can then be deferred till Midsummer-day. It is not _very_ long to wait,

and penny trumpets do not spoil with keeping.

But do not be defrauded of at least one early ramble in the woods and

fields. It is well, in the impressionable season of life, to realize, if

only occasionally, how much of the sweetest air, the brightest and best

hours of the day, people spend in bed. Any one who goes out every day

before breakfast knows how very seldom he is kept in by bad weather. For

one day when it rains very early there are three or four when it rains

later. But we wait till the world has got dirty, and the air full of the

smoke of thousands of breakfasts, and clouds are beginning to gather,

and then we say England has a horrible climate. I do not believe in many

quack medical prescriptions, but I have the firmest faith in May dew as

a wash for the complexion. Any morning dew is nearly as efficacious if

it is gathered in warm clothes, thick boots, and at a sufficient

distance from home.

There are some households in which there are no children, and there are

some in which the good things of this life are very abundant. To these

it may not be very impertinent to suggest a remembrance of the old

alderman of Lynn's kindly benefaction. To beg leave for the children of

the workhouse to gather May-day nosegays for you, and to give them a May

feast afterwards, would be to give pleasure of a kind in which such

unhomely lives are most deficient. A country ramble "with an object,"

and the grace-in-memory of a traditionary holiday and feast, shared in

common with many homes and with other children.

To go a-Maying "to fetche the flowrès fresh" is indeed the best part of

the whole affair.

But, when the sunny bank under the hedge is pale with primroses, when

dog-violets spread a mauve carpet over clearings in the little wood, if

cowslips be plentiful though oxslips are few, and rare orchids bless the

bogs of our locality, pushing strange insect heads, through beds of

_Drosera_ bathed in perpetual dew--then, dear children, restrain the

natural impulse to grub everything up and take the whole flora of the

neighbourhood home in your pinafores. In the first place, you can't. In

the second place, it would be very hard on other people if you could.

Cull skilfully, tenderly, unselfishly, and remember what my mother used

to say to me and my brothers and sisters when we were "collecting"

anything, from fresh-water algæ to violet roots for our very own

gardens, "_Leave some for the Naiads and Dryads_."

IN MEMORIUM, MARGARET GATTY

In Memoriam.

MARGARET,

[Daughter of the Rev. Alexander John Scott, D.D.]

(LORD NELSON'S CHAPLAIN, AND THE FRIEND IN WHOSE ARMS HE DIED AT

TRAFALGAR),

was Born June 3rd, 1809.

In 1839 she was Married to the Rev. Alfred Gatty,

OF ECCLESFIELD, YORKSHIRE,

where she Died on October the 4th, 1873, aged 64.

My mother became editor of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ in May 1866. It was

named after one of her most popular books--_Aunt Judy's Tales_; and Aunt

Judy became a name for herself with her numerous child-correspondents.

The ordinary work of editorship was heavily increased by her kindness to

tyro authors, and to children in want of everything, from advice on a

life-vocation to old foreign postage stamps. No consideration of the

value of her own time could induce her to deal summarily with what one

may call her magazine children, and her correspondents were of all ages

and acquirements, from nursery aspirants barely beyond pothooks to such

writers as the author of _A Family Man for Six Days_, and other charming

Australian reminiscences, who still calls her his "literary godmother."

The peculiar relation in which she stood to so many of the readers of

_Aunt Judy_ has been urged upon me as a reason for telling them

something more about her than that she is dead and gone, especially as

by her peremptory wish no larger record of her life will ever be made

public. I need hardly disclaim any thought of expressing an opinion on

her natural powers, or the value of those labours from which she rests;

but whatever of good there was in them she devoted with real

affectionate interest to the service of a much larger circle of children

than of those who now stand desolate before her empty chair. And those

whom she has so long taught have, perhaps, some claim upon the lessons

of her good example.

Most well-loved pursuits, perhaps most good habits of our lives, owe

their origin to our being stirred at one time or another to the

imitation of some one better, or better gifted than ourselves. We can

remember dates at which we began to copy what our present friends may

fancy to be innate peculiarities of our own character. The conviction of

this truth, and of the strong influence which little details of lives

we admire have in forming our characters in childhood, persuade me to

the hard task of writing at all of my dear mother, and guide me in

choosing those of the things that we remember about her which may help

her magazine children on matters about which they have oftenest asked

her counsel.

Many of her own innumerable hobbies had such origins, I know. The

influence of German literature on some of her writings is very obvious,

and this most favourite study sprang chiefly from a very early fit of

hero-worship for Elizabeth Smith, whose precocious and unusual

acquirements she was stirred to emulate, and whose enthusiasm for

Klopstock she caught. The fly-leaf of her copy of the Smith _Remains_

bears (in her handwriting) the date 1820, with her name as Meta Scott; a

form of her own Christian name which she probably adopted in honour of

Margaretta--or Meta--Klopstock, and by which she was well known to

friends of her youth.

