apple-seeds good and warm so they can be just as brown as brown can be.
That will mean that little boys and little girls can eat all they want,
for so long as the seeds are brown they can never do any harm. And, you
apples, you must be very sure that you turn around and have the sun warm
you and make you bright and red.’
“As the old apple tree was talking, I noticed that the apples just grew
a little bit bigger, and redder and fatter, and looked as they were—oh,
so juicy and wonderful inside. I was certain, too, that the little seeds
were growing browner every minute.
“‘You see,’ he continued, ‘it’s such an honor for us. You know that on
the day we’re ripe the fairy queen brings all the little fairies to
admire us, and they sit on the boughs and wave about with us. And more
than that—you know the apple that is ripe first goes to the fairy queen
and then some more go to the little fairies.’
“The fairies are too kind to take away the apples that real people like
to eat—and so the old apple tree has arranged to have a great many more
that we can’t see—they’re called the apples of fairyland.
“And the tree still went on talking:
“‘I, too, am working hard. I am practising my best bow to make to the
fairy queen when she arrives the first day all the apples are ripe. So
she is to come very, very early in the morning while every one else is
sleeping. And when the children get up and find the apples are ripe so
quickly, won’t they be delighted!
[Illustration: “‘THE FAIRY QUEEN BRINGS ALL THE LITTLE FAIRIES TO ADMIRE
US.’”—_Page 142_]
“‘Now, get around so Mr. Sun will help you along. He’s the greatest help
in the world to us—such a dear old soul.’
“Of course that flattered Mr. Sun so he helped still more, and just as I
could feel him shining down with all his might—I woke up.
“I moved away from the apple tree then, for it was no longer shady; the
sun had come around and told me to get up! But as I walked away and saw
the apple tree waving around I knew it was practising for its bow and
making the little apples hurry up and ripen.”
JUNE 16: An Elephant’s Wanderings
“There was once an elephant who got tired of the circus and wandered off
one night when nobody was noticing,” commenced daddy.
“You see the circus was getting ready to go on to another village to give
a performance and it was late at night. They never thought of an elephant
getting away, but they hadn’t heard Jumbo telling the elephants of late
how exceedingly tired he was of circus life and circus food and circus
parades. He was not only tired of it all but he said he wanted to be a
gentleman.
“The other elephants had asked him what a gentleman was, and this is what
he told them:
“‘I heard two little boys talking of what they were going to be when
they grew up,’ said Jumbo, ‘and one of them said he was going to be an
engineer and build bridges. The other little boy had said he was going to
be a gentleman and do nothing. The first boy thought he was quite wrong
and very silly, but then and there I decided that it would be beautiful
to do nothing.’
“The other elephants had asked Jumbo how an elephant could be a
gentleman, any more than a gentleman could be an elephant, but Jumbo was
determined to lead a lazy life. And you see neither Jumbo nor the little
boy knew what being a gentleman really meant.
“So Jumbo escaped and the next morning Jumbo was in a barnyard, and as
you will never be able to guess the friends he had chosen I’ll have to
tell you. He was playing with a big brown dog, a mother hen and a whole
lot of little chickens.
“Of course, he had to be very careful not to move so as to step on
his new friends, for he knew it would be most impolite and not at all
gentlemanly to step on a friend and crush him! But as he had wanted to
stay quiet and do nothing he was very happy.
“The hen sat proudly on one of his ears, while the little chickens all
sat on his head, and ran races up and down his marvelous trunk. The dog
got up on his back and jumped off and on again and again. Meantime the
elephant was sitting down in the barnyard looking very enormous and very
much out of place.
“Soon the little girl, whose name was Betty, and who lived in the house
beyond the barnyard came running out to give her pets their breakfast.
“At first Betty was somewhat frightened at seeing the big elephant, but
then she felt that if the little chickens were so friendly with him, he
must certainly be friendly.
“The elephant stayed some time with the animals of the barnyard and with
Betty. But one morning bright and early she found Jumbo with an old ball
and bat in his great trunk. He was practising baseball so he would not be
put off the team when he got back to the circus for he had been planning
for some time to return to his first friends.
“Well, this morning he had decided to leave. For late the night before he
had heard the circus he belonged to arriving in the village where Betty
lived.
“‘I’ve had a powerful good time,’ said Jumbo to Betty, ‘but I must be
off. I haven’t done a thing for weeks and if this is what it means to be
a gentleman I’d rather be an elephant—which, of course, is very easy for
me to be—as I am one, don’t you see?’
