and the dreadful whispers grew louder and louder, and the Emperor's life
was almost gone. Suddenly, through the open window, there came a most
lovely song. It was so sweet and so loud that the whispers died quite
away. Presently the Emperor felt his heart grow warm, then he felt the
blood flow through his limbs again; he listened to the song until the
tears ran down his cheeks; he knew that it was the little real
Nightingale who had flown away from him when the gold nightingale came.
Death was listening to the song, too; and when it was done and the
Emperor begged for more, Death, too, said, "Please sing again, little
Nightingale!"
"Will you give me the Emperor's gold crown for a song?" said the little
Nightingale.
"Yes," said Death; and the little Nightingale bought the Emperor's crown
for a song.
"Oh, sing again, little Nightingale," begged Death.
"Will you give me the Emperor's sceptre for another song?" said the
little grey Nightingale.
"Yes," said Death; and the little Nightingale bought the Emperor's
sceptre for another song.
Once more Death begged for a song, and this time the little Nightingale
obtained the banner for her singing. Then she sang one more song, so
sweet and so sad that it made Death think of his garden in the
churchyard, where he always liked best to be. And he rose from the
Emperor's heart and floated away through the window.
When Death was gone, the Emperor said to the little Nightingale, "Oh,
dear little Nightingale, you have saved me from Death! Do not leave me
again. Stay with me on this little gold perch, and sing to me always!"
"No, dear Emperor," said the little Nightingale, "I sing best when I am
free; I cannot live in a palace. But every night when you are quite
alone, I will come and sit in the window and sing to you, and tell you
everything that goes on in your kingdom: I will tell you where the poor
people are who ought to be helped, and where the wicked people are who
ought to be punished. Only, dear Emperor, be sure that you never let
anybody know that you have a little bird who tells you everything."
After the little Nightingale had flown away, the Emperor felt so well
and strong that he dressed himself in his royal robes and took his gold
sceptre in his hand. And when the courtiers came in to see if he were
dead, there stood the Emperor with his sword in one hand and his sceptre
in the other, and said, "Good-morning!"
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Adapted from Hans Christian Andersen.
MARGERY'S GARDEN[26]
There was once a little girl named Margery, who had always lived in the
city. The flat where her mother and father lived was at the top of a big
building, and you couldn't see a great deal from the windows, except
chimney-pots on other people's roofs. Margery did not know much about
trees and flowers, but she loved them dearly; whenever it was a fine
Sunday she used to go with her mother and father to the park and look at
the lovely flower-beds. They seemed always to be finished, though, and
Margery was always wishing she could see them grow.
One spring, when Margery was nine, her father obtained a new situation
and they removed to a little house with a nice big piece of ground a
short distance outside the town where his new position was. Margery was
delighted. And the very first thing she said, when her father told her
about it, was, "Oh, may I have a garden? _May_ I have a garden?"
Margery's mother was almost as eager for a garden as she was, and
Margery's father said he expected to live on their vegetables all the
rest of his life! So it was soon agreed that the garden should be the
first thing attended to.
Behind the cottage were apple trees, a plum tree, and two or three pear
trees; then came a stretch of rough grass, and then a stone wall, with a
gate leading into the fields. It was on the grass plot that the garden
was to be. A big piece was to be used for wheat and peas and beans, and
a little piece at the end was to be given to Margery.
"What shall we have in it?" asked her mother.
"Flowers," said Margery, with shining eyes,--"blue, and white, and
yellow, and pink,--every kind of flower!"
"Surely, flowers," said her mother, "and shall we not have a little
salad garden in the middle?"
"What is a salad garden?" Margery asked.
"It is a garden where you have all the things that make nice salad,"
said her mother, laughing, for Margery was fond of salads; "you have
lettuce, and endive, and mustard and cress, and parsley, and radishes,
and beetroot, and young onions."
"Oh! how good it sounds!" said Margery. "I should love a salad garden."
That very evening, Margery's father took pencil and paper, and drew out
a plan for her garden; first, they talked it all over, then he drew what
they decided on; it looked like the diagram on the next page.