She often told us, too, of the origin of another of her accomplishments.

She was an exquisite caligraphist. Not only did she write the most

beautiful and legible of handwritings, but, long before illuminating was

"fashionable," she illuminated on vellum; not by filling up printed

texts or copying ornamental letters from handbooks of the art, but in

valiant emulation of ancient MSS.; designing her own initial letters,

with all varieties of characters, with "strawberry" borders, and gold

raised and burnished as in the old models. I do not know when she first

saw specimens of the old illuminations, for which she had always the

deepest admiration, but it was in a Dante fever that she had resolved to

write beautifully, because fine penmanship had been among the

accomplishments of the great Italian poet. How well she succeeded her

friends and her printers knew to their comfort! To Dante she dedicated

some of her best efforts in this art. In 1826, when she was seventeen,

she began to translate the _Inferno_ into English verse. She made fair

copies of each canto in exquisite writing, and dedicated them to various

friends on covers which she illuminated. The most highly-finished was

that dedicated to an old friend, Lord Tyrconnel, and the only plain one

was the one dedicated to another friend, Sir Thomas Lawrence. The

dedication was written in fine long characters, but there was no

painting on the cover of the canto dedicated to the painter.

I do not know at what date my mother began to etch on copper. It was a

very favourite pursuit through many years of her life, both before and

after her marriage. She never sketched much in colour, but her

pencil-drawings are amongst the most valuable legacies she has left us.

Trees were her favourite subjects. One of her most beautiful drawings in

my possession is of a tree, marked to fall, beneath which she wrote:

"Das ist das Loos des Schönen auf der Erde."[2]

Of another talent nothing now remains to us but her old music-books and

memories of long evenings when she played Weber and Mozart.

But to a large circle of friends, most of whom have gone before her, she

was best known as a naturalist in the special department of phycology.

She has left a fine collection of British and foreign sea-weeds and

zoophytes. Never permitted the privilege of foreign travel--for which

she so often longed--her sea-spoils have been gathered from all shores

by those who loved her; and there are sea-weeds yet in press sent by

_Aunt Judy_ friends from Tasmania, which gave pleasure to the last days

of her life. She did so keenly enjoy everything at which she worked that

it is difficult to say in which of her hobbies she found most happiness;

but I am disposed to give her natural history pursuits the palm.

Natural history brought her some of her dearest friends. Dr. Johnston,

of Berwick-on-Tweed, to whom she dedicated the first volume of the

_Parables from Nature_, was one of these; and with Dr. Harvey (author of

the _Phycologia Britannica_, &c.) she corresponded for ten years before

they met. Like herself, he combined a playful and poetical fancy with

the scientific faculty, and they had sympathy together in the

distinctive character of their religious belief, and in the worship of

God in His works. But these, and many others, have "gone

before."

One of her "collections" was an unusual one. Through nearly forty years

she collected the mottoes on old sun-dials, and made sketches of the

dials themselves. In this also she had many helpers, and the collection,

which had swelled to about four hundred, was published last year.

Amateur bookbinding and mowing were among the more eccentric of her

hobbies. With the latter she infected Mr. Tennyson, and sent him a light

Scotch scythe like her own.

The secret of her success and of her happiness in her labours was her

thoroughness. It was a family joke that in the garden she was never

satisfied to dabble in her flower-beds like other people, but would

always clear out what she called "the Irish corners," and attack bits of

waste or neglected ground from which everybody else shrank. And amongst

our neighbours in the village, those with whom, day after day, time

after time, she would plead "the Lord's controversy," were those with

whom every one else had failed. Some old village would-be sceptic, half

shame-faced, half conceited, who had not prayed for half a lifetime, or

been inside a church except at funerals; careworn mothers fossilized in

the long neglect, of religious duties; sinners whom every one else

thought hopeless, and who most-of all counted themselves so--if

God indeed permits us hereafter to bless those who led us to

Him here, how many of these will rise up and call her blessed!

Her strong powers of sympathy were not confined to human beings alone. A

more devoted lover of "beasts" can hardly exist. The household pets were

about her to the end; and she only laughed when the dogs stole the bread

and butter from her helpless hands.

Her long illness, perhaps, did less to teach us to do without her, than

long illnesses commonly do; because her sick-room was so little like a

sick-room, and her interests never narrowed to the fretful circle of

mere invalid fears and fancies. The strong sense of humour, which never

left her, helped her through many a petty annoyance; and to the last she

kept one of her most striking qualities, so well described by Trench--

---- "a child's pure delight in little things."

Whatever interest this little record of some of my mother's tastes and

acquirements may have for her young readers, its value must be in her

example.

Whatever genius she may have had, her industry was far more remarkable.

