A CHEERFUL SUPPER.
Vishnu was walking home from the vegetable fields, where he had been working all day long in the hot 
sun. He had
turned the great Persian wheel to get water from the well; he had dug water channels; he had spread 
the trails of the
sweet potatoes; he had taken a big load of marrows to the market. Now he was tired, but he was happy.
Although Vishnu grew vegetables, he seldom ate them. He was poor and he had to live mostly on bread. 
To-day his
master had given him a marrow and a large tomato. He had a little salt and some spice and chillies in 
a piece of
paper, and he had an onion.
" What a delicious supper I shall have!" thought Vishnu. " I will slice my onion and tomato and cook 
them with my
marrow. Then I will season them with the salt and spice and chillies and eat them with the bread I 
have at home. The
headman of the village will not have a better feast. I wish I could begin."
Passing a tree he heard a noise. Two birds were fluttering near a branch, and he could hear little 
cheeps. " That must
be a jay's nest," thought Vishnu. " I will get one of the young ones. My master's son wants a jay for 
a pet. "
Vishnu put his basket down on the road and climbed the tree. He was half-way up when he saw a stray 
goat come
along and poke her head into the basket. He scrambled down quickly, but the goat ran away and took 
the marrow
with her.
" Well, well," said Vishnu, " I will have spiced onion and tomato. What could be better? " As he 
spoke he laughed,
and swung his basket. Out fell his tomato, and the next moment he had stepped on it and squashed it.
" Ah, well, " he said, " I will make a little
chutney with spice and salt and chillies, and shall be content with that and the onion and my bread. "
Presently he came to a stream with stepping-stones over it. An old woman
carrying a heavy bundle was crossing. When she reached the middle of the stream, she called out that 
she was
slipping. Vishnu ran
to help her, and in saving her bundle he dropped his own basket. He helped her to the bank and then 
jumped into the
water to get his basket. The salt was all melted and the chillies and spice were washed away.
Nothing was now left in the basket but the onion. " Well," said Vishnu, " I shall have onion and 
bread for supper to-night. Last night I had only bread. And to-morrow morning it will not matter what I had."
-From Longmans' "Shining Hours" Series. (Adapted.)

DON QUIXOTE AND THE WINDMILLS.
Don Quixote was a kindly Spanish gentleman who had some strange ideas about knights and knighthood. 
He was
always reading stories about knights riding forth to
right the wrong; and at last he made up his mind to become a knight himself.
To do this he must have a suit of armour, horse, and a squire or servingman. In his lumber room he 
found  a rusty old
suit of armour once worn by his great-grandfather. This he cleaned and polished and, when he had 
struggled into it, he
felt that he was indeed a true knight. The only horse to be had was the one in his stable - a poor, broken-winded old 
animal with every
rib in its body showing. Don Quixote was certain, however, that, once it set out on its noble mission, 
Rozinante, as he
called it, would equal any famous steed of old.
He next asked an honest workman he knew, named Sancho Panza, if he would come with him. With promises 
of great
adventures and of 
an island, of which Sancho would perhaps be king, Don Quixote persuaded him to become his squire. When 
everything
was ready, the two stole quietly away, Don Quixote mounted on Rozinante and Sancho Panza riding 
Dapple, a small donkey.
Before very long they reached the top of a  hill, from which they saw, across the wide  plain below 
them, thirty or
forty windmills. " Friend Sancho," said Don Quixote, " we are in luck to-day. Look at that troop of
giants over there. I
must attack and slay them. It will be doing a good service to rid the world of that race of villains."
" Giants! " said Sancho in surprise, "I can't see any giants! "
"There they are over there," said his master, " waving their great arms. Some giants have arms six 
miles long."
" But, sir," said Sancho, " those are not giants. They are windmills; and their arms,
as you call them, are the sails which, driven by the wind, set the millstones going."
" It is clear," said Don Quixote, " that you still have much to learn in this life of  adventure. Of 
course those are giants.
And if you are afraid, stand aside while I go alone to attack them." With these words
he set spurs to Rozinante and thundered across the plain, shouting at the top of his voice, "Ho!  Cowards! 
Don't run; it is
only a
single knight who comes to fight you. "
At that moment a puff of wind set all the
great sails of the windmills in motion. " Oh! Swing your arms! " cried Don Quixote. " If you had a hundred of them I would 
make you pay for it." Covering himself with his shield and grasping his long 
lance, he charged
full gallop at the nearest windmill and ran his lance 
through the sail. The wind whirled the sail round so fast that the lance was split to shivers, and horse 
and rider were
thrown with terrific force to the ground.
Sancho had come up as fast as his donkey
could trot, and he found his master lying
very still beside his steed. " Didn't I tell you that these things were windmills and not giants? " said Sancho. 
" Nobody could 
mistake them unless he had another whirligig in
his head. "
"Be quiet, Sancho," replied Don Quixote. "I am certain that some wicked enchanter has been at work. He has 
changed the
giants into windmills, to rob me of the glory of victory; but I will not be beaten. I will yet put an end to all his evil deeds. "
" I hope so, I'm sure," said Sancho,
helping his master to get up and then to mount Rozinante, whose bones had been badly shaken by the 
fall. Then off
the pair rode in search of further adventures.
From this story of Don Quixote, people who worry about troubles that do not exist
are said to be " fighting against windmills."

MARY AT THE DENTIST'S.
"How do you do, Mary! " said Mr. Shrubsole, and he shook hands politely. Mary sat in the red velvet chair, and Florrie, the 
nurse, 
tied the bib round
her neck.
" Now," said Mr. Shrubsole quietly, " open your mouth, Mary. That's right. " Mr. Shrubsole moved his little looking-glass about 
inside Mary's mouth. "Is this the bad tooth?" he asked. Mary nodded.

MARY HAS THE TOOTHACHE.

