AF

AFTERWHILE*

By JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

FTERWHILE we have in view The old home to journey to: Where the Mother is, and where Her sweet welcome waits us there. How we'll click the latch that locks In the pinks and hollyhocks, And leap up the path once more Where she waits us at the door; How we'll greet the dear old smile And the warm tears-afterwhile.

*From the poem to Afterwhiles by James Whitcomb Riley. Used by special permission of the publishers-The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

WINDY NIGHTS

By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

WHE

HENEVER the moon and stars are set,

Whenever the wind is high,

All night long in the dark and wet,

A man goes riding by.

Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.

By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.

OOK you, now we're going to begin. When we are at the end of the story we shall know more than we do now, for he was a bad goblin. He was one of the very worst, for he was a demon. One day he was in very good spirits,

for he had made a mirror which had this peculiarity, that everything good and beautiful that was reflected in it shrank together into almost nothing, but that whatever was worthless and looked ugly became prominent and looked worse

than ever. The most lovely landscapes seen in this mirror looked like boiled spinach, and the best people became hideous, or stood on their heads and had no bodies; their faces were so distorted as to be unrecognizable, and a single freckle was shown spread out over nose and mouth. That was very amusing, the demon said. When good, pious thoughts passed through any person's mind these were again shown in the mirror, so that the demon chuckled at his artistic invention.

Those who visited the goblin school-for he kept a goblin school-declared everywhere that a wonder had been wrought. For now, they asserted, one could see, for the first time, how the world and the people in it really looked. Now they wanted to fly up to heaven, to sneer and scoff at the angels themselves. The higher they flew with the mirror, the more it grinned; they could scarcely hold it fast. They flew higher and higher, and then the mirror trembled so terribly amid its grinning that it fell down out of their hands to the earth, where it was shattered into a hundred million million and more fragments.

And now this mirror occasioned much more unhappiness than before; for some of the fragments were scarcely as large as a barleycorn, and these flew about in the world, and whenever they flew into any one's eye they stuck there, and that person saw everything wrongly, or had only eyes for the bad side of a thing, for every little fragment of the mirror had retained the power which the whole glass possessed. A few persons even got a fragment of the mirror into their hearts, and that was terrible indeed, for such a heart became a block of ice. A

few fragments of the mirror were so large that they were used as window panes, but it was a bad thing to look at one's friends through these panes; other pieces were made into spectacles, and then it went badly when people put on these spectacles to see rightly, and to be just; and then the demon laughed till his paunch shook, for it tickled him so. But without, some little fragments of glass still floated about in the air-and now we shall hear

I

THE SECOND STORY

A Little Boy and a Little Girl

N the great town, where there are many houses, and so many people that there is not room enough for every one to have a little garden, and where consequently most persons are compelled to be content with flowers in pots, were two poor children who possessed a garden somewhat larger than a flowerpot. They were not brother and sister, but they loved each other quite as much as if they had been. Their parents lived just opposite each other in two garrets, there where the roof of one neighbor's house joined that of another. And where the water pipe ran between the two houses was a little window; one had only to step across the pipe to get from one window to the other.

The parents of each child had a great box, in which grew kitchen herbs that they used, and a little rosebush; there was one in each box, and they grew famously. Now, it occurred to the parents to place the boxes across the pipe. so that they reached

from one window to another, and looked quite like two embankments of flowers. Pea plants hung down over the boxes, and the rosebushes shot forth long twigs, which clustered round the windows and bent down toward each other; it was almost like a triumphal arch of flowers and leaves. As the boxes were very high, and the children knew that they might not creep upon them, they often obtained permission to step out upon the roof behind the boxes, and to sit upon their little stools under the roses, and there they could play capitally.

over.

In the winter time there was an end of this amusement. The windows were sometimes quite frozen But then they warmed copper shillings on the stove, and held the warm coins against the frozen pane; and this made a capital peep-hole, so round! so round! and behind it gleamed a pretty mild eye at each window; and these eyes belonged to the little boy and the little girl. His name was Kay and the little girl's was Gerda.

In the summer they could get to one another at one bound; but in the winter they had to go down and up the long staircase, while the snow was pelting without.

"Those are the white bees swarming," said the old grandmother.

She

"Have they a queen bee?" asked the little boy. For he knew that there is one among the real bees. "Yes, they have one," replied grandmamma. "She always flies where they swarm thickest. is the largest of them all, and never remains quiet upon the earth; she flies up again into the black cloud. Many a midnight she is flying through the streets of the town, and looks in at the windows,