The pen of a ready writer is not grasped by all fingers, and gifts are

gifts, not earnings. But to cultivate the faculties God has

given us to His glory, to lose petty cares, ignoble pleasures, and small

grievances, in the joy of studying His great works, to be good to His

creatures, to be truthful beyond fear or flattery, to be pure of heart

and tongue far beyond the common, to keep up an honest, zealous war with

wickedness, and never to lose heart or hope for wicked men--these things

are within the power as well as the ambition of us all.

I must point out to some of the young aspirants after her literary fame,

that though the date in Elizabeth Smith's _Remains_ shows my mother to

have been only eleven years old when she got it, and though she worked

and studied indefatigably all her girlhood, her first original work was

not published till she was forty-two years old.

Of the lessons of her long years of suffering I cannot speak. A form of

paralysis which left her brain as vigorous as ever, stole the cunning

from her hand, and the use of her limbs and voice, through ten years of

pain and privation, in which she made a willing sacrifice of her powers

to the will of God.

If some of her magazine children who enjoy "advantages" she never had,

who visit places and see sights for which she longed in vain, and who

are spared the cross she bore so patiently, are helped by this short

record of their old friend, it may somewhat repay the pain it has cost

in writing.

Trench's fine sonnet was a great favourite of my mother's--

"To leave unseen so many a glorious sight,

To leave so many lands unvisited,

To leave so many books unread,

Unrealized so many visions bright;--

Oh! wretched yet inevitable spite

Of our short span, and we must yield our breath,

And wrap us in the unfeeling coil of death,

So much remaining of unproved delight,

But hush, my soul, and vain regrets be still'd;

Find rest in Him Who is the complement

Of whatsoe'er transcends our mortal doom,

Of broken hope and frustrated intent;

In the clear vision and aspect of Whom

All wishes and all longings are fulfill'd."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: "Such is the lost of the beautiful upon

earth."--_Wallenstein's Tod_.]

TALES OF THE KHOJA.[3]

(_Adapted from the Turkish._)

INTRODUCTION.

"O my children!" said the story-teller, "do you indeed desire amusement

by the words of my lips? Then shut your mouths, that the noise you make

may be abated, and I may hear myself speak; and open your ears, that you

may be entertained by the tales that I shall tell you. Shut your mouths

and open your ears, I say, and you will, without doubt, receive pleasure

from what I shall have to relate of Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen-Effendi.

"This Khoja was not altogether a wise man, nor precisely a fool, nor

entirely a knave.

"It is true, O children, that his wisdom was flecked with folly, but

what saith the proverb? 'No one so wise but he has some folly to spare.'

Moreover, in his foolishness there was often a hidden meaning, as a

letter is hid in a basket of dates--not for every eye.

"As to his knaveries, they were few, and more humorous than injurious.

Though be it far from me, O children, as a man of years and probity, to

defend the conduct of the Khoja to the Jew money-lender.

"What about the Jew money-lender, do you ask?

"This is the tale."

_Tale_ 1.--The Khoja and the Nine Hundred and Ninety-nine Pieces of

Gold.

This Khoja was very poor.

One day, wishing for a piece of gold, he corrected himself, saying: "It

costs no more to wish for a thousand pieces than for one. I wish for a

thousand gold pieces."

And he repeated aloud--"I wish for a thousand pieces of gold. _I would

not accept one less._"

Now it so happened that he was overheard by a certain covetous Jew

money-lender. This man was of a malicious disposition; and the poverty

of the Khoja was a satisfaction to him. When he heard what the Khoja

said he chuckled to himself, saying, "Truly this Khoja is a funny

fellow, and it would be a droll thing to see him refuse nine hundred and

ninety-nine pieces of gold. For without doubt he would keep his word."

And as he spoke, the Jew put nine hundred and ninety-nine gold pieces

into a purse, and dropped the purse down the Khoja's chimney, with the

intention of giving him annoyance.

The Khoja picked up the purse and opened it.

"Allah be praised!" he cried, "for the fulfilment of my desires. Here

are the thousand pieces."

Meanwhile the Jew was listening at the chimney-top, and he heard the

Khoja begin to count the coins. When he got to the nine hundred and

ninety-ninth, and had satisfied himself that there was not another, he

paused, and the Jew merchant held his breath.

At last the Khoja spoke.

"O my soul!" said he, "is it decent to spit in the face of good fortune

for the sake of one gold piece in a thousand? Without doubt it is an

oversight, and he who sent these will send the missing one also." Saying

which, the Khoja put the money into his sash and sat down to smoke.

The Jew now became fidgety, and he hastened down to the Khoja's door, at

which he knocked, and entering, said, "Good-day, Khoja Effendi. May I

ask you to be good enough to restore to me my nine hundred and

ninety-nine gold pieces?"

"Are you mad, O Jew money-lender?" replied the Khoja. "Is it likely

that you would throw gold down my chimney? These pieces fell from heaven

in fulfilment of my lawful desires."