' Yes," said Mr. Shrubsole at last, in a considering way. " Yes." He put down the looking-glass, 
and looked out of
the window, with his hands in the pockets of his white coat. Florrie gave Mary some warm water in a 
glass. It had a
nice smell, and Mary enjoyed washing her mouth and spitting into the glass bowl that went round and 
round. She
thought it was all over.
" I should really advise extraction," said Mr. Shrubsole, speaking to Push, Mary's aunty. Mary did 
not understand
what he meant. She was wondering why Florrie had not untied the bib.
"Oh," said Push, "would you?"
Mary was growing hungry. She thought of 
the roast chicken which Push had said they would have afterwards.
"Thank you, " said Mary to Mr. Shrubsole.
"I think we ought to go now. Will you make the 
chair come down?"
"Wait a minute, Mary," said Push. She
came close to the chair and took Mary's hand. "Mr. Shrubsole thinks the tooth ought to come out."
Mary grew very red. " I don't want it out," she said firmly.
"It won't hurt her, will it?" Push asked Mr.
Shrubsole.
"No, I think I can do it without it hurting her
at all."
"I don't want you to pull it out," said Mary, still more firmly.
"Oh, Mary," Push pleaded, " why not?
It won't hurt, and you'll never have any more trouble."
"But it's a double tooth," said Mary,
"and Edie says it always hurts when they are 
pulled out-hurts dreadfully."
" I won't hurt you," said Mr. Shrubsole.
"Come, be a brave little girl," whispered Florrie, stroking Mary's curls. " We had a little girl here yesterday, and she was ever so 
brave."
"Why must I be brave, if it won't hurt?" asked Mary.
Push and Florrie laughed a little at this, but Mr. Shrubsole said, " Everybody is a little 
afraid of things they don't know about." "Like wild tigers? " asked Mary.
"Yes, like that."
"Who would bang the door," said Mary, "you or Florrie, or would Push? "
"The door, Mary dear?" said Push. "What do you mean ? "
" Edie said you would tie a string round my tooth, and tie the other end to the door handle, and then 
somebody would
bang the door, and the tooth would come out."
" H'm," said Mr. Shrubsole, " so that's the trouble. Let me see, Mary, you are ten, aren't you? 
You are not a baby
any longer, and I am not going to treat you as one. To begin with, you can put all that about doors 
banging and
strings out of your head. We don't do that here. I shall prick your gum with a needle. You will feel 
that, and it will hurt
a little for a second, and after that you will feel nothing."
"Truly?"
"Truly. "
"It's my own tooth," said Mary.
"Of course it is," said Mr. Shrubsole, "and you must decide the matter yourself. Now what do you think 
of this idea?"
" What idea? "
" Here is my watch, a gold one, as you see, and it has a gold chain, pure gold the watch and the 
chain, and quite
precious. Now, if you agree, I will let you hold my watch and chain while I take out your tooth, and 
if you can
honestly say I hurt, you may keep them."
" For ever ?" gasped Mary.
" Yes, for ever, but only if you can honestly say I hurt you. Do you understand? "
" Yes, I understand. It sounds quite fair. Give me the watch. Does it matter if I hold it very tight ? "
"No," said Mr. Shrubsole.
After the tooth was out, Mary solemnly handed the watch and chain to Mr. Shrubsole.
" You are a very truthful man, " she said.
Mr. Shrubsole did not praise. Mary; it was not his way; but he gave her the double tooth wrapped in 
pink cotton wool,
in a  dear little cardboard box.
" Oh ! I am so hungry," said Mary. " Can we go and have the roast chicken now? "
"Remember to bite on the other side," said Mr. Shrubsole.
-Adapted from " John and Mary,' by GRACE JAMES. (Muller.)

IN A CHINESE COURTYARD.
Once upon a time, and not so very long ago either, there lived in a little village in China a 
small girl whose name was Moon Flower, and a small boy whose name was
Golden Boy. They were twins, and they
lived with their grandmother and their father 
and mother and a baby brother, in a little Chinese house, in a big Chinese yard, with a   high mud 
wall all round it.
There was a wide gateway in the wall, and if you slipped through., and peeped round the great screen 
built just inside the opening, this is what you would see. Right
before your eyes would be the house where Golden Boy and Moon Flower lived; and, if you were lucky, 
their baby brother, Little Duck, might be playing in the dirt before
their door. There would be other children playing about in the dirt, too, for there were two more 
houses in that big yard, and in one of them lived four cousins, and the
Twins' aunt and uncle. No one lived in the third house. It was full of piles of straw, baskets of grain, heaps of fuel for 
the fire, and all kinds of farm tools. Everybody in the village thought the
Chang family very lucky, because among all the seven children living in that big yard there
were only two girls, Moon Flower, and her little cousin, Plum Blossom. All the rest were boys, and in 
China boys are thought to be
much more valuable than girls could ever be.
Plum Blossom's eldest brother was thirteen years old, and was called Great Scholar, because he had been 
away to school, and had learned to read and write. That was
more than
 his father and mother could do, or the
 twins' father and mother, either, for that
matter. There was, in fact, hardly anyone else
 in that whole village that could read or
write.
Moon Flower and Golden Boy thought that learning must be the most wonderful thing in the world, because 
everyone in the Chang family, and even in the whole village, was
so proud of Great Scholar. He was never asked to 
do any work about the farm when he was at home for the holidays. Instead, when the Twins or the other 
children weeded in the fields, or gathered fuel, or fed  the pig, or
helped to plait straw for hats to sell, Great Scholar did whatever he pleased. Moreover, he
wore good clothes every day, and the best things to eat were always put in his rice bowl. Moon Flower 
and Golden Boy wished with all their might that they could learn to
read and write, so that they, too, could wear their best clothes every day, and have all the best things to eat. But that was one 
thing that did not seem at all likely to happen. In the first place, 
everyone in that village would have said that one scholar was all
that one family could possibly need. Even if they could afford to have more, one of them could 
never, never be a girl, because at that time girls in China were 
not supposed to know anything except how to cook and sew and mind babies.
One sunny afternoon, Moon Flower and Little Duck were playing in the courtyard in front of their 
house. Moon Flower bouncing Little Duck up and down on her
back in time to the song she was singing.
Every time she swung him down at the end of the song, Little Duck would scream, "More! more! " and then, 
holding fast to Moon Flower's long plait, he would scramble up her
back again. Over and over they
played this game.
Back in the cool shadow of the house wall, Grandmother Chang sat on an overturned basket with a heap 
of straw beside her. She was weaving the golden
strands into long strips of beautiful straw braid for making hats. On another overturned basket sat 
Mama Chang, who was also weaving straw.
By and by, Moon Flower's song had stopped, and Little Duck was down on his hands and knees in the 
dirt, pulling the tail of Blue Dragon, the cat, as she lay asleep
in the sunshine. Then Blue Dragon sprang to
her feet, humped up her back, and scratched Little Duck a long long scratch, right on his little fat 
arm. Then she scampered away and hid behind the wheat baskets
in the store house. You should have heard Little Duck! Mama Chang hurried towards him as fast as she could on her tiny 
bound feet, but Moon Flower could run much faster because
her feet were not bound. She reached Little Duck first and picked him up, and stuck his thumb in his 
mouth to stop the noise that was coming out of it. When Mama Chang sat down, Moon Flower put him on 
her lap, and his mother patted him and sang to him, just
like any mother anywhere in the world.
Even Grandma Chang had a soft spot in
her heart for Little Duck. In fact, Grandma Chang had soft spots in her heart for all the boys in the 
family. She dropped her plait
 of straw, took his little bare toes in her hand, and this is what she said to him:
This little cows eats grass, This little cow eats hay,
This little cow drinks water, This little cow runs away.
This little cow does nothing
But just lie down all day . . . We'll whip her!
and when she said, " We'll whip her! " she tickled his toes so that Little Duck took his thumb out of 
his mouth and laughed and laughed.
All that afternoon, Moon Flower had been longing to follow Golden Boy to the fields, but every time 
she had edged towards the gate, Grandmother's sharp black eyes had been
upon her, and Grandmother's voice had called her back to take charge of Little Duck.
" Now is my chance," thought Moon Flower to herself, when she saw her mother and grandmother both 
bending over Little Duck. " I'll just go quietly towards the straw stack,
and slip behind it, and then out of the gate. "
By this time, Grandmother was beginning all over again with Little Duck's toes. Moon Flower watched 
her chance, and when Grandmother got as far as " This little cow runs
away," Moon Flower suddenly popped behind the straw stack, and was out of sight in a jiffy.
---Abridged from the "Chinese Twins," by LUCY  FITCH PERKINS. (Jonathan Cape.)