"The outside strip is for flowers," said Margery's father, "and next is
a footpath, all the way round the beds; that is to let you get at the
flowers to weed and to pick; there is a wider path through the middle,
and the rest is for rows of salad vegetables."
"Papa, it is glorious!" said Margery.
Papa laughed. "I hope you will still think it glorious when the weeding
time comes," he said, "for you know, you and mother have promised to
take care of this garden, while I take care of the big one."
"I wouldn't _not_ take care of it for anything!" said Margery. "I want
to feel that it is my very own."
[Illustration]
Her father kissed her, and said it was certainly her "very own."
Two evenings after that, when Margery was called in from her first
ramble in the fields, she found the postman at the door.
"Something for you, Margery," said her mother, with the look she had
when something nice was happening.
It was a box, quite a big box, with a label on it that said:--
MISS MARGERY BROWN,
PRIMROSE COTTAGE,
21 NARCISSUS ROAD,
COLCHESTER.
From Seeds and Plants Company, Reading.
Margery could hardly wait to open it. It was filled with little
packages, all with printed labels; and in the packages, of course, were
seeds. It made Margery dance, just to read the names,--nasturtium, giant
helianthus, canariensis, calendula, Canterbury bells: more names than I
can tell you; and other packages, bigger, that said, "Sweet Peas,"
"French beans," "Carrots," "Wallflowers," and such things! Margery could
almost smell the posies, she was so excited. Only, she had seen so
little of flowers that she did not know what all the names meant. She
did not know that a helianthus was a sunflower until her mother told her
so, and she had never seen the dear, blue, bell-shaped flowers that
always grow in old-fashioned gardens, and are called Canterbury bells.
She thought the calendula must be a strange, grand flower, by its name;
but her mother told her it was the gay, sturdy, everydayish little
flower called a marigold. There was a great deal for a little city girl
to be surprised about, and it did seem as if morning was a long way off!
"Did you think you could plant them in the morning?" asked her mother.
"You know, dear, the ground has to be made ready first; it takes a
little time,--it may be several days before you can plant."
That was another surprise. Margery had thought she could begin to sow
the seed right off.
But this was what had happened. Early the next morning, a man came
driving up to the cottage with two strong white horses; in his wagon was
a plough. I suppose you have seen ploughs, but Margery never had, and
she watched with great interest, while the man and her father took the
plough from the cart and harnessed the horses to it. It was a great,
three-cornered piece of sharp steel, with long handles coming up from
it, so that a man could hold it in place. It looked like this:--
[Illustration]
"I brought a two-horse plough because it's virgin soil," the man said.
Margery wondered what in the world he meant; it had not been
cultivated, of course, but what had that do with the kind of plough?
"What does he mean, father?" she whispered, when she got a chance. "He
means that this land has not been ploughed before; it will be hard to
turn the soil, and one horse could not pull the plough," said her
father.
It took the man two hours to plough the little strip of land. He drove
the sharp end of the plough into the soil, and held it firmly so, while
the horses drew it along in a straight line. Margery found it
fascinating to watch the long line of dark earth and green grass come
rolling up and turn over, as the knife passed it. She could see that it
took real skill and strength to keep the line even, and to avoid the
stones. Sometimes the plough struck a hidden stone, and then the man was
jerked almost off his feet. But he only laughed, and said, "Tough piece
of land; it will be a lot better next year."
When he had ploughed, the man went back to his cart and unloaded another
farm implement. This one was like a three-cornered platform of wood,
with a long, curved, strong rake under it. It was called a harrow, and
it looked like the diagram on the next page.
The man harnessed the horses to it, and then he stood on the platform
and drove all over the strip of land. It was fun to watch, but perhaps
it was a little hard to do. The man's weight kept the harrow steady,
and let the teeth of the rake scratch and cut the ground up, so that it
did not stay in ridges.
"He scrambles the ground, father!" said Margery.
"It needs 'scrambling,'" laughed her father. "We are going to get more
weeds than we want on this fresh soil, and the more the ground is
broken, the fewer there will be."
[Illustration]
After the ploughing and harrowing, the man drove off, and Margery's
father said that he himself would do the rest of the work in the late
afternoons, when he came home from business; they could not afford too
much help, he said, and he had learned to take care of a garden when he
was a boy. So Margery did not see any more done until the next day.