"O my soul, Khoja!" cried the Jew, "I did it, indeed! It was a jest, O

Khoja! You said, 'I will not take one less than a thousand,' wherefore I

put nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces in the purse, and it was for a

joke."

"I do not see the joke," said the Khoja, "but I have accepted the gold

pieces." And he went on smoking.

The Jew money-lender now became desperate.

"Let us go to the magistrate," he cried. "The Cadi Effendi shall decide

between us."

"It is well said," replied the Khoja. "But it would not beseem a Khoja

like myself to go through the public streets to the court on foot; and I

am poor, and have no mule."

"O my soul!" said the Jew, "let not that trouble you. I will send and

fetch one of my mules."

But when the mule was at the door, the Khoja said: "Is it fitting, O

money-lender, that a Khoja like myself should appear in these rags

before a Cadi Effendi? But I am poor, and have no suitable dress."

"Let not that be a hindrance, O Khoja!" said the Jew. "For I have a

pelisse made of the most beautiful fur, which I will send for without

delay."

In due time this arrived, and, richly clothed, the Khoja rode through

the streets with a serene countenance, the Jew money-lender running

after him in the greatest anxiety.

When they came before the Cadi, the Jew prostrated himself, and cried in

piteous tones, "Help, O most noble Dispenser of Justice! This Khoja has

stolen from me nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces of gold--and now he

denies it."

Then the Cadi turned to the Khoja, who said: "O Cadi Effendi, I did

indeed earnestly desire a thousand pieces of gold, and this purse came

to me in fulfilment of my wishes. But when I counted the pieces I found

one short. Then I said, 'The bountiful giver of these will certainly

send the other also.' So I accepted what was given to me. But in this

Jew money-lender is the spirit of covetousness. For half a farthing, O

Cadi, he would, without doubt, lay claim to the beast I ride, or to the

coat on my back."

"O my soul!" screamed the Jew. "It is indeed true that they are mine.

The mule and the fur pelisse belong to me, O Cadi!"

"O you covetous rascal!" said the Cadi, "you will lay claim to my turban

next, or to the Sultan's horses." And he commanded the Jew to be driven

from his presence.

But the Khoja rode home again, and--he accepted the mule and the fur

pelisse, as well as the nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces of gold.

_Tale_ 2.--The Khoja at the Marriage Feast.

On the following day Khoja Effendi went to a marriage feast, dressed in

his old clothes.

His appearance was indeed very shabby, and the attendants were almost

disposed to refuse him admission, but he slipped in whilst honours and

compliments were being paid on the arrival of some grander guests. Even

those who knew him well were so much ashamed of his dress as to be glad

to look another way to avoid saluting him.

All this was quickly observed by the Khoja, and after a few moments

(during which no one asked him to be seated) he slipped out and ran

home, where he put on the splendid fur pelisse which he had accepted

from the Jew money-lender, and so returned to the door of the house of

feasting.

Seeing a guest so richly apparelled draw near, the servants ran out to

meet him with all signs of respect, and the master of the feast came out

also to meet him with other guests, saluting him and saying, "Welcome,

O most learned Khoja!" And all who knew him saluted him in like manner,

and secretly blessed themselves that his acquaintance did them credit.

But the Khoja looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, and he

made no reply.

Then they led him to the upper end of the table, crying, "Please to be

seated, Khoja Effendi!"

Whereupon the Khoja seated himself, but he did not speak, and the guests

stood round him, waiting to hear what should fall from his lips.

And when the Khoja had been served with food, he took hold of the sleeve

of his pelisse and pulled it towards the dish, saying, in a tone of

respect, "O most worthy and honourable pelisse! be good enough to

partake of this dish. In the name of the Prophet I beseech you do not

refuse to taste what has been hospitably provided."

"What is this, Khoja?" cried the people, "and what do you mean by

offering food to a fur pelisse that can neither hear nor eat?"

"O most courteous entertainers!" replied the Khoja, "since the pelisse

has commanded such respect at your hands, is it not proper that it

should also partake of the food?"

_Tale_ 3.--The Khoja's Slippers.

One day, when the idle boys of the neighbourhood were gathered together

and ready for mischief, they perceived the Khoja approaching.

"Here comes this mad Khoja!" they said. "Let us now persuade him to

climb the largest of these mulberry-trees, and whilst he is climbing we

will steal his slippers."

And when the Khoja drew near, they cried, "O Khoja, here is indeed a

tree which it is not possible to climb."

The Khoja looked at the mulberry-tree and said, "You are in error, my

children, any one of you could climb that tree."

But they said, "We cannot."

Then said the Khoja, "I, who am an old man, could climb that

mulberry-tree."

