bird spread its shining wings and flew out between the grating. After a
while it returned with a sprig of crimson berries, the fragrant, juicy
Rhine buds, and laid them in its mistress’ lap.
Many trips it made during the days that followed, and the woodland fruit
kept the women from starvation, for it contained both nourishment and
water.
So, instead of growing weak and wan, they kept their strength, and the
baron could not understand how, with neither food nor water, Willeswind
remained strong and well, and as defiant as ever. But to Willeswind and
Hulda it was no mystery, and they were full of gratitude to the raven.
One morning Hulda stood by the window, looking out over the woods at the
sunlight on the river. Suddenly she gave an excited cry. “Some horsemen
are riding up the Rhine road!” she exclaimed. “They are coming this way.”
Willeswind flew to the casement and watched as they drew near. Straight
along the forest path they advanced, so close that the watchers could see
their faces.
“Oh!” cried the lady of Stolzenfels. “It is Othmar and his men. The war
is over and they are coming home.”
She called loudly, waving her handkerchief between the grating, and
Othmar saw and heard. “We are up here, prisoners in the tower!” she
shouted, as he galloped nearer. And a minute later the Stolzenfels men
were battering at the castle gate.
“For your mistress, comrades!” called Rupert the forester’s son, as he
led the charge.
The robber baron knew the Stolzenfels force was too strong for him to
hold out against, for with right on their side they had even greater
strength. He surrendered, and the captives were freed.
The Stolzenfels towers never looked as fair to their owners, as when on
the return they beheld them through the trees. It was a joyful homecoming
to both lord and vassal, and to the raven, for he flew in and out of its
windows as if overcome with gladness. Othmar watched its joyous flight
with a smile.
“We will always keep the bird,” he said, “for it saved you from the
baron’s power.”
And they did keep it until it died. Then, in memory of its service, they
placed its stone image on the castle gate and carved its likeness on the
Stolzenfels shield.
Centuries passed. The robber bands that had been the terror of the Rhine
valley became a part of the past, and Castle Stolzenfels fell into decay,
for hundreds of years being one of the noblest ruins on the river. Then
the German emperor restored it. He rebuilt the crumbling towers and
bastions where bats made their nests, furnished it after the fashion of
long ago, and today it is a favorite summer home of the imperial family.
And still on the outer gate a stone raven stands, and to all who know
the Rhine stories it speaks eloquently of that olden time when knights
were bold, and of a gratitude offering made by the forester’s son to the
daughter of the castle.
JUSSIEU AND THE HELIOTROPE
(_Science—Nature Study_)
In the year of Our Lord 1735, Joseph de Jussieu, the famous botanist,
came into the presence of Louis the Fifteenth and besought him to give
his royal sanction to a mission that was considered very wonderful in
those days.
“I would go to South America to study the plant life there,” he said,
“and mayhap I may discover something that will bring glory to France.”
The king looked with favor upon the venture, and a little later the
botanist and his attendants sailed out of the port of Havre, toward the
distant land of the Andes.
Many months they were on the way, now tossing on the high seas at the
mercy of wind and wave, now threading a perilous path through the selvas.
At last they ascended the snow-capped Cordilleras, examining every tree
and plant they found.
“We will take back seeds of every rare specimen,” Jussieu said, “and
great will be the rejoicing in France.”
One day, as the botanist and his men made their way from a deep ravine up
a sunny slope, they smelled something wonderfully fragrant.
“Such a powerful odor must come from a gigantic, gorgeous flower,” the
naturalist said. And they searched eagerly, each man anxious to discover
the prize. But the only gorgeous flower they found was a clump of flaming
peonies, which, although regally beautiful, were devoid of fragrance.
Then one of the men stumbled upon a plant bearing clusters of tiny purple
blossoms. The odor was very heavy around it, and he knew he had found the
perfume giver.
“Ah!” he exclaimed in disappointment, “it is not half so stately as our
fleur-de-lis.”
Jussieu came and examined it with great interest, and although it was a
small, unpretentious flower, thought it a precious find. He noticed that
the most perfect blossoms were on the sunny side of the plant, and that
they seemed to reach the sun. He named it “heliotrope,” from Greek words
meaning “to turn toward the sun,” and when he returned to France took
with him some of the seeds, which were planted in the royal garden.