But the next day there was hard work for Margery's father! Every bit of
that ground had to be broken up still more with a spade, and then the
clods which were full of grass-roots had to be taken on a fork and
shaken, till the earth fell out; when the grass was thrown to one side.
That would not have had to be done if the land had been ploughed in the
autumn; the grass would have rotted in the ground, and would have made
food for the plants. Now, Margery's father put the fertiliser on the
top, and then raked it into the earth.
At last, it was time to make the place for the seeds. Margery and her
mother helped. Father tied one end of a cord to a little stake, and
drove the stake in the ground at one end of the garden. Then he took the
cord to the other end of the garden and pulled it tight, tied it to
another stake, and drove that down. That made a straight line. Then he
hoed a trench, a few inches deep, the whole length of the cord, and
scattered fertiliser in it. Pretty soon the whole garden was lined with
little trenches.
"Now for the seed," said father.
Margery ran and brought the seed box. "May I help?" she asked.
"If you watch me sow one row, I think you can do the next," said her
father.
So Margery watched. Her father took a handful of peas, and, stooping,
walked slowly along the line, letting the seed trickle through his
fingers. It was pretty to watch; it made Margery think of a photograph
her teacher had, a photograph of a famous picture called "The Sower."
Perhaps you have seen it.
Putting in the seed was not so easy to do as to watch; sometimes Margery
dropped in too much, and sometimes not enough; but her father was
patient with her, and soon she did better.
They planted peas, beans, spinach, carrots, and parsnips. And Margery's
father made a row of holes, after that, for the tomato plants. He said
those had to be transplanted; they could not be sown from seed.
When the seeds were in the trenches they had to be covered up, and
Margery really helped at that. It is fun to do it. You stand beside the
little trench and walk backward, and as you walk you hoe the loose earth
back over the seeds; the same earth that was hoed up you pull back
again. Then you rake very gently over the surface, with the back of a
rake, to even it all off. Margery liked it, because now the garden began
to look _like_ a garden.
But best of all was the work next day, when her own little particular
garden was begun. Father Brown loved Margery and Margery's mother so
much that he wanted their garden to be perfect, and that meant a great
deal more work. He knew very well that the old grass would begin to come
through again on such soil, and that it would make terribly hard
weeding. He was not going to have any such thing for his two "little
girls," as he called them. So he gave that little garden particular
attention. This is what he did.
After he had thrown out all the turf, he shovelled clean earth on to the
garden,--as much as three solid inches of it; not a bit of grass was in
that. Then it was ready for raking and fertilising, and for the lines.
The little footpaths were marked out by Father Brown's feet; Margery and
her mother laughed well at his actions, for it looked like some kind of
dance. Mr Brown had seen gardeners do it when he was a little boy, and
he did it very nicely: he walked along the sides of the square, with one
foot turned a little out, and the other straight, taking such tiny steps
that his feet touched each other all the time. This tramped out a path
just wide enough for a person to walk.
The wider path was marked with lines and raked.
Margery thought, of course, all the flowers would be put in as the
vegetables were; but she found that it was not so. For some, her father
poked little holes with his finger; for some, he made very shallow
trenches; and some very small seeds were scattered lightly over the top
of the ground.
Margery and her mother had taken so much pains in thinking out the
arrangement of the flowers, that perhaps you will like to hear just how
they designed that garden. At the back were the sweet peas, which would
grow tall, like a screen; on the two sides, for a kind of hedge, were
yellow sunflowers; and along the front edge were the gay nasturtiums.
Margery planned that, so that she could look into the garden from the
front, but have it shut away from the vegetable patch by the tall
flowers on the sides. The two front corners had canariensis in them.
Canariensis is a pretty creeper with golden blossoms, very dainty and
bright. And then, in little square patches all round the garden, were
planted London pride, blue bachelor's buttons, yellow marigolds, tall
larkspur, many-coloured asters, hollyhocks and stocks. All these lovely
flowers used to grow in our grandmothers' gardens, and if you don't know
what they look like, I hope you can find out next summer.