THE HOOKED RUG.
Once, a good long time ago, there lived in the town of Boston in America a ten-year-old girl named Lucy. She was a dear little 
girl, loving and kind, but she was looking rather peaked and pale, and it was decided that she should have a long holiday. She left 
her father and mother and went to live on a farm with her Aunt Harriet and 
Uncle Will.
Lucy was soon very happy with her aunt and uncle. In the evening she loved to sit beside Uncle Will 
on her little stool
in the big kitchen, perhaps quietly reading from a little story-book that he had brought her from 
town, or perhaps
making a new dress for her dolly, who had come with her in her box all the way from Boston.
On the hearth there was a large hooked rug, which Aunt Harriet had made years before. It was bright 
blue with "Welcome to Our Home " written across it in black letters; and Lucy loved to hear her aunt tell how 
the blue
background was made out of the Sunday coat of Uncle Will's father.
" I wonder if I shall ever be able to make a hooked rug like that! " said Lucy one evening.
" There's no reason why you shouldn't make one now," said her aunt, "if you'd really like to. I 
believe I have a piece of
hessian somewhere, and I'm sure I could find some bits of stuff to work it with. It's not hard: only 
a matter of patience.
You could make a little one, and take it home for a present to your mother."
Lucy was delighted at the idea, and the rug was started the very next day. After a great deal of thinking 
and talking it over,
she decided that she would like to have "Forget-me-not " on her rug. She had made up her mind, also, not to 
wait till she
went home to give it to her mother, but to send it for her birthday, which was in a month's time.
Uncle Will helped Lucy to plan out the letters, and Aunt Harriet gave her a bundle of odds and ends of 
stuff to work with. At first Lucy found  it very hard work, but she became better and quicker at it; and it looked as if she would 
finish the rug in time.
Indeed, she worked so hard that often she had to be driven out of doors into the sunshine; she could 
hardly be
persuaded to leave the rug. The letters were done, and the outer part of the background was done. There remained only
the inside piece of background round the letters. For this Aunt Harriet had found some pieces of 
material left over from a
pair of trousers, which she had made for Uncle Will a year or two before. He was still wearing them.
" And what shall I do for a patch if I tear a big hole in them? " he asked Lucy gravely.
Lucy looked grave, too. "I'll try to leave a piece over," she said. "But I'm afraid it will be only a 
very little piece. You must be very careful not to tear a big hole, Uncle Will."
But when the rug was nearly finished, it became clear that no stuff would be left over
for that patch. Uncle Will's trousers would have to be mended with something else if he tore them. Worse than that! The day 
before the rug should 
be sent
away, Lucy found that there would not even be enough of that particular stuff to finish the 
background. Her aunt
searched everywhere, but not another scrap could she find; nor had she anything else that could be 
used without
spoiling the whole effect.
Poor Lucy sat with her precious rug on her knees, while the tears trickled down her cheeks. When her 
uncle came in,
he was told the sad tale. He was very much upset at seeing his little Lucy so sad.
" I don't think it would look so bad with a bit of this grey worked in," said Aunt Harriet. " In any 
case, I know your
mother will think it most beautiful, as, indeed, it will be." But Lucy shook her head unhappily, and 
said nothing. Her
aunt went out to the dairy.
"It seems a real pity, it does," said Uncle Will. " But don't cry. I've thought of something. Come with me."
He led the way to the tool-shed. " Now, how much stuff do you need? " he asked.
" Only a little bit," said Lucy; "but, Uncle Will, it isn't any use, there isn't any, really.
 Uncle Will was groping in the tool box.
Presently he drew out a large pair of scissors.
Lucy stared. What could he be about? In
a moment she knew, for he stooped down and,
while she watched in horrified silence, he cut
about four inches off the bottom of one of his trouser legs.
" There you are!" he said, holding the cut-off piece out to her. " Off you go now and finish the rug."
"Oh, dear, what will Aunt Harriet say?" said Lucy half crying and half laughing, for her uncle looked very funny with one long 
trouser leg and one short one.
" You leave that to me," said Uncle Will. "Run along with that, and if it isn't enough you can have a bit 
off the other. I may
as well be even. "
There was no need to cut off the other piece. The rug was finished and sent off the next day to Boston. For the 
rest of that year,
however, and indeed for several more
years, Uncle Will went about the farm with one trouser leg about four inches shorter than other. I don't 
think his wife
scolded him much. After all, the trousers were his and it was he that had to wear them; and in time they became a family joke.
-Retold from the story by ROSE FYLEMAN, in " Child Education." (Evans Bros.)
  