The princesses, who were always looking for something novel, became
greatly excited about the purple blossoms from the Andes. They called it
the flower of love, and no bouquet was deemed fit to offer a court lady
that did not contain at least a sprig of it. Being greatly in demand, it
was very costly. People speculated in it, and for a time fortunes were
won and lost, as during the tulip craze in Holland.
Then, after a while, when all the florists grew quantities of heliotrope,
it became so common that it went out of favor as the court flower. But it
was just as popular as ever, because it had lost none of its grace and
fragrance. It grew in the gardens of the people, and there was no peasant
too poor to own a plant.
So the dainty heliotrope that is still the favorite of the gardens is
a traveled and storied flower. It grew on the slope of the Andes. It
crossed the broad seas and was planted in a royal garden. It gladdened
the peasants and townsfolk of Lorraine and Brittany and Provence, and
still it scatters its fragrance and reaches out its petals toward the sun.
THE FALL OF LONDON BRIDGE
(_History_)
Almost everybody, whether he be ten or seventy-five, has played the good
old game of London Bridge, but not everybody knows that once upon a time
the bridge really did fall down.
It was nine hundred years ago—before William the Conqueror was born, and
the United States had not even been thought of. Up in the cold, white
northland lived a race of fearless vikings, and down in pleasant England
reigned a weak, unable king. His name was Ethelred, and because he was
always behind time with his plans and his work, people called him the
Unready, and in the day in which he lived it was a very serious thing for
a king to be unready.
Ever since the Danes had discovered what a fair land England was, they
had wanted to take it. They came with their armies in King Alfred’s time.
They returned again during the reign of his sons, and when young Ethelred
ascended the throne and word went forth of how unable and unready he
was, their boats brought a mighty army and surrounded the island. Danish
soldiers camped on the broad English moorlands, Danish songs echoed
through the woods of Kent and Surrey and sounded in the streets of London
town. The invaders were in full possession of the city. They held the
royal castle, and their generals slept in King Ethelred’s beds, while he
had to take a bunk wherever he could find one. They were bold, brave, and
strong. They had leaders who knew not the meaning of fear and were always
ready, and it seemed that this time they would take the kingdom.
Yet they didn’t take it after all, for there were other brave, bold men
who came to Ethelred’s aid.
Twenty ships sailed down from the seas of Norway, twenty goodly vessels
bearing blue and crimson sails, for the boy king Olaf, who dwelt in the
far north country, had heard of the plight of Ethelred the Unready and
said to his men, “Let us go and fight for him as we fight for our own
land.”
At these words the soldiers cheered and bent to the oars, and thus they
went to England.
In from the sea they came and up the broad green Thames toward London
town. The people along the river despaired at sight of their standard,
for they thought another army was coming to attack them. But the sorrow
turned to rejoicing when King Ethelred met them just below the city, and
Olaf said, in loud, clear tones, “I have brought my soldiers to fight for
thee.”
Then there rang out such a blast of welcome as never English war horns
sounded before or since.
Olaf lost no time. The men of the north country fought for the love of
fighting, and he was eager to hurl his army against the Danes.
“First we will take the fort they have built to command the Thames,” he
exclaimed. “Then we will drive them from the city.”
King Ethelred shook his head.
“It will not be easy to do that,” he said. “Thrice already my army has
tried it, but the Danish soldiers are thick on London Bridge. We cannot
get near enough to attack the fort, because whenever the ships start up
the river arrows and spears and stones come down upon them and they are
driven back.”
King Olaf stood thinking and did not answer. Finally he said, “Then we
must tear down the bridge.”
Ethelred looked at him as if he thought him crazy. “Tear down the
bridge!” he repeated in amazement. “That is impossible. London Bridge is
strong, and neither of us has an army of giants.”
Young Olaf looked at him and smiled, thinking how little this man knew of
warfare.
“Do as I bid you,” he said, “and you shall see it fall.”
Ethelred had little faith in the viking’s words, but he was in so
terrible a plight that he was willing to do anything that might pull him
out of it. Who wouldn’t be, with a Danish general sleeping in his bed?
