Water now is turned to stone All the pretty things put by We may see how all things are— How am I to sing your praise, What we like about so fine a little poem as this is that it sets our thoughts to flying. As we read it, we see autumn coming on, with the red and the gold and the orange tinting the leaves. We can hear the last notes of the birds as they wing their way through the soft blue sky to gayer places in the warm southland. The cold comes fast, and in the morning, as we try to play ball or gather the ripe nuts from the hazel bushes, our thumbs tingle with the frost. The little Scotch boy sees his robin, a little bird with a reddish-yellow breast, come to his window, and hears the cawing of the rooks. We in the United States can hear the rough voice of the blue jay, or perhaps see the busy downy woodpecker tapping industriously at the suet we have hung in the tree for him. A few days later the water in the pond becomes hard as stone, and we can walk over its smooth, glittering surface, or, if we are old enough, can make our way back and forth in widening circles to the music of our ringing skates. When the cold grows too severe and our cheeks burn in the wind, we can run inside, curl up in a big chair where it is warm and cheery, and, burying our faces in our favorite books, can see once more the little waves dancing on the pebbly shore of the pond, and hear the babble of the brook. What can we find in the books? Everything that makes life merry, and everything that helps us to be true and manly. Out in the pasture the sheep are grazing, and among them walk the shepherds, singing gaily to the wide sky and the bright sun. When, perchance, a frisking lamb strays near the woods where perils lie, the shepherd follows, and with the crook at the end of his staff draws the wanderer back to safety. These wonderful books of ours will carry us across the seas, even. We, for instance, might go to Scotland and play with the boy Stevenson. What a delight it would be; for the man who can write so charmingly about children must have been a wonderfully interesting boy to play with. And the cities we should see-quaint old Edinburgh, with its big, frowning castle on the top of that high rugged hill, and in the castle yard, old Mons Meg, the big cannon that every Scotch lad feels that he must crawl into. If that is too far away from us, we will come back to Boston, and walk through the Common, and hear again the Yankee boys bravely complaining to General Gage because the British soldiers have trampled down the snow fort the youngsters have built. But those are only real things; the more wonderful things are the flying fairies whose deeds we may read in this very book. But how can we write in prose the praise of the picture story-books when Stevenson thinks he cannot do it in his pretty rhymes? Moreover, we have just found out that the poet's chimney corner is filled with the little ones who can read only the simplest things, and need big, fine pictures and easy words. He was not writing for us at all—but that does not matter. His little poem pleases us just the same. Let us turn back and read it again-I suspect that, after all, we are all of us small enough to sit in a chimney corner; and perhaps every book is but a picture story-book to the man or woman who is old enough and big enough to read it rightly. HOW THE WOLF WAS BOUND Adapted by ANNA MCCALEB T seems strange that any one who might have lived with the gods in their beautiful city of Asgard' and have shared in their joys and their good works should have preferred to associate with the ugly, wicked giants. But that was the case with Loki-Red Loki, as he was called, because of his red hair. He was handsome like a god; he was wise and clever like a god-more clever than any of the other gods. In one way, however, he differed from the others; he had a bad heart, and liked much better to use his cleverness in getting gods and men into trouble than in making them happy. Besides this, he was very proud, and could not bear to submit even to Odin, the king of the gods. "Who is Odin," he muttered, "that he should be set over me? Is he more clever than I am? Is he more handsome, with his one eye and his gray beard?" And Loki held his handsome head high. Proud as he was, however, he was not too proud to do a disgraceful thing. He went off to the home of the giants and married the ugliest and fiercest of all the giantesses. Just why he did it does not seem 1. The Norse peoples believed that their gods lived above the earth in a wonderful city named Asgard. From this city they crossed to the earth on a bridge, which by people on earth was known as the rainbow. 2. Odin, chief of the Norse gods, had been induced to part with one eve in exchange for wisdom. very clear, for he certainly could not have loved her. Perhaps he did it just to spite the other gods and to show them that he cared nothing for what they thought. But he must have repented of his act when he saw the children which the giantess bore him, for they were certainly the most hideous and frightful children that were ever born into the world. The daughter, Hela, was the least awful, but even she was by no means a person one would care to meet. She was half white and half blue, and she had such gloomy, angry eyes that any one who looked at her sank into unconquerable sadness and finally into death. But the other two! One was a huge, glistening, scaly serpent, with a mouth that dripped poison, and glaring, beady eyes; and the other was a white-fanged, red-eyed wolf. These two monsters grew so rapidly that the king of the gods, looking down from his throne in the heavens, was struck with fear. "The gods themselves will not be safe if those monsters are allowed to go unchecked," he said. "Down there in the home of the giants they will be taught to hate the gods, and at the rate they're growing, they'll soon be strong enough to shake our very palaces." He sent, therefore, the strongest of his sons to fetch the children of Loki before him. Well was it for those gathered about Odin's throne that they were gods and goddesses, else would the eyes of Hela have sent them to their death. Upon her, Odin looked more in pity than in anger-she was not all bad. "You, Hela," he said, "although it is not safe to |