“Now Betty didn’t understand what the elephant was really saying, but
that afternoon when she went to the circus there she saw Jumbo in the
baseball game, and doing all the tricks better than any other elephant.
He was so delighted at having something to do again that though Betty
missed him, still she was glad he was back where he was happiest.”
JUNE 17: The Story the Oak Tree Told
A soft breeze of early summer had been blowing all day. The leaves were
looking so fresh and green and having a beautiful time in the warm
sunshine.
“Well,” began daddy, “I must tell you the story the oak told to the other
trees today.
“The other trees would sometimes sigh, ‘How nice!’ or something like
that, but for the most part they let the oak tree do all the talking.
“It was a very young tree, but it looked as if some day it would be a
fine big oak with spreading branches and great strong roots which nothing
could shake.
“‘I was one day picked up as a little acorn by a small boy,’ said the
tree.
“‘He carried me around in his pocket for days and days. I spent all my
time sleeping, for his pocket was very dark and I could not stay awake in
it.
“‘One day he happened to notice me especially. He wondered why he had
been carrying me around for so long, for he himself couldn’t think of any
reason why he should want me.
“‘And then he thought he would plant me. So he put me in the ground and
covered me over carefully. He watched to see when I would come up. When
first he saw me sprouting above the ground I thought he would go mad with
delight, for he had really been very much worried about me. After having
planted me he was very anxious that I should grow up right away. So he
was a very happy little boy when he saw that I was really going to become
a tree.
“‘Now he comes every day to look at me and has done so ever since I was
born.
“‘You see it will make me a fine tree to have the pride of that little
boy centered in me.
“‘And what is more, it will make him, I think, grow up to be a fine man,
brave and strong like his tree, for that is what he calls me.
“‘So I feel that we will both help one another, and perhaps some day when
he is an old man he will lead some little boy by the hand and will tell
him of how he planted me and how he tried to grow up to be strong like
his tree, and that will help the little boy, too.
“‘We trees can do a lot of good if we want to. Just think how nice
it will sound to be called a fine old oak, and when we feel proud of
ourselves we can think it is even better that we have helped little boys
to be stronger too.’”
JUNE 18: The Weeds and the Flowers
“The Elves,” commenced daddy, “were playing in a garden one morning just
at the break of day when all the flowers were opening their sleepy heads,
and the ones which had not been sleeping were looking about them more
brightly than ever.
“‘Good morning, Flowers,’ said the Elves. The flowers nodded their heads
and smiled and waved about in the warm breeze. But the Elves heard some
very strange sounds—not quite like the talk of the flowers—for to the
Elves and Fairies, you know, there is a Flower language, and a Flower’s
way of talking.
“‘What could these other sounds mean?’ they asked each other.
“‘We’ll tell you,’ said these voices. ‘We’re the Weeds. And some of us
are beautiful, but all of us are strong. Yes, we’re so strong that no
matter how they try to dig us up and throw us away we’re up again in no
time. We’re little fighters—yes, we are. We have our Army headquarters.
Indeed we do! And our Generals are very fine. They’re the great, tall
Weeds you often see, and my, but it’s hard to get them out of the earth.
If they are beaten more Generals take their places, for the motto of the
Weeds is, “We’ll always be strong—there will always be Weeds.”
“And so they chatted on. The Elves were very much interested, but still
they couldn’t quite see, when the Weeds were doing so much talking and
bragging, how the flowers could smile so happily.
“So they whispered to the Flowers very gently:
“‘Tell us, Flowers, why are you so happy?’
“Then in lovely, soft rustling voices the Flowers said:
“‘We are going to have a Book written about us to-day. Yes, a real Book,
and our pictures are going to be painted. We’re very proud and happy. We
have a Mistress who comes out every morning and most of the day she is
with us. She bends over us and digs up the earth around us so it is nice
and soft and comfortable. And every evening after Mr. Sun has gone to bed
she gives us cool drinks of water.
“‘It was only yesterday she told us that some Noble Grownup was going to
write a Book about us and call it “The Ideal Garden.” We think that ideal
means something like perfect—anyway it’s something extremely nice. And
she has been making us ready for the Book. Oh, we’re very proud indeed.’
And then the queer sounds came again, and the Weeds spoke up:
“‘Yes, and we’re going to have a Chapter about us. We don’t quite
understand yet what a Chapter is—but it’s a great deal—we’re sure of
that. The Grownup told our Mistress that she was going to say something
about pretty Weeds in a garden.’