Between the flowers and the middle path went the seeds for that
wonderful salad garden; all the things Mrs Brown had named to Margery
were there. Margery had never seen anything more wonderful than the
little round lettuce-seeds. They were so tiny that it did not seem
possible that green lettuce leaves could come from them. But they surely
would.
Mother and father and Margery were late to supper that evening. But they
were all so happy that it did not matter. The last thing Margery
thought of, as she went to sleep at night, was the dear, smooth little
garden, with its funny footpath, and with the little sticks standing at
the ends of the rows, labelled "lettuce," "beets," "helianthus," and so
on.
"I have a garden! I have a garden!" was Margery's last thought as she
went off to dreamland.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] I have always been inclined to avoid, in my work among children,
the "how to make" and "how to do" kind of story; it is too likely to
trespass on the ground belonging by right to its more artistic and less
intentional kinsfolk. Nevertheless, there is a legitimate place for the
instruction-story. Within its own limits, and especially in a school
use, it has a real purpose to serve, and a real desire to meet. Children
have a genuine taste for such morsels of practical information, if the
bites are not made too big and too solid. And to the elementary teacher,
from whom so much is demanded in the way of practical instruction, I
know that these stories are a boon. They must be chosen with care, and
used with discretion, but they need never be ignored.
I venture to give some little stories of this type, which I hope may be
of use in the schools where country life and country work is an unknown
experience to the children.
THE LITTLE COTYLEDONS
This is another story about Margery's garden.
The next morning after the garden was planted, Margery was up and out at
six o'clock. She could not wait to look at her garden. To be sure, she
knew that the seeds could not sprout in a single night, but she had a
feeling that _something_ might happen at any moment. The garden was just
as smooth and brown as the night before, and no little seedlings were in
sight.
But a very few mornings after that, when Margery went out, she saw a
funny little crack opening up through the earth, the whole length of the
patch. Quickly she knelt down on the footpath, to see. Yes! Tiny green
leaves, a whole row of them, were pushing their way through the crust!
Margery knew what she had put there: it was the radish-row; these must
be radish leaves. She examined them very closely, so that she might
know a radish next time. The little leaves, no bigger than half your
little-finger nail, grew in twos,--two on each tiny stem; they were
almost round.
Margery flew back to her mother, to say that the first seeds were up.
And her mother, nearly as excited as Margery, came to look at the little
crack.
Each day, after that, the row of radishes grew, till, in a week, it
stood as high as your finger, green and sturdy. But about the third day,
while Margery was stooping over the radishes, she saw something very,
very small and green, peeping above ground, where the lettuce was
planted. Could it be weeds? No, for on looking very closely she saw that
the wee leaves faintly marked a regular row. They did not make a crack,
like the radishes; they seemed too small and too far apart to push the
earth up like that. Margery leaned down and looked with all her eyes at
the baby plants. The tiny leaves grew two on a stem, and were almost
round. The more she looked at them the more it seemed to Margery that
they looked exactly as the radish looked when it first came up. "Do you
suppose," Margery said to herself, "that lettuce and radish look alike
while they are growing? They don't look alike when they are on the
table!"
Day by day the lettuce grew, and soon the little round leaves were
easier to examine; they certainly were very much like radish leaves.
Then, one morning, while she was searching for signs of other seeds,
Margery discovered the beets. In irregular patches on the row, hints of
green were coming. The next day and the next they grew, until the beet
leaves were big enough to see.
Margery looked. Then she looked again. Then she wrinkled her forehead.
"Can we have made a mistake?" she thought. "Do you suppose we can have
planted _all_ radishes?"
For those little beet leaves were almost round, and they grew two on a
stem, precisely like the lettuce and the radish; except for the size,
all three rows looked alike.
It was too much for Margery. She ran to the house and found her father.
Her little face was so anxious that he thought something unpleasant had
happened. "Papa," she said, all out of breath, "do you think we could
have made a mistake about my garden? Do you think we could have put
radishes in all the rows?"
Father laughed. "What makes you think such a thing?" he asked.
"Papa," said Margery, "the little leaves all look exactly alike! every
plant has just two tiny leaves on it, and shaped the same; they are
roundish, and grow out of the stem at the same place."
Papa's eyes began to twinkle. "Many of the dicotyledonous plants look
alike at the beginning," he said, with a little drawl on the big word.