Then the boys cried, "O most illustrious Khoja! we beseech of you to

climb the tree before our eyes, that we may believe what you say, and

also be encouraged to try ourselves."

"I will climb it," said the Khoja. Thereupon he kicked off his slippers

as the children had anticipated; and tucking his skirts into his girdle,

he prepared to climb.

[Illustration: THE KHOJA'S SLIPPERS.]

But whilst they were waiting to steal his slippers, the Khoja put them

into his pocket.

"Effendi Khoja," said the children, "wherefore do you not leave your

slippers on the ground? What will you do with slippers up in the

mulberry-tree?"

"O my children!" said the Khoja dryly, "it is good to be provided

against everything. I may come upon a road further up."

_Tale_ 4.--The Khoja and the Three Wise Men.

In the days of Effendi Nasr-ed-Deen Khoja there appeared in the world

three Sages, who excelled in every science and in all wisdom.

Now it came to pass that in their journeys these wise men passed through

the country of the Sultan Ala-ed-Deen, who desired to see them, and to

make them partake of his hospitality.

And when the Sultan had seen and heard them, he said: "O Sages, there is

indeed nothing wanting to you but that you should embrace the faith and

become Turks, and remain in my kingdom. Wherefore I beseech of you to do

this without further delay."

Then the wise men replied to the Padisha: "We will, if it please you,

ask three questions of your learned men. One question shall be asked by

each of us, and if they are able to answer these questions, we will

embrace your faith, and remain with you as you desire. And if not, we

will depart in peace, and prolong our journeys as heretofore."

Then the Padisha replied: "So be it." And he assembled the learned men

and counsellors of his kingdom, and the Sages put questions to them,

which they could not answer.

Then the Sultan Ala-ed-Deen was full of wrath, and he said, "Is this my

kingdom, and am I the ruler of it; and is there not indeed one man of my

subjects wise enough to answer the questions of these unbelieving

Sages?"

And his servants replied: "There is indeed no one who could answer these

questions, except it be Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen Effendi."

Then the Sultan commanded, and they despatched a Tatar in all haste to

summon Nasr-ed-Deen Effendi to the presence of the Padisha.

When the messenger arrived, he told his errand to the Khoja, who at once

rose up, saddled his donkey, took a stick in his hand, and mounted,

saying to the Tatar, "Go before me!"

Thus they came to the palace, and the Khoja entered the presence of the

Sultan, and gave the salaam and received it in return. Then he was shown

where to sit, and being seated, and having made a prayer for the

Padisha, "O most noble Sultan," said he, "wherefore have you brought me

hither, and what is your will with me?"

Then the Sultan explained the circumstances of the case, and the Khoja

cried, "What are the questions? Let me hear them."

Then the first wise man came forward and said: "_My_ question, most

worshipful Effendi, is this: Where is the middle of the world?"

The Khoja, without an instant's hesitation, pointed with his stick to a

fore-hoof of his donkey.

"There," said he, "exactly where my donkey's foot is placed--there is

the centre of the earth."

"How do you know that?" asked the Sage.

"If you do not believe me," replied the Khoja, "measure for yourself. If

you find it wrong one way or the other, I will acknowledge my error."

The second Sage now came forward and said: "O Khoja Effendi, how many

stars are there on the face of this sky?"

"The same number," replied the Khoja, "as there are hairs on my donkey."

"How do you know that?" asked the wise man.

"If you do not believe me," replied the Khoja, "count for yourself. If

there is a hair too few or too many, I will acknowledge my error."

"O most learned Khoja!" said the wise man, "have you indeed counted the

hairs on your donkey?"

"O most venerable Sage!" replied the Khoja, "have you indeed numbered

the stars of the sky?"

But as the Khoja spoke the third wise man came forward and said: "Most

worshipful Effendi! Be pleased now to hear my question, and if you can

answer it, we will conform to the wishes of the Sultan. How many hairs

are there in my beard?"

"As many," replied the Khoja, "as there are hairs in my donkey's tail."

"How do you know that?" asked the wise man.

"If you do not believe me, count for yourself," said the Khoja.

But the wise man replied: "It is for you to count, and to prove to me

the truth of what you say."

"With all my heart," replied the Khoja. "And I will do it in a way that

cannot possibly fail. I shall first pull out a hair from your beard, and

then one from my donkey's tail, and then another from your beard, and so

on. Thus at the end it will be seen whether the number of the hairs of

each kind exactly correspond."

But the wise man did not wait for this method of proof to be enforced by

the Sultan. He hastily announced himself as a convert to the Padisha's

wishes. The other two Sages followed his example, and their wisdom was

for many years the light of the court of the Sultan Ala-ed-Deen.

Moreover, they became disciples of the Khoja.

_Tale_ 5.--The Khoja's Donkey.

One day there came a man to the house of the Khoja to ask him for the

loan of his donkey.

"The donkey is not at home," replied the Khoja, who was unwilling to

lend his beast.