“‘Well, we like you all—Flowers and Weeds,’ said the Elves.”
JUNE 19: The Insulted Flowers
“I do feel insulted,” said Mr. Orchid.
“It’s too absurd,” said Miss Lily of the Valley. For a lady was wearing a
bunch of orchids and lilies of the valley and one of the orchids and one
of the lilies of the valley were talking to each other. They felt very
much hurt that they had been crushed and forced into such a great big
bouquet to be worn, when a smaller one would have been so much prettier
and nicer.
“Yes, we are being insulted,” said Mr. Orchid. “She doesn’t care one
scrap for flowers. She just wants to look rich and so she bought us—and
plenty of us, and that is what we call insulting.”
“It most certainly is,” said Miss Lily of the Valley. “No one who cared
for flowers would wear as many as she is crushing together; no, indeed.”
JUNE 20: The Colored Bags
“Since Melly had been a little girl her Auntie had been very fond of
her,” said daddy.
“One day Melly’s aunt was looking over a great box she had with pieces in
it when Melly saw all the odd pieces of silk. ‘I wonder,’ said Melly’s
Auntie, ‘if you would like to have me make you little bags, so you can
carry your purse and your handkerchief in one when you go shopping, and
your handkerchief and other odds and ends you carry around at other times
in other bags? I could make you so many bags of so many different colors.
Some, you see, could be yellow, some blue, some pink, some gray, some
orange, some purple, some tan, some rose, some green, some white.’
“So that was the way Melly’s bags came about, and her Auntie on her
birthday and Christmas always gave her a few new bags made from the old
silk.
“How gay and pretty they were and how Melly loved them.
“Now one evening Melly had gone to sleep and the bags were talking.
“‘Ah,’ said the bag of pale blue, ‘I’m but a baby. I am only a few years
old.’
“‘And I’m very old,’ said a little plaid bag. ‘I belonged to her
grandmother!’
“‘Well,’ said a purple bag, ‘it does seem funny to see the world again.
It’s nice to be young once more. Why, I was getting so used to the
darkness of the piece box that I blinked, actually blinked—at least as
much as a bag can blink—when I first got out again.’
“‘And isn’t it fun,’ said the green bag, ‘to see so many things? I went
on a picnic yesterday, and a piece of bacon got into me in some way or
other, a nice little crumby piece. Well, I did feel funny. I felt like a
person having breakfast. I must say I didn’t eat it up—I’m not fond of
eating—mostly because I’m without a mouth and a stomach, but it is fun to
go to so many different places and to see what is going on in different
places.’
“‘I’m so glad I was made,’ said the rose bag. ‘I’m going to a dancing
party this afternoon. They’ll have ice-cream there and I’ll hear all the
children play and laugh and I’ll hear them say, “Oh, Melly, which bag
have you got with you to-day?” And then I will be shown.’
“‘We’re the lucky little pieces of silk who are seeing the world for a
second time,’ ended the yellow bag.”
JUNE 21: A Spider’s Curiosity
“They may not think the spider is a curious creature, though again they
may think so,” said Mr. Spider, “for I am sure I cannot keep track of
what they think.
“But last summer I was attracted to a house which looked rather cool and
comfortable and as though the people who lived in it had gone away and
left the blinds down.
“Now when I say I was attracted to the house I mean that the house looked
attractive to me and so I went there. I went in first through a crack
under the door. I looked about me when I got inside and I thought to
myself: ‘Dear me, I have the whole place to myself.’ But I found that a
number of spider friends and cousins had come to the house too.
“‘Well,’ they said, upon seeing me, ‘have you come to this hotel to
board? It’s really quite good. Meals are fine. We’ve found a number of
delicious little creatures to nibble at.’
“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’ve come to this hotel to board, but I won’t pay my
board.’
“‘Oh, won’t you?’ said they.
“‘I will not,’ I answered. ‘I do not pay board. It’s a foolish thing to
do, a waste of time, and besides I haven’t the money. I wouldn’t pay
board for anything, for it spoils people.’
“Yes, they think they can do anything when they charge board. They can be
rude and only give you so much of this and so much of that, and they have
to watch over you to see that you don’t eat more than you are allowed. At
least that is my idea of boarding, though I suppose for those who have
plenty of money it is all right.
“But I have no money, none at all.”
“Neither have I,” said the spider who was listening.
“Therefore I cannot board,” said Mr. Spider.