King Olaf gave some orders to his men. Then he said to Ethelred, “Bring
your ships alongside mine, and we will get them ready.”
He ordered the men to make broad, flat roofs for every vessel, for he
knew they could not tear down London Bridge unless protected from the
spears and arrows of the Danes. The enemy had seized so much of King
Ethelred’s lumber that he hadn’t half enough to make the roofs, so they
tore down houses that the command might be carried out.
Finally everything was ready, and the fleet of England and the fleet of
Norway moved side by side up the Thames. The Danish soldiers laughed as
they saw the queer-looking vessels coming toward them, thinking what fun
it would be to drive back the boats of Ethelred the Unready, as they had
done several times before. But the Danes didn’t know as much as they
thought they knew, and although their spears and arrows flew fast, the
lumbering warships came on.
Then the soldiers on the bridge shot their bows and threw their javelins
as they had not done before. They hurled great rocks down upon the
vessels, damaging some of them so much that they had to turn back. But
they did not harm or frighten Olaf the viking. He called to his men and
cheered them on, and nearer, nearer these good ships came, until they
were close to the piles of London Bridge.
Then they stopped a moment, still under the rain of stones and spears and
arrows, and the Danish soldiers wondered what it meant. They could not
see the thick, strong cables that were wound around the heavy supports of
the bridge. They could not see the soldiers of Olaf lash the other ends
fast to the vessels. But a moment later they understood all they had not
seen. The ships turned with a sudden spurt. The Danish soldiers felt a
mighty tug and pull. The roofed warships darted down the river, and then
was heard the fall of London Bridge.
How joyfully the men of England shouted, for now they could push ahead
and attack the fort. They took it too, and drove the enemy out of the
city. Danish warriors no longer slept under satin covers in the castle
of King Ethelred. Danish songs no longer resounded through the woods of
Kent and Surrey and across the broad, sea-lapped moorlands. The soldiers
routed the Danes and drove them out of the country, and Olaf the boy
viking sailed back to his far, white northland, rejoicing in the thought
that he had saved his kingdom to Ethelred, which he could not have done
but for the fall of London Bridge.
HOW THEY CAME TO HAVE KITE DAY IN CHINA
RETOLD FROM A CHINESE FOLK TALE
(_Physical Education_)
In the lovely province of Kwang Tung, a sage named Ng Chew lived in the
far-off time. He not only was versed in the lore of past and present,
but knew future events as well, and used his knowledge and his power to
benefit mankind.
One night in a vision he saw that a pestilence was about to sweep over
the valley in which he lived, and his first thought was that he must save
his people. He went from house to house telling the news and bidding
every one flee with him to the mountains, and a few hours after he
started on his mission the homes in the lowlands were deserted.
Up on the heights the people were safe in the crisp, clean air. But after
many days had passed they wanted to return to their homes. They thought
of the growth in the rice fields and of the approaching harvest time. “We
have been here long enough,” they declared. “By this time the danger is
over and we ought to go back.” But the wise Ng Chew knew it was not safe
to return, and urged them to stay. There were a few who would not listen
to his words. They started back to the lowlands, and Ng Chew wondered how
he could keep the others on the mountain. Then a happy thought crossed
his mind. He set everybody to making and flying kites, and soon had them
so interested that they were glad to stay.
Days afterward, when he knew the danger was past, he led them back to the
valley. Then they realized what a blessed thing he had done in keeping
them on the mountain, for all who had refused to stay there with him had
died of the pestilence.
The people’s hearts were filled with gratitude toward the man who had
saved them.
“We will honor Ng Chew as long as he lives,” they said. “When his
birthday comes we will all fly kites.”
This they did. Each year, on the birthday of Ng Chew, they left the rice
fields and spent the day flying kites.
The word spread beyond the little valley and from province to province,
until all over the land kite flying marked the birthday of the sage of
Kwang Tung. The wise man died and centuries passed, but still the Chinese
keep Kite Day, honoring him who in the long ago led his people to safety
in the mountains.