At this moment the donkey brayed loudly from within.

"O Khoja Effendi!" cried the man, "what you say cannot be true, for I

can hear your donkey quite distinctly as I stand here."

"What a strange man you must be," said the Effendi. "Is it possible that

you believe a donkey rather than me, who am grey-haired and a Khoja?"

_Tale_ 6.--The Khoja's Gown.

One day the Khoja's wife, having washed her husband's gown, hung it out

in the garden to dry.

Now in the dusk of the evening the Khoja repaired to his garden, where

he saw, as he believed, a thief standing with outstretched arms.

"O you rascal!" he cried, "is it you who steal my fruit? But you shall

do so no more."

And having called to his wife for his bow and arrows, the Khoja took

aim and pierced his gown through the middle. Then without waiting to see

the result he hastened into his house, secured the door with much care,

and retired to rest.

When morning dawned, the Khoja went out into the garden, where

perceiving that what he had hit was his own gown, he seated himself and

returned thanks to the All-merciful Disposer of Events.

"Truly," said he, "I have had a narrow escape. If I had been inside it,

I should have been dead long before this!"

_Tale_ 7.--The Khoja and the Fast of Ramadan.

In a certain year, when the holy month of the fast of Ramadan was

approaching, Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen took counsel with himself and resolved

not to observe it.

"Truly," said he, "there is no necessity that I should fast like the

common people. I will rather provide myself with a vase into which I

will drop a stone every day. When there are thirty pebbles in the vase,

I shall know that Ramadan is over, and I shall then be able to keep the

feast of Bairam at the proper season."

Accordingly, on the first day of the month the Khoja dropped a stone

into the vase, and so he continued to do day by day.

Now the Khoja had a little daughter, and it came to pass that one day

the child, having observed the pebbles in the vase, went out and

gathered a handful and added them to the rest. But her father was not

aware of it.

[Illustration: THE KHOJA COUNTS.]

On the twenty-fifth day of Ramadan the Khoja met at the Bazaar with

certain of his neighbours, who said to him, "Be good enough, most

learned Khoja, to tell us what day of the month it is."

"Wait a bit, and I will see," replied the Khoja. Saying this, he ran to

his house, emptied the vase, and began to count the stones. To his

amazement he found that there were a hundred and twenty!

"If I say as much as this," thought the Khoja, "they will call me a

fool. Even half would be more than could be believed."

So he went back to the Bazaar and said, "It is the full forty-fifth of

the month, quite that."

"O Khoja!" the neighbours replied, "there are only thirty days in a

complete month, and do you tell us to-day is the forty-fifth?"

"O neighbours!" answered the Khoja, "believe me, I speak with

moderation. If you look into the vase, you will find that according to

its account to-day is the one hundred and twentieth."

_Tale_ 8.--The Khoja and the Thief.

One day a thief got into the Khoja's house, and the Khoja watched him.

The thief poked here, there, and everywhere, and after collecting all

that he could carry, he put the load on his back and went off.

The Khoja then came out, and hastily gathering up the few things which

were left of his property, he put them on his own back, and hurried

after the thief.

At last he arrived before the door of the thief's house, at which he

knocked.

"What do you want?" said the thief.

"Why, we are moving into this house, aren't we?" said the Khoja. "I've

brought the rest of the things."

_Tale_ 9.--The Bird of Prey and the Piece of Soap.

One day the Khoja went with his wife to wash clothes at the head of a

spring.

They had placed the soap beside them on the ground, and were just about

to begin, when a black bird of prey swooped suddenly down, and snatching

up the soap, flew away with it, believing it to be some kind of food.

"Run, Khoja, run!" cried the distracted wife. "Make haste, I beseech

you, and catch that thief of a bird. He has carried off my soap."

"O wife!" replied the Khoja, "let him alone. He wants it more than we

do, poor fellow! Our clothes are not half so black as what he has got

on."

_Tale_ 10.--The Khoja and the Wolves.

"Wife!" said the Khoja one day, "how do you know when a man is dead?"

"When his hands and feet have become cold, Khoja," replied the good

woman, "I know that it is all over then. The man is dead."

Some time afterwards the Khoja went to the mountain to cut wood. It was

in the winter, and after he had worked for an hour or two his hands and

feet became very cold.

"It is really a melancholy thing," said he; "but I fear that there can

be no doubt that I am dead. If this is the case, however, I have no

business to be on my feet, much less to be chopping firewood which I

have not lived to require." So he went and lay down under a tree.

By and by came the wolves, and they fell upon the Khoja's donkey, and

devoured it.

The Khoja watched them from the place where he was lying.

"Ah, you brutes!" said he, "it is lucky for you that you have found a

donkey whose master is dead, and cannot interfere."

_Tale_ 11.--A Penny a Head.