“Well, as I was saying, my relatives and friends talked to me and when
I said that I wouldn’t pay my board they said: ‘Oh, that is quite all
right, Mr. Spider. None of us do. Besides, we feel sure the people who
have gone away will be glad if they hear that some of the Spider family
are watching over their house in their absence.’
“So I settled down, but after a time I began to feel as though I would
like to be busy. Every one around me was working.
“And one day one of the other spiders said to me: ‘Mr. Spider, did you
bring your work?’
“‘Yes indeed,’ I answered, ‘I have it here with me.’
“Then, of course, I thought I would choose a good spinning table or
spinning chair, or some place where I would be comfortable and cozy
a-spinning.
“Just as I was thinking about it I happened to take a look at a telephone
upon a table.
“‘There will I go,’ I said to the others.
“‘But,’ they told me, ‘the telephone is a modern thing and spinning is an
old, old thing to do.’
“‘Well,’ I answered, ‘I will mix the old and the new, I will work around
the modern telephone. I will spin a web so when the people come back they
will have to talk through Spiderland in order to talk to their friends.’”
JUNE 22: The Sun Dial
“I follow you so that people can tell the time by me,” said the sun-dial.
“And how am I able to tell time for them? All owing to you. I depend
upon you to help me tell the time, for you cast your shadow over me, and
people know just the hour of the day it is. There is the sun-flower which
is named after you,” continued the sun-dial. “It is so called because it
is so bright and golden and it is big too!”
“That is so,” said the sun. “I am very fond of the sun-flower.”
“And think of all the flowers, like the marigold and the morning-glories,
which open when you arise, and go to sleep, closing their eyes, when you
go to bed.
“Then there is the sunfish, so named because he is round and fat and
supposed to be slightly like the sun in shape.”
“I had never heard the reason for his name before,” said Mr. Sun. “Thanks
for telling me.”
The sun-dial moved a little and so did Mr. Sun, for the time was going on.
“Then there is the sun-gem,” continued the sun-dial. “He is the
humming-bird, you know, and he has such glorious bright colors that they
have named him after you.”
“I never knew that before,” said Mr. Sun. “How very interesting. Pray go
on.”
“There are the sun opals—beautiful stones—and sun perch—like the sunfish
family. There are sun plants and sun ferns.”
“Indeed,” beamed the sun.
“And there are sun shades,” continued the sun-dial.
“Oh dear,” said the sun, “people use those to keep me out of their eyes,
don’t they?”
“Yes, that is so,” said the sun-dial. “Dear me, I didn’t mean to say
anything about sun-shades. And there is sun fever and sun stroke.”
“Oh dear, dear, dear,” said the sun, growing very red and angry. “They
are horrible things people get when their heads ache and they feel quite
miserable.”
The sun was very red and very mad now, and the sun-dial knew it had said
too much. “I am so sorry,” said the sun-dial. “I grew a little careless
in what I was saying.”
“Yes, you did,” agreed the sun. “But no matter; I shall sleep and forget
about it now.”
And the big red sun went to bed behind the hill and the sun-dial said to
itself it would never make such mistakes again!
JUNE 23: Shoes and Stockings
“It seems so funny,” said Mrs. Cow. “Really, the fuss that children make
about going around without any shoes or stockings.
“I don’t mean they make a fuss about going without. Gracious, no, they
love not to wear shoes and stockings.
“It’s very funny, though, the way they think it is such a treat to go
without.
“Now, we never wear shoes and stockings. We think that would be
ridiculous.
“We would never say to our mothers, ‘Oh, mother, can’t I please go
without any shoes or stockings all afternoon?’
“No young cow or calf would say such a thing. But children are always
asking if they can’t go without as a great treat. How funny they really
are!”
JUNE 24: Mosquitoes and Snails
“Well, are you here again?” said the Snails to the Mosquitoes.
“We are indeed,” buzzed the Mosquitoes. “But you don’t say that as if
you were pleased. In fact, we don’t like your manner at all. We think a
little nip and a wee bite might help you. It might make you more polite.”
“Ah, there you are wrong,” said the Snails. “To be sure, our manner was
not so very polite. But we don’t feel so polite toward your family.
And as for teaching us manners with the aid of a little nip and a wee
bite—well, that is absurd, as we have shells and we can go right back
into them. We may be slow, but we can get into our shells quickly enough.”
“Yes, cowards,” hissed the Mosquitoes.
“Not at all,” said the Snails. “It’s not cowardly to avoid being bitten.