NECK OR NOTHING.
(A Story in Rhyme.)
Jimmy Giraffe was given a scarf by his aunt, who was named Araminta. " You'll find it," she wrote, " 
as good as a coat, so see that you wear it in winter; and please send a
snap of yourself in the wrap which I hope to have put in the press. My love to your ma and your 
sister and pa, Your loving Aunt Minta.-P.S., I hope you'll take care of the scarf,
and not tear it or throw it about for my sake. I'm sure you will know, or you ought to do so, it has taken me ages to make."
 Now you have only to glance at our Jim, and at once you will notice his very shy face. The delicate 
curve of his nostrils,  is a sign of his elegant race.
The scarf with its hues of bright yellows and blues gave Jimmy a terrible shock. That pattern of check adorning his neck would 
cause all the others to mock. A giraffe with a scarf would make people laugh, for his neck, as 
I've no need to
mention, is hardly the feature to which the poor creature wishes to draw much attention.
 So Jimmy sat down and with pen and with frown he wrote to his auntie a letter:  "I thank you," it went, "for  the scarf
you have sent, and  trust that your health is much  better. Now, knowing the way  you like day by day 
to be kind  to
the sick and the poor, I've  given your wrap to a poor little  chap - a jellyfish down on the  shore. I really do wish you 
could see that poor fish as he  shivers from morning till night. If you saw - but you can't - you would say, My dear Aunt, that 
your nephew has done what is right. I hope that your cat is quite well and all that. I trust 
that the weather is
pleasant. I hope you don't mind, and I hope this will find you quite well as it leaves me, at present."
Now please shed a tear, for Jimmy, I fear, is now a complete nervous wreck.
" Dear Jim," wrote his aunt, " forgive you I can't. A jellyfish hasn't a neck."
-	From "The Merry-go-Round." (Altered.)

CAMPING OUT.
 The Walker children, John, Susan, Titty, and Roger, were spending their holidays on a farm on the shore of a lake; and their 
mother had said they could go camping on a little island in the lake. Away they sailed in their yacht, 
Swallow, with John
as captain; Susan, mate; Titty, able-seaman; and seven-year-old Roger, ship's boy. They called 
themselves a party of
explorers, and all the ordinary people living round the lake were the natives.
Safely landed on the island, the explorers chose a spot for their camp, and before long  they had 
something looking
really like a
camp. There were two tents slung between pairs of trees, and in the open space the fire was burning merrily. 
The kettle had
boiled and was standing steaming on the
ground. Susan was melting a big pat of
butter in the frying pan. In the pudding basin beside her she had six beaten eggs. Four mugs stood in a row 
on the ground.
" No plates to-day," said Mate Susan. "We all eat out of the common dish."
"But it isn't a common dish," said Roger; "it's a frying pan. "
" Well, we eat out of it, anyway. Egg's terrible stuff for sticking to plates." Susan had now poured the 
eggs into the
sizzling
batter, and was stirring briskly.
"They're beginning to curdle," said Titty, who was watching carefully. " When
they begin to flake you have to keep scraping them 
off the bottom of the pan. "
"They're flaking now," said Susan. "Come on and scrape away."
She put the frying pan on the ground and gave every one a spoon. The captain, mate, and crew of the 
Swallow squatted round the frying pan and began eating as soon as
the scrambled eggs, which were very hot, would let them. Mate Susan had already cut four huge slices 
of brown bread and butter to
eat with the eggs. Then she poured out four mugs of tea. Next there was a big rice pudding, which 
also became a common dish. Then there were four slabs of seed cake,
and lastly apples all round.
After they had finished the eggs and the rice pudding and the brown bread and butter and the seed 
cake and the apples, the mate and the able-seaman did some washing-up. The spoons had to be cleaned and the frying pan 
scraped, and the mugs 
and pudding basin swilled in the lake. The captain and the boy took the telescope
and found a good place above the camp, where they could lie in a hollow and look out without being 
seen. Presently Mate Susan and Able-seaman Titty joined them.
"Everything's ready for to-night," said Susan, "except the beds, and we can't make them till the native brings the 
hay-bags. "
Titty jumped up. " There's a boat coming now?" she said. " Roger, you must be sleepy or you'd have seen it. "
"I'm not sleepy," said Roger. " I wasn't looking. You can be wide awake and not see a thing when you're not looking." ,
Captain John put the telescope to his eye. "It is the powerful native, Mr. Jackson " he said, "and he 
has the female native, Mother, with him."
" Let me look," said Roger. He fixed the telescope to his eye and pointed it the right way. " I can't 
see anything," he said; " it's
black. "
" You've got the cover over the eye-place," said Titty, who knew all about telescopes. "Twist it round, 
and it'll come open again."
" I can see them now," said Roger.
Roger and Titty took turns with the telescope as the boat came nearer. The
captain and the mate went down to the camp to make sure that everything was ready to show the visitors. 
The captain put his big tin box against the back of his tent in the
middle. He took the little barometer out of it and
hung it on the fastener in front of the box. There was nothing else in the tent, so that it was very 
neat indeed.
 Titty and the mate had made their tent much more homelike. In the middle of it were the biscuit tins 
with the food in them. These tins made two seats. Then on each
side of the tent, where their beds were going to be, they had spread out their blankets and folded 
in the tops of them. The cooking things were neatly arranged in one
corner just inside the tent. Outside the tent on the rope on which the tent was hung, two towels 
were drying. Mate Susan put a few more sticks on the fire to make a
cheerful blaze.
 " Well, you have a lovely camp," said the female native, when at last she arrived.
" Isn't it? " said Susan. "Would you like to come inside this tent?" The female native stooped and 
went in. Mr. Jackson dumped down the hay-bags. John and Roger pulled
two into their tent, punched them and shook them until they were fairly flat, and covered them with 
their folded blankets. Then they lay down each on his bed.
Meanwhile Susan and the female native were making up the beds in the other tent. Presently the 
female native put her head in the captain's tent. " You look comfortable
enough in here," she said, " but what are you
going to do when it gets dark ? "
" We ought to have brought two lanterns," said John. " I forgot about that."
"I've brought you two small candle lanterns, one for each tent, if you will promise to be careful with 
them and not set the tents or yourselves on fire."
Later on, when the campers had watched
the boat with the natives on board row away, Mate Susan said, " We had better be going to bed before it's quite dark."
"Lights out in half an hour!" said Captain John.
"But we haven't lit our lights yet," said Roger.
" No, but we're just going to," said Captain John, opening his lantern and striking a match. When the lights were lit, the two
tents looked like big paper lanterns glowing in the trees. Shadows moved about inside
them. It always takes some time to get comfortable on a hay-bag the first night. There were voices.
"Are you all right, Titty?"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"What about the boy?"
"He's all right, Mister Mate. Are you ready for lights out?" "Yes!" " Lights out!"
In a few moments the captain, the mate, the able-seaman, and the boy were fast asleep.
-Retold from "Swallows and Amazons," by  ARTHUR RANSOME. (Jonathon Cape.)