The Turks shave their heads and allow their beards to grow. Thus the

Khoja went every week to the barber to have his head shaved, and when it

was done, the barber held out the mirror to him, that, having looked at

himself, he might place a penny fee on the mirror as the custom is.

Now as he grew old the Khoja became very bald.

One day when he was about to be shaved, passing his hand over his head,

he perceived that the crown was completely bald. But he said nothing,

and having paid his penny, took his departure as usual.

[Illustration: THE KHOJA IS SHAVED.]

Next week Khoja Effendi went again to the barber's.

When his head had been shaved he looked in the mirror as before; but he

put nothing on it.

As he rose to depart, the barber stopped him, saying, "Most worshipful

Effendi, you have forgotten to pay."

"My head is now half bald," said the Khoja; "will not one penny do for

two shavings?"

_Tale_ 12.--The Khoja a Cadi.

The late Khoja Effendi when he filled the office of Cadi had some

puzzling cases to decide.

One day two men came before him, and one of them said, "This fellow has

bitten my ear, O Cadi!"

"No, no, most learned Cadi!" said the other; "that is not true. He bit

his own ear, and now tries to lay the blame upon me."

"One cannot bite his own ear," said the first man; "wherefore the lies

of this scoundrel are obvious."

"Begone, both of you," said the Khoja; "but come back to-morrow, when I

will give judgment."

When the men had gone, the Khoja withdrew to a quiet place, where he

would be undisturbed, that he might try if he could bite his own ear.

Taking the ear in his fingers, he made many efforts to seize it with his

teeth, crying, "Can I bite it?"

But in the vehemence of his efforts the Khoja lost his balance and fell

backwards, wounding his head.

The following day he took his seat with his head bound up in a linen

cloth, and the men coming before him related their dispute as before,

and cried, "Now, is it possible, O Cadi?"

"O, you fellows!" said the Khoja, "biting is easy enough, and you can

fall and break your own head into the bargain."

_Tale_ 13.--The Khoja's Quilt.

One night after Khoja Nasr-ed-Deen had retired to rest he was disturbed

by a man making a great noise before his door in the street outside.

"O wife!" said he, "get up, I pray you, and light a candle, that I may

discover what this noise in the street is about."

"Lie still, man," said his wife. "What have we to do with street

brawlers? Keep quiet and go to sleep."

But the Khoja would not listen to her advice, and taking the bed-quilt,

he threw it round his shoulders, and went out to see what was the

matter.

Then the rascal who was making the disturbance, seeing a fine quilt

floating from the Khoja's shoulders, came behind him and snatched it

away, and ran off with it.

After a while the Khoja felt thoroughly chilled, and he went back to

bed.

"Well, Effendi," said his wife: "what have you discovered?"

"We were more concerned in the noise than you thought," said the Khoja.

"What was it about, O Khoja?" asked his wife.

"It must have been about our quilt," he replied; "for when the man got

that he went off quietly enough."

_Tale_ 14.--The Khoja and the Beggar.

One day whilst Nasr-ed-Deen Effendi was in his house, a man knocked at

the door.

The Khoja looked out from an upper window.

"What dost thou want?" said he. But the man was a beggar by trade, and

fearing that the Khoja might refuse to give alms when he was so well

beyond reach of the mendicant's importunities, he would not state his

business, but continued to cry, "Come down, come down!" as if he had

something of importance to relate.

So the Khoja went down, and on his again saying "What dost thou

want?" the beggar began to beg, crying, "The Inciter of Compassion move

thee to enable me to purchase food for my supper! I am the guest of the

Prophet!" with other exclamations of a like nature.

"Come up-stairs," replied the Khoja, turning back into his house.

Well pleased, the beggar followed him, but when they reached the upper

room the Khoja turned round and dismissed him, saying, "Heaven supply

your necessities. I have nothing for you."

"O Effendi!" said the beggar, "why did you not tell me this whilst I was

below?"

"O Beggar!" replied the Khoja, "why did you call me down when I was

up-stairs?"

_Tale_ 15.--The Khoja Turned Nightingale.

One day the Khoja went into a garden which did not belong to him, and

seeing an apricot-tree laden with delicious fruit, he climbed up among

the branches and began to help himself.

Whilst he was eating the apricots the owner of the garden came in and

discovered him.

"What are you doing up there, Khoja?" said he.

"O my soul!" said the Khoja, "I am not the person you imagine me to be.

Do you not see that I am a nightingale? I am singing in the

apricot-tree."

"Let me hear you sing," said the gardener.

The Khoja began to trill like a bird; but the noise he made was so

uncouth that the man burst out laughing.

"What kind of a song is this?" said he. "I never heard a nightingale's

note like that before."

[Illustration: THE KHOJA SINGS.]

"It is not the voice of a native songster," said the Khoja demurely,

"but the foreign nightingale sings so."