That was to tease Margery, because she always wanted to know the big
words she heard.
"What's 'dicotyledonous'?" said Margery, carefully.
"Wait till I come home to-night, dear," said her father, "and I'll tell
you."
That evening Margery was waiting eagerly for him. When her father
finished his supper they went together to the garden, and father
examined the seedlings carefully. Then he pulled up a little radish
plant and a tiny beet.
"These little leaves," he said, "are not the real leaves of the plant;
they are only little pockets to hold food for the plant to live on till
it gets strong enough to push up into the air. As soon as the real
leaves come out and begin to draw food from the air, these little
substitutes wither up and fall off. These two lie folded up in the
little seed from the beginning, and are full of plant food. They don't
have to be very special in shape, you see, because they don't stay on
the plant after it is grown up."
"Then every plant looks like this at first?" said Margery.
"No, dear, not every one; plants are divided into two kinds: those which
have two food leaves, like these plants, and those which have only one;
these are called dicotyledonous, and the ones which have but one food
leaf are monocotyledonous. Many of the dicotyledons look alike."
"I think that is interesting," said Margery.
"I always, supposed the plants were different from the minute they began
to grow."
"Indeed, no," said father. "Even some of the trees look like this when
they first come through; you would not think a birch tree could look
like a vegetable or a flower, would you? But it does, at first; it looks
so much like these things that in the great nurseries, where trees are
raised for forests and parks, the workmen have to be very carefully
trained, or else they would pull up the trees when they are weeding.
They have to be taught the difference between a birch tree and a weed."
"How funny!" said Margery, dimpling.
"Yes, it sounds funny," said father; "but, you see, the birch tree is
dicotyledonous, and so are many weeds, and the dicotyledons look so much
alike at first."
"I am glad to know that, father," said Margery, soberly. "I believe I
shall learn a good deal from living in the country; don't you think so?"
Margery's father took her in his arms. "I hope so, dear," he said; "the
country is a good place for little girls."
And that was all that happened, that day.
THE TALKATIVE TORTOISE[27]
Once upon a time, a Tortoise lived in a pond with two Ducks, who were
her very good friends. She enjoyed the company of the Ducks, because she
could talk with them to her heart's content; the Tortoise liked to talk.
She always had something to say, and she liked to hear herself say it.
After many years of this pleasant living, the pond became very low, in a
dry season; and finally it dried up. The two Ducks saw that they could
no longer live there, so they decided to fly to another region, where
there was more water. They went to the Tortoise to bid her good-bye.
"Oh, don't leave me behind!" begged the Tortoise. "Take me with you; I
must die if I am left here."
"But you cannot fly!" said the Ducks. "How can we take you with us?"
"Take me with you! take me with you!" said the Tortoise.
The Ducks felt so sorry for her that at last they thought of a way to
take her. "We have thought of a way which will be possible," they said,
"if only you can manage to keep still long enough. We will each take
hold of one end of a stout stick, and do you take the middle in your
mouth; then we will fly up in the air with you and carry you with us.
But remember not to talk! If you open your mouth, you are lost."
The Tortoise said she would not say a word; she would not so much as
move her mouth; and she was very grateful. So the Ducks brought a strong
little stick and took hold of the ends, while the Tortoise bit firmly on
the middle. Then the two Ducks rose slowly in the air and flew away with
their burden.
When they were above the treetops, the Tortoise wanted to say, "How high
we are!" But she remembered, and kept still. When they passed the church
steeple she wanted to say, "What is that which shines?" But she
remembered, and held her peace. Then they came over the village square,
and the people looked up and saw them. "Look at the Ducks carrying a
Tortoise!" they shouted; and every one ran to look. The Tortoise wanted
to say, "What business is it of yours?" But she didn't. Then she heard
the people shout, "Isn't it strange! Look at it! Look!"
The Tortoise forgot everything except that she wanted to say, "Hush, you
foolish people!" She opened her mouth,--and fell to the ground. And that
was the end of the Tortoise.
It is a very good thing to be able to hold one's tongue!
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Very freely adapted from one of the _Fables of Bidpai_.
ROBERT OF SICILY[28]