THE WILLOW PATTERN.
If any plate ever told a story it is the plate decorated with the blue willow pattern.
The story is an old Chinese one about a lovely maiden called Fafa; her father, the rich mandarin; 
Chang, the young man
whom Fafa loved; and Wang-loo, a rich ugly old man whom the mandarin said Fafa must marry.
Poor Fafa! Chang was her father's secretary but, when the mandarin found she wished to marry him, he 
dismissed the young man and forbade him to come near the house. We see the mandarin's mansion on the right hand side of the 
plate. We 
can see
also where
Chang went - to the cottage on a little island in the lake on the left side of the plate.
Shut up in her room, Fafa sat at the window, watching the willow tree at the end of the bridge and the peach trees round the 
house. Her father had said, "Your wedding to Wang-loo shall take place when the willow tree has flowered, and the peach trees 
are in blossom." The willow was already in bloom, and the peach trees were beginning to 
form their buds.
" Cannot Chang do something to save me?" sighed Fafa. At that moment she saw floating in the water towards her a tiny ship; it 
was a coconut shell with a 
small silken sail
fixed to it. By stretching from her window, Fafa was able to pick it up, and in it she found a little 
poem from Chang,
saying he was planning to save her. Fafa sent a message back in the coconut, telling Chang that, 
unless he acted
before the peach trees were in blossom, it would be too late.
The days sped past, and one morning Fafa awoke to find the peach trees a mass of soft pink bloom. She 
knew she
must prepare to marry Wang-loo. The house became all bustle and excitement, and at last Fafa sat 
alone in her
room, dressed in her wedding robes. She was looking sadly across the water towards Chang's cottage.
Suddenly the door opened, and a poor bent beggar stood beside her. He took off the wide-brimmed hat that hid his face, and Fafa 
saw to her surprise and delight that it was Chang. He had paddled his boat across, as 
we see him
doing in the picture, and had got into the mandarin's house in his beggar's disguise.
" Quick! put this smock on over your dress," said Chang. Fafa obeyed, and also took up her distaff 
for spinning, while
Chang carried her box of jewels. Looking like two servants they then slipped unnoticed out of the busy 
house.
But alas! as they ran through the garden, the mandarin saw the flash of Fafa's little golden shoes. 
Snatching up a
whip he gave chase. We see them on the bridge, Fafa first with the distaff, then Chang with the box, 
and
hard on their heels, the mandarin with the whip.
Escape was hopeless. In a moment Chang would be under the lash of the whip, and Fafa would be dragged back to a hateful 
marriage. A friendly spirit watching over the 
lovers saw that there was only one way save them. With a splash Chang's box
 fell into the lake, and two doves rose up into the air and flew away. The amazed mandarin was left 
staring at empty
space.
There are the turtle doves that Fafa and Chang became at the top of the picture. Long and happily 
they lived, as turtle
doves do, safe and far away from the cruel mandarin and the ugly old Wang-loo.
Our second picture is one painted a few months ago. It is called the " Legend of the Willow Pattern." 
We can admire
the detail in it not shown in the original picture; and it is interesting to note little points of 
difference, such as the bird
that Fafa is carrying instead of the distaff, which, anyway, she was never to use for her spinning.

JANE AND HER DOLLS.
There was nothing remarkable about Jane Bargery. She was just an ordinary little girl with brown 
hair, brown eyes and a quiet smile. She had as much fun and mischief
in her as most children, and, if she differed from them at all, it was in her very great kindness. As 
she had more love in her heart than the human beings about her
seemed to need, she showered what was over upon her dolls.
When she was seven she had two dolls, a china doll and a golliwog. The china doll had fine clothes 
and cost a great deal of money - nearly two shillings. Jane had
christened her Selina; why, she didn't quite know, except that she liked the sound of the name. It 
sounded very " swagger," she thought, and seemed to fit the grand
Selina.
As for the golliwog, he was an ugly old thing, who looked capable of any sort of wickedness. Jane 
knew all about his bad ways, and often made him stand in a corner, or go to bed without his supper. She even threatened to 
spank him, but when the time came she always changed her
mind and kissed him instead. In the course of time she found
that she had kissed all the ferocity out of
his face.
One day Jane invited her friend Joan, who had three dolls, to bring them to a dolls' tea party. At first 
the dolls behaved quite nicely.
They did not quarrel; they did not eat too much; they did not speak with their mouths full -nor, indeed, when they were empty. 
The first to disturb 
the party was Jane's golliwog. He became bored and restless and
would not sit up straight. He kept falling sideways and
hurting Joan's best doll, who was called Matilda. She was a doll with very refined manners, but she 
did not complain about the golliwog; she merely wore a pained look
to show that she had been offended. The
golliwog was made to stand in the corner with his face to the wall - a punishment which he took like a man. After that there was 
no more trouble.
Jane could never take Selina and the golliwog out for a proper airing because she had no pram for 
them. That grieved her, for she knew that all dolls liked to be
wheeled about in a pram. She set her wits to work to get one. She was too polite to worry her 
parents, but at the same time she thought they should know of her
trouble. One day, therefore, she said to her brother, loudly enough for her father to hear, " I 
wonder if Daddy is thinking of buying me a pram for my birthday ! "
When her birthday came, sure enough, there was a big parcel waiting for her by the breakfast table. 
She opened it in great excitement, feeling certain it was a doll's
pram. But it was not. It was a doll's push-cart. Jane had hard work to keep back her tears. Seeing, 
however, by her father's face that he expected her to be pleased,
she smiled up at him bravely, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him.
The push-cart was not really a success. It could not comfortably hold two dolls even
when they were well behaved; and the golliwog was not well behaved. He sometimes pushed Selina out of the cart.
When her next birthday came, Jane got a real pram, a beauty which ran on springs and had a proper 
hood. This made Jane the happiest little girl in the world.
-Adapted extract from "The Bargerys," by P. B. BALLARD. (University of London Press, Ltd.)

A MAORI BOY'S TREASURE.
A very old Maori called Taniwha, and also known to the gold-diggers of the early days as "Old Hooknose", used to tell a story of 
his boyhood. It was about Captain Cook when he came to New Zealand in the Endeavour. Here is the story.
"When I was a very little boy a ship came to Whitianga, and the boats from it pulled to the shore. Our old men saw the rowers 
pulling with their backs to the bows of the boats, and they said, 'These
people are goblins; their eyes are at the back of their heads; they pull with their backs to the land to which they are going.'
" The goblins came ashore, and we children and the women ran away into the forest. The warriors were 
the only ones that waited and, as we peeped from behind the
trees, we saw that the goblins were doing them no harm. One by one we stole back, and we gazed at the
strangers and stroked their garments. We were pleased with the
whiteness of their skins and the blue of the eyes of some of them.
"The goblins were gathering oysters, and we gave them sweet potatoes, fish and fern-root, and we roasted 
cockles for them. Next,
the goblins went into the forest and climbed the hill to our pa at Whitianga. They were collecting 
stones and grasses,
and we children helped them. When they spoke to us in their language, we could not understand, so we laughed and they 
laughed, and we were pleased.