_Tale_ 16.--The Khoja's Donkey and The Woollen Pelisse.

One day the Khoja mounted his donkey to ride to the garden, but on the

way there he had business which obliged him to dismount and leave the

donkey for a short time.

When he got down he took off his woollen pelisse, and throwing it over

the saddle, went about his affairs. But he had hardly turned his back

when a thief came by who stole the woollen pelisse, and made off with

it.

When the Khoja returned and found that the pelisse was gone, he became

greatly enraged, and beat the donkey with his stick. Then, dragging the

saddle from the poor beast's back, he put it on his own shoulders,

crying, "Find my pelisse, you careless rascal, and then you shall have

your saddle again!"

_Tale_ 17.--A Ladder To Sell.

There was a certain garden into which the Khoja was desirous to enter,

but the gate was fastened, and he could not.

One day, therefore, he took a ladder upon his shoulder, and repaired to

the place, where he put the ladder against the garden-wall, and having

climbed to the top, drew the ladder over, and by this means descended

into the garden.

As he was prying about in came the gardener.

"Who are you?" said he to the Khoja. "And what do you want?"

"I sell ladders," replied the Khoja, running hastily back to the wall,

and throwing the ladder once more upon his shoulders.

[Illustration: THE KHOJA TRESPASSES.]

"Come, come!" said the gardener, "that answer will not do. This is not a

place for selling ladders."

"You must be very ignorant," replied the Khoja gravely, "if you do not

know that ladders are salable anywhere."

_Tale_ 18.--The Cat and the Khoja's Supper.

The Khoja, like many another man, was fond of something nice for his

supper.

But no matter how often he bought a piece of liver to make a tasty dish,

his wife always gave it away to a certain friend of hers, and when the

Khoja came home in the evening he got nothing to eat but cakes.

"Wife," said he at last, "I bring home some liver every day that we may

have a good supper, and you put nothing but pastry before me. What

becomes of the meat?"

"The cat steals it, O Khoja!" replied his wife.

On this the Khoja rose from his seat, and taking the axe proceeded to

lock it up in a box.

"What are you doing with the axe, Khoja?" said his wife.

"I am hiding it from the cat," replied the Khoja. "The sort of cat who

steals two pennyworth of liver is not likely to spare an axe worth forty

pence."

_Tale_ 19.--The Cadi's Ferejeh.

One day a certain Cadi of Sur-Hissar, being very drunk, lay down in a

garden and fell asleep. The Khoja, having gone out for a walk, passed

by the spot and saw the Cadi lying dead drunk and senseless, with his

ferejeh--or overcoat--half off his back.

It was a very valuable ferejeh, of rich material, and the Khoja took it

and went home remarkably well dressed.

When the Cadi recovered his senses he found that his ferejeh was gone.

Thereupon he called his officers and commanded them, saying: "On

whomsoever ye shall see my ferejeh, bring the fellow before me."

Meanwhile the Khoja wore it openly, and at last the officers took him

and brought him before the Cadi.

"O Khoja!" said the Cadi, "how came you by what belongs to me? Where did

you find that ferejeh?"

"Most exemplary Cadi," replied the Khoja, "I went out yesterday for a

short time before sunset, and as I walked I perceived a

disreputable-looking fellow lying shamefully drunk, and exposed to the

derision of passers-by in the public gardens. His ferejeh was half off

his back, and I said within myself, 'This valuable ferejeh will

certainly be stolen, whilst he to whom it belongs is sleeping the sleep

of drunkenness. I will therefore take it and wear it, and when the owner

has his senses restored to him, he will be able to see and reclaim it.'

So I took the ferejeh, and if it be thine, O Cadi, take it!"

"It cannot be my ferejeh, of course," said the Cadi hastily; "though

there is a similarity which at first deceived me."

"Then I will keep it till the man claims it," said the Khoja.

And he did so.

_Tale_ 20.--The Two Pans.

One day the Khoja borrowed a big pan of his next-door neighbour.

[Illustration: THE KHOJA IS ARTFUL.]

When he had done with it he put a smaller pan inside it, and carried it

back.

"What is this?" said the neighbour.

"It is a young pan," replied the Khoja. "It is the child of your big

pan, and therefore belongs to you."

The neighbour laughed in his sleeve.

"If this Khoja is mad," said he, "a sensible man like myself need not

refuse to profit by his whims."

So he replied, "It is well, O Khoja! The pan is a very good pan. May its

posterity be increased!"

And he took the Khoja's pan as well as his own, and the Khoja departed.

After a few days the Khoja came again to borrow the big pan, which his

neighbour lent him willingly, saying to himself, "Doubtless

something else will come back in it." But after he had waited

two--three--four--and five days, and the Khoja did not return it, the

neighbour betook himself to the Khoja's house and asked for his pan.

The Khoja came to the door with a sad countenance.