THE STORY OF A STONE
BY DAVID STARR JORDAN
(_Science_)
Once on a time, a great many years ago, so many, many years that one
grows very tired in trying to think how long ago it was; in those old
days when the great Northwest consisted of a few ragged and treeless
hills, full of copper and quartz, bordered by a dreary waste of sand
flats, over which the Gulf of Mexico rolled its warm and turbid waters
as far north as Escanaba and Eau Claire; in the days when Marquette
Harbor opened out towards Baffin’s Bay, and the Northern Ocean washed the
crest of Mount Washington and wrote its name upon the Pictured Rocks;
when the tide of the Pacific, hemmed in by no snow-capped Sierras,
came rushing through the Golden Gate between the Ozarks and the north
peninsula of Michigan, and swept over Plymouth Rock and surged up against
Bunker Hill; in the days when it would have been fun to study geography,
for there were no capitals, nor any products, and all the towns were
seaports—in fact, an immensely long time ago there lived somewhere in
the northeastern part of the state of Wisconsin, not far from the city
of Oconto, a little jellyfish. It was a curious little fellow, about the
shape of half an apple, and the size of a pin’s head; and it floated
around in the water, and ate little things, and opened and shut its
umbrella pretty much as the jellyfishes do now on a sunny day off Nahant
Beach when the tide is coming in. It had a great many little feelers that
hung down all around like so many little snakes; so it was named Medusa,
after a queer woman who lived a long while ago, when all sorts of stories
were true. She wore snakes instead of hair, and used to turn people into
stone images if they dared to make faces at her. So this little Medusa
floated around, and opened and shut her umbrella for a good while,—a
month or two, perhaps; we don’t know how long. Then one morning, down
among the seaweeds, she laid a whole lot of tiny eggs, transparent as
crab-apple jelly, and smaller than the dewdrop on the end of a pine leaf.
That was the last thing she did; then she died, and our story henceforth
concerns only one of those little eggs.
One day the sun shone down into the water—the same sun that shines over
the Oconto sawmills now—and touched these eggs with life; and a little
fellow whom we will call Favosites, because that was his name, woke up
inside the egg, and came out into the world. He was only a little piece
of floating jelly, shaped like a cartridge pointed at both ends, or like
a grain of barley, although very much smaller. He had a great number of
little paddles on his sides. These kept flapping all the time, so that
he was constantly in motion. And at night all these little paddles shone
with a rich green light, to show him the way through the water. It would
have done you good to see them some night when all the little fellows had
their lamps burning at once, and every wave as it rose and fell was all
aglow with Nature’s fireworks, which do not burn the fingers and leave no
smell of sulphur.
So the little Favosites kept scudding along in the water, dodging from
one side to the other to avoid the ugly creatures that tried to eat him.
There were crabs and clams of a fashion neither you nor I shall ever see
alive. There were huge animals with great eyes, savage jaws like the beak
of a snapping turtle and surrounded by long feelers. They sat in the end
of a long, round shell, shaped like a length of stove pipe, and glowered
like an owl in a hollow log; and there were smaller ones that looked like
lobsters in a dinner horn. But none of these caught the little fellow,
else I should not have had this story to tell.
At last, having paddled about long enough, Favosites thought of settling
in life. So he looked around till he found a flat bit of shell that just
suited him. Then he sat down upon it and grew fast, like old Holger
Danske in the Danish myth, or Frederick Barbarossa in the German one. He
did not go to sleep, however, but proceeded to make himself a home. He
had no head, but between his shoulders he made an opening which would
serve him for mouth and stomach. Then he put a whole row of feelers out,
and commenced catching little worms and floating eggs and bits of jelly
and bits of lime,—everything he could get,—and cramming them into his
mouth. He had a great many curious ways, but the funniest of them all was
what he did with the bits of lime. He kept taking them in, and tried to
wall himself up inside with them, as a person would “stone a well,” or
as though a man should swallow pebbles and stow them away in his feet
and all around under the skin, till he had filled himself all full with
them, as the man filled Jim Smiley’s frog.