CAPTAIN COOK LANDING.

"Then we went up the Whitianga River with the goblins. One of them had a walking
stick which he pointed at a shag perched on a dead tree. We saw a flash of lightning and heard a 
clap of thunder,
and the shag fell from the tree. We children were terrified and we ran away into the forest. The 
goblins laughed and
beckoned to us, and presently the braver ones of us went back. We handled the bird and saw that it 
was dead. But
what had killed it?
" After the ship had been lying at anchor for some time, some of our warriors went on board and saw 
many strange
things there. One day they said they would take some of us boys on board. Most of my playmates were afraid, but,
although I was a very little fellow, I went with two other boys.
" We boys sat on the deck of the ship, and the goblins stroked our mats and our hair. They seemed to 
be asking us
questions about our mats and the sharks' teeth we wore in our ears, and the tikis we had round our 
necks; but, as we
could not understand them, we laughed and they also laughed. They showed us some garments, touching ours 
at the
same time; so we gave our mats for their mats. Our warriors said ' Ka pai,' which words were
repeated by some of the goblins; and we all laughed.
"We boys did not walk about the ship: we were afraid lest we should be bewitched by the goblins, and 
we sat still
and looked at everything we could see in the home of these goblins. Presently the chief goblin came 
to us and patted
our heads. He held out a nail to us, talking at the same time. My friends were afraid and sat in silence, 
but I laughed, and he
gave the nail to me. 'I took it and said
'Ka pai.' He repeated my words, and he again patted our heads before he went away.  My companions said, ' He is the
leader of 
the ship, which is proved by his kindness to us, and also he is fond of children. A noble
man - one of noble birth - cannot be lost in
a crowd.'
"I kept my nail with great
 care, and carried it with me wherever I went, and made
it fit to the point of my spear. I also used it to make holes in the side-boards of canoes, to bind 
them to the canoe. I
kept the nail till one day a canoe, I was in, capsized in the sea, and my nail was lost to me. "

MR. POPPER'S PENGUIN.
[Mr. Popper was a house-painter, who was always thinking and dreaming about far-off lands. He wished 
he could
have seen something of the world, and, above all, he was interested in the Polar Regions. One day he wrote to Admiral Drake, 
who was then in the Antarctic, telling him of his interest in penguins. Imagine Mr. Popper's surprise when, one night, he heard on 
the wireless that Admiral Drake was sending him a present! The next day 
it arrived by air, and it was brought to Mr. Popper's door.]
The box was covered with markings. "Unpack at once," said one. "Keep cool," said another. Mr. Popper 
lost no time
in getting the screw-driver, for he had guessed the box was from Admiral Drake. He had removed the 
outer boards and
part of the packing, which was a layer of dry ice, when from the depths of the case he heard a faint 
"Ork." His heart
stood still. Surely he had heard that sound before at the Drake Expedition movies! His hands were trembling so much that he 
could hardly lift off the last of the wrappings.
There was not the slightest doubt about it. It was a penguin. Mr. Popper was speechless with delight, 
but the penguin
was not speechless. " Ork," it said again, and this time it held out its flippers and jumped out of the box.
It was a stout little fellow about two and a half feet high. Although it was the size of

THERE WAS NOT THE SLIGHTEST DOUBT ABOUT IT.

a small child, it looked much more like a little gentleman, with its smooth white waistcoat in front and its long black tail-coat 
dragging a little behind. Its eyes were set in two white circles in its black head. It 
turned its head, and with
one eye examined Mr. Popper.
Next it set out to inspect the house. Down the hall it went with its strange, pompous little strut. When it, or he - Mr. Popper had 
already begun to think of it as he - reached the bathroom, he 
looked round with a
pleased
expression on his face.
" Perhaps," thought Mr. Popper, " all that white tiling reminds him of the ice and snow at the South 
Pole. Poor thing!
Maybe he's thirsty. "
Mr. Popper began to fill the bath with cold water. This was a little difficult, because the
inquisitive bird kept reaching over and trying to bite the taps with his sharp red beak. When the 
bath was full, Mr.
Popper put the penguin
in, and he seemed not to mind. When Mr. Popper thought he had had enough of a bath, he pulled out the plug, and was 
wondering what to 
do next, when Janie and Bill burst in from school.
" What is it? " they asked together.
" It's a South Pole penguin sent to me by Admiral Drake. "
" Look," said Bill. " He's marching!
The delighted penguin was indeed marching. With little pleased nods of his handsome black head, he was parading up and down 
the inside of 
the bath, six
steps for the length, two steps for the width.
" For such a big bird he takes very small steps," said Bill.
" And look how his little black coat drags behind. It almost looks as if it were too big for him," said Janie.
But the penguin was tired of marching. He jumped up the sloping end of the bath, then turning round, 
with
outstretched flippers, he slid down on his stomach. The flippers, which
were black on the outside, like the sleeves of a tail-coat, were white underneath.
" Gook! Gook! " said the penguin, trying his new game again and again.
"What's his name? " asked Janie.
"Gook! Gook! " said the penguin, sliding down once more on his glossy, white stomach.
" It sounds like ' Cook,' " said Mr. Popper. "Why, that's it! We'll call him Cook - Captain Cook. "
" Call who Captain Cook? " asked Mrs. Popper, who had come quietly in.
"Why, the penguin! " said Mr. Popper.
"Well I never! " gasped Mrs. Popper.
"Gork! " said Captain Cook. With a flap of his flippers he jumped from the bath to the hand-basin, 
then to the floor. He
walked over to Mrs. Popper and began to peck her ankle.
" Stop him! " screamed Mrs. Popper, hurrying into the hall with Captain Cook after her, and Mr. 
Popper and the
children following. In the living room she paused. So did Captain Cook, for he was delighted with the 
room. Even Mrs.
Popper had to smile as, with the light of curiosity in his excited round eyes, Captain Cook strutted from one chair to the next, 
pecking at each to see what it was made of. Then he turned suddenly and marched out to the dining room.
"We ought to have some sea-food for him," said Mr. Popper, " canned shrimps or something; or maybe he isn't hungry yet. I've 
read that penguins can go for a month without food. "
" Mamma! Papa! " called Bill. " Come and see what Captain Cook has done! "
Captain Cook had done it all right. He had 
discovered the bowl of gold-fish on the dining room window-sill. By the time Mrs. Popper reached over to 
lift him away, he
had already swallowed the last of the gold-fish.
"Bad, bad penguin! " said Mrs. Popper, glaring down at Captain Cook. He squatted with a guilty 
look on the carpet and tried to make himself look small. Mrs. Popper smacked him on his round black head but, before she could 
do that 
again, Captain
Cook
hastily waddled out to the kitchen.
There the Poppers found him trying to hide in the open ice-box. His round, white-circled eyes looked out 
at them from the
box. "I think that's about the right temperature for him," said Mr. Popper. "We could let him sleep there at night."
"But where shall I put the food? " asked Mrs. Popper. 
"Oh, I guess we can get another ice-box for the food," said Mr. Popper.
"Look!" said Janie. "He's gone to sleep!"
Mr. Popper turned the switch to its coldest so that Captain Cook could sleep more comfortably. Then he left the door ajar so that 
the penguin would have 
plenty of fresh air to breath .
-Adapted from "Mr. Popper's Penguins'' by RICHARD and FLORENCE ATWATER. (Harrap.)