It wouldn’t help any one if we were bitten. There would be no good done
because of it. We simply do not wish to be bitten and give you a chance
to say:
“‘We bit the Snails to-day. That was part of our pleasure.’ For it is a
pleasure to you to bite, and we don’t intend to help along such selfish,
mean, cross creatures.”
“Then why are you talking to us?” asked the Mosquitoes.
“Because,” said the Snails, “you have just missed a picnic party that
went by here a little time ago. A nice picnic party of children. We won’t
tell you where they went—no, indeed. And you’ve lost them now. We only
talked to you because we wanted you to miss one horrid adventure. We
wouldn’t have wasted our time otherwise. And we talked slowly to give the
children more time.” The Snails wiggled and squirmed a little. They were
very much pleased with themselves.
But, oh, how mad the mosquitoes were! They buzzed and sang their ugly
little songs. They tried to bite the snails, but they had gone inside
their shells.
They were so furious that they had wasted all that time. But the snails
were happy! They knew that the children were far away by this time, and
they had been saved from having the horrid, uninvited mosquitoes go
along, too.
As the mosquitoes flew away they said: “Never again will we talk to those
slow snails. They make us lose time.”
And the Snails were delighted that their slowness had helped.
JUNE 25: The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak
“The rose-breasted grosbeak,” said daddy, “is a very useful bird, and at
the same time an extremely beautiful bird.
“Mr. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak wears black and white, with a handsome vest
of rose color and under his wings he has the same decoration. Mrs.
Grosbeak is not so handsome. She wears a brown frock, and looks not
unlike her cousin, Mrs. Sparrow.
“They have some fine relations, too—there are Mr. and Mrs. Blue Grosbeak,
and there again Mr. Grosbeak is very beautiful. He wears a deep blue
suit and his shoulders are trimmed with chestnut-colored feathers. Mrs.
Grosbeak is of grayish brown and grayish white, having the top side of
the first color, and the bottom side of the second color.
“Then there are the Evening Grosbeak family. Mrs. Evening Grosbeak is
paler than her husband but their coloring is not so different from
each other as in the other members of the Grosbeak family. The Evening
Grosbeaks are of brown and yellow with touches of very dark brown and
white-tipped wings.
“And we mustn’t forget the Pine Grosbeak family. Mr. Pine Grosbeak is of
a wonderful shade of red, while Mrs. Grosbeak is yellow and gray in her
coloring.
“The Pine Grosbeaks are fond of the winter; they are not afraid of the
cold. In fact, they are not afraid of anything and they trust people and
let them come close to them. They have low, warbling voices and whistle
in a beautiful, clear fashion.
“The Evening Grosbeaks have very large bills and eat many seeds, berries
and insects, as you may imagine. But they can sing and whistle, too.
“The Blue Grosbeak family sing, too, in a nice warbling fashion of their
own, which is a little like the song Mr. Indigo Bunting sings, but Mr.
Grosbeak’s is a little stronger and louder—a little more of a song. They
probably like to sing songs that are somewhat the same, as they are both
blue birds and so have the same taste in color and in music.
“But it is of Mr. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak that I want to tell you, for he
is not only beautiful, but, as I said, he is very useful.
“And he can sing, too! Oh, how Mr. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak can sing! He
chirps in low, deep and lovely tones and he sings from morning to night
in the most glorious manner.
“But he does a great deal else beside singing. He helps the farmer and
the owner of the orchard.
“‘Yes,’ said a Mr. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak to his mate, many, many years
ago, ‘I am not going to be satisfied just to be beautiful and to have a
nice voice.’
“‘What is it you want to do?’ asked Mrs. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak.
“‘I will have to think about it a little,’ he answered. And then after he
had thought a time he said,
“‘I have it.’
“‘Tell me,’ chirped Mrs. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak.
“‘We will help the farmer and the owner of the orchard. We will destroy
bad bugs and insects which would hurt the crop. We can easily change our
diet so that these things will taste delicious to us. And we will be
doing some good work, too. It’s horrible to be lazy and beautiful and
rich and superior. It’s much more interesting to be busy and see things
finished that we’ve done ourselves.’
“Mrs. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak agreed, and thought they would enjoy life a
great deal more by being busy.
“‘It would be so tiresome,’ Mrs. Grosbeak told her mate some time after
this, ‘if we did nothing all day but sing. Why, we’d have nothing to sing
about after a time, no joyous news to tell the world!’
“And so from that day to this, the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak family have
been a great help. They eat caterpillars which would destroy trees, many
moths, bugs, worms, and insects which would hurt growing vegetables and
trees bearing fruits.