Little Favosites became lonesome all alone in the bottom of that old
ocean among so many outlandish neighbors. So one night, when he was fast
asleep and dreaming as only a coral animal can dream, there sprouted out
from his side, somewhere near where his sixth rib might have been if he
had had any ribs, another little Favosites; and this one very soon began
to eat worms and to wall himself up as if for dear life. Then from these
two another and another little bud came out, and other little Favosites
were formed. They all kept growing up higher and cramming themselves
fuller and fuller of stone, till at last there were so many and they were
so crowded together that there was not room for them to grow round, and
so they had to become six-sided like the cells of a honeycomb. Once in
a while some one in the company would feel jealous because the others
got more of the worms, or would feel uneasy at sitting still so long and
swallowing lime. Such a one would secede from the little union without
even saying “good-by,” and would put on the airs of the grandmother
Medusa, and would sail around in the water, opening and shutting its
umbrella, at last laying more eggs, which for all we know may have
hatched out into more Favosites.
So the old Favosites died, or ran away, or were walled up by the younger
ones, and new ones filled their places, and the colony thrived for a long
while, until it had accumulated a large stock of lime.
But one day there came a freshet in the Menominee River, or in some other
river, and piles of dirt and sand and mud were brought down, and all the
little Favosites’ mouths were filled with it. This they did not like, and
so they died; but we know that the rock house they were building was not
spoiled, for we have it here. But it was tumbled about a good deal in the
dirt, and the rolling pebbles knocked the corners off, and the mud worked
into the cracks, and its beautiful color was destroyed. There it lay in
the mud for ages, till the earth gave a great, long heave that raised
Wisconsin out of the ocean, and the mud around our little Favosites
packed and dried into hard rock and closed it in. So it became part of
the dry land, and lay embedded in the rocks for centuries and centuries,
while the old-fashioned ferns grew above it, and whispered to it strange
stories of what was going on above ground in the land where things were
living.
Then the time of the first fishes came, and the other animals looked in
wonder at them, as the Indians looked on Columbus. Some of them were like
the little gar-pike of our river here, only much larger,—big as a stove
pipe, and with a crust as hard as a turtle’s. Then there were sharks, of
strange forms, and some of them had teeth like bowie knives, with tempers
to match. And the time of the old fishes came and went, and many more
times came and went, but still Favosites lay in the ground at Oconto.
Then came the long, hot, wet summer, when the mists hung over the earth
so thick that you might have had to cut your way through them with a
knife; and great ferns and rushes, big as an oak and tall as a steeple,
grew in the swamps of Indiana and Illinois. Their green plumes were
so long and so densely interwoven that the Man in the Moon might have
fancied that the earth was feathering out. Then all about, huge reptiles,
with jaws like the gates of doom and teeth like cross-cut saws, and
little reptiles with wings like bats, crawled, and swam, and flew.
But the ferns died, and the reptiles died, and the rush trees fell in
the swamps, and the Illinois and the Sangamon and the Wabash and all
the other rivers covered them up. They stewed away under layers of clay
and sand, till at last they turned into coal and wept bitter tears of
petroleum. But all this while Favosites lay in the rocks in Wisconsin.
Then the mists cleared away, and the sun shone, and the grass began to
grow, and strange animals came from somewhere or nowhere to feed upon it.
There were queer little striped horses, with three or four hoofs on each
foot, and no bigger than a Newfoundland dog, but as smart as ever you
saw. There were great hairy elephants, with teeth like sticks of wood.
There were hogs with noses so long that they could sit on their hind legs
and root. And there were many still stranger creatures which no man ever
saw alive. But still Favosites lay in the ground and waited.
And the long, long summer passed by, and the autumn, and the Indian
summer. At last the winter came, and it snowed and snowed, and it was so
cold that the snow did not go off till the Fourth of July. Then it snowed
and snowed till the snow did not go off at all. And then it became so
cold that it snowed all the time, till the snow covered the animals, and
then the trees, and then the mountains. Then it would thaw a little, and
streams of water would run over the snow. Then it would freeze again, and
the snow would pack into solid ice. So it went on snowing and thawing and
freezing, till nothing but snowbanks could be seen in Wisconsin, and most
of Indiana was fit only for a skating rink. And the animals and plants
which could get away, all went south to live, and the others died and
were frozen into the snow.