THE PIED PIPER.
Some five or six hundred years ago, the pleasant little German town of Hamelin on the river Weser 
became infested
with a dreadful plague of rats. So terrible was the havoc the vermin were making, that the people, 
unable any longer to
bear it, went in a body to the Town Hall. They told the Mayor and Aldermen that if they did not 
bestir themselves and
find a way of getting
rid of the rats, they would have to give up their positions to somebody that could.
 The fat easy-going Mayor and Aldermen
quaked in their shoes at this threat. They held a meeting, and racked their brains for
a way of destroying the rats. " Oh, for a trap, a trap! " sighed the Mayor, and at that
moment there was a gentle tap at the door, and a stranger entered.
He was a very tall thin man wearing a long cloak, half yellow and half red, and a
striped scarf of the same colours, to the end of which hung a long reed pipe. This strange
visitor told the Mayor that he had a secret  charm which would draw all living creatures
after him. To rid Hamelin of its plague of rats would be for him an easy matter, and
for a thousand guilders he would be pleased do it.
" One thousand! " exclaimed the Mayor.  "We will give you fifty thousand!" The bargain made, the 
Pied Piper, as he
was called, went out into the street, and
putting his pipe to his lips, began to play. And e're three shrill notes the pipe uttered You heard 
as if an army
muttered; And the muttering grew into a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; And 
out of the
houses the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, Grave 
old plodders, gay
young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by 
tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he 
piped advancing, And
step for step they followed dancing, Until they came to the river Weser, Wherein all plunged and 
perished.
What joy there was in Hamelin! The people rang the church bells, while the Mayor said that every trace of the rats was to be 
removed from the town. He was busy giving orders, when the Pied Piper appeared in the market place. "First, if you please," said 
he, " my thousand guilders! "
A thousand guilders! The Mayor's face fell. Must he pay that huge sum to an unknown gipsy fellow? 
Besides, the rats
were all drowned, and the man could not bring them back.
 "My good fellow," said he, " of course
we were only joking when we said a thousand
guilders. The town has had so much loss
from the rats that it could not possibly pay such a sum. Come, let us make it fifty! "
" No! " said the Pied Piper very sternly. "You shall keep your promise, or I will play a different 
tune on my pipe."
" So you threaten us, fellow! " replied the Mayor. " Well, do your worst, and blow your pipe there 
till you burst."
Once more the piper put the pipe to his lips, and before he had played three notes - 
such soft, sweet notes they were -  There was a rustling, that seemed like a bustling
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling, Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping, and little tongues chattering, And, like fowls in a farmyard when barley is  
scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,  With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,  And sparkling eyes, and teeth like 
pearls,  Tripping
and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.
The Mayor and all the mothers and fathers gazed in horror at the sight. They stood as if turned to blocks of wood, while the 
children skipped merrily by, listening to nothing but the Piper's gay tune. At first seemed to be 
leading them to the
river as
he had done the rats. Then to the relief of all the anxious watchers, he took the road to Koppelberg 
Hill. " He can
never cross the mountain," they said. " He will have to stop piping, and the children will come back."
But then a terrible thing happened. The piper reached the mountainside and, as he did so, a great cavern opened up. He walked 
straight into it 
with all the
children after him, and, when they were all inside, the door of the mountain shut behind them, and the hill looked just as it had 
done before. The parents ran wildly hither and thither to find where their children had gone, but all in vain. The only child left in 
Hamelin was a little lame boy, who had been unable to keep up with the 
dancing throng, and to
his great
grief had been unable to reach the joyous land promised the children by the Pied Piper Messages were 
sent far and wide offering the
Pied Piper all the gold he wanted if only he
would bring the children back to Hamelin.
But Piper and children were gone for ever, and the people of Hamelin were left in sorrow and sadness, because of a broken 
promise.

THE CAMPERS GO FISHING.
"Are we going fishing? " said Roger.
"Yes," said Captain John. "Mr. Dixon at the farm gave me these worms. He says there are plenty of perch. He says we'll do 
better with minnows than with worms,
and we'll find the perch anywhere where there are weeds in the water."
While Mate Susan was tidying up after breakfast, the others took the saucepan for a bait-can, and half filled it with water. 
Then they fished for minnows in the
shallows and caught a good lot of them. Susan joined them and got her rod ready, too. Then they rowed Swallow across from the 
island into the bay below Dixon's
farm. The boy Roger was in the bows, keeping a look-out for weeds.
"Weeds!" he shouted soon after they came into the bay. " Lots of them! "
Mate Susan said to the boy, " Heave the anchor over the bows, and drop it the moment I say ' Let go! ' " John was rowing a 
stroke at a time, then looking down into
the water, then rowing another stroke. "Can anybody see the bottom? " he asked.
"I can now," said Roger.
"All right.  So can I. There's grass on it. That means sand. And it's close to the weeds. We couldn't have a better place."
" Let go ! " sang out the mate.
Roger let go. Swallow swung slowly round. A moment later, four red-topped floats were in the water, two on each side of the 
boat.
" How deep are you fishing, Susan? " said Titty.
"Very nearly as deep as my rod will let me," said Susan.
"Mine's only about three feet down. I can see the minnow easily."
"That's no good," said John. " It ought to
be about a foot from the bottom. Bring it
in, and I'll push your float up." Susan's float bobbed first. She struck at once, and brought up her hook with nothing on 
it. "He's gone off with my minnow," she said.
"You struck too soon," said John.
"I wish the boat didn't swing about so," said Titty. " Look out, Roger, your float's nearly touching mine. Now you're lifting my 
float as well as yours. They're both tangled." "This
is no good," said John. " We must have an anchor at each end, so that the boat
won't swing. All rods in! Haul up the anchor, Roger. We'll get a big stone on the shore."
They rowed ashore, and fastened a big stone to the other end of the anchor rope. Then they rowed back. 
Roger let go the
anchor, and Susan lowered the stone over the stern of the boat. This time Swallow rested broadside on 
to the wind,
and did not swing at all. It was, however, of no use fishing on the windward side as the wind brought 
the floats in
under the boat. They therefore, all four, fished on the same side, and everybody
tried to watch all the four floats at once.
"Whose float will go first? " said Roger. 
" Mine," said Titty. "It's bobbing already." "
"Look out, John," said Susan. " Your float isn't there."
John looked round. His float was gone. He pulled. The top of his rod bent and jerked, and up came a 
fat little perch
with bright red fins and dark-green bars on his sides. " That's one, anyhow," said John, as he put on another minnow.
After that the perch came fast, one after another. Some times three floats bobbed together. There was 
soon a pile of
perch in the bottom of the boat.  Roger was counting them. " Twelve, thirteen, fourteen- "
"Where's your float, Roger?" said the mate.
"And look at your rod," said Titty.
Roger jumped up and caught hold of his jerking rod, which he had put down while he was counting the catch. He felt a fish at the 
end of his line. Just as he was bringing it to the top, there was a swirl in the water and his
rod was suddenly pulled down again. Roger hung on as hard as he could, and his rod was bent almost 
into a circle.
" It's a shark! It's a shark! " he shouted.
Something huge was moving about in the water, deep down, pulling the rod this way and that. Suddenly 
a mottled
green fish, a yard long with a dark back and white underneath, came to the top. It lifted an enormous 
head
right out of the water, opened a great white
mouth, and shook itself. A little perch flew into the air. Roger's rod straightened. For a moment the 
great fish lay
close to the top of the water, looking wickedly at the crew of the Swallow as they looked at it. Then 
with a twist of its tail,
which made a great swirling splash in the water, it was gone.
Roger brought in the little perch. It was dead, and its sides were marked with deep
gashes from the great teeth of the pike.
After that nobody caught any more perch.
The pike had frightened them away. Susan said that they had enough perch anyway, and if they were going to be eaten
they would all have to be cleaned. The crew hauled up the
stone and the anchor, and rowed back to
the island.
The cleaning was a dreadful business. The
mate did it, slitting up the perch with a sharp
knife. Their insides were burnt in the fire, and Roger washed the perch one by one in the lake. The mate 
tried to scrape the
scales off
the first of them, but soon gave it up. She fried 
the fish in butter, first putting plenty of salt on them. When they were cooked the skins came off quite easily, and there
were the perch ready to be eaten. The mate said it 
was rather a waste of good butter, but the captain and the crew said it was worth it.
-Retold from "Swallows and Amazons," by ARTHUR -RANSOME. (Jonathon Cape.)

JEREMY'S DOG.
Jeremy was staring down at the snowy garden, the black gate, the road beyond. The
dog came up very slowly over the crest of the street. At first the creature was only a little black smudge against the snow; then, as 
he arrived at the Coles' gate, Jeremy could see him clearly. He had, it was evident, been badly beaten by the storm. Intended by 
nature to be a rough and hairy dog, he was now a shivering, battered creature, dripping and wind-tossed, bedraggled and 
bewildered. 
He was a short stumpy dog; nevertheless his nose was in the air, and he said to the whole world, " The storm has done its best to 
defeat me - it has failed."
Jeremy touched Mary's arm and whispered, "I say, Mary, stop reading a minute - look
at that dog down there."
They both stared down into the garden. The dog had stopped at the gate; he sniffed at the bars, then he began to squeeze himself 
between the bottom bar and the ground. A moment later he was in the Coles' garden. He wandered about, smelling and 
sniffing as though the whole place
belonged to him.
" I'm going down," whispered Jeremy, glancing at Helen, who was busy 
sewing. Mary's eyes grew wide with horror. "You're not going out in the snow! " she whispered. "Oh, Jeremy, they will be 
angry."
" I don't care," whispered Jeremy back again; " they can be. "
Jeremy knew it was the most wicked thing he could do - to go out into the 
snow without a coat and in his slippers. He
might even, according to Aunt Mary, die of it; but that did not hinder him. 
He left the room so quietly that Helen did
not even lift her eyes; and in two minutes he had crept downstairs and was 
outside. It was horribly cold. He had been
in the nursery for two whole days, wrapped up and warm; and now the 
snowy world seemed to leap up at him and
drag him down into an icy well. He could feel from the feathery touches on 
his face that the snow had begun to fall
again. It was nearly dark, and he could see no dog.
Then he heard a sniff, felt something wet against his leg - he had almost 
stepped upon the animal. He bent down and
stroked its wet coat. The dog stood quite still, then moved towards the 
house, and walked calmly through the open
door. Jeremy followed and closed the door behind him. There they were in 
the little dark passage, with the boy's heart
beating like a drum, his teeth chattering, and a terrible feeling that he 
was going to sneeze hovering over him.
Everything depended on the dog. If he barked or whined, out into the night he must go
 - probably to die in the cold.
Jeremy took off his slippers and began to climb the stairs, the dog close behind him, very grave and proud, in spite of the little 
trail of
snow and water he left in his track. The nursery door was reached, pushed 
softly and the startled gaze of Mary and Helen fell upon the adventurer and his prize.
The dog went straight to the fire, and, sitting on the rug, began to lick 
himself. The melted snow poured off him,
making a fine little pool about the golden cockatoos in the pattern of the 
rug. He must have been a strange-looking
animal at any time, being built quite square like a toy dog, with a great 
deal of hair, very short legs, and a thick neck.
Usually his brown eyes gleamed behind his hair like sunlight in a thick 
wood, but now they could be clearly seen
because the hair was plastered about his face by the
snow. He wore a little pointed beard, and, in one word, if you imagine a very small sheep dog, with 
no legs, a French beard, and a stump of a tail, you have him.
"Oh, he's perfectly sweet," said Helen.
"What are you going to do, Jeremy?" asked Mary.
" Do? Keep him, of course," said Jeremy stoutly. At the same time, his heart a little failed him as 
he saw the pool of water slowly spreading over the rug. " We
ought to wipe him with a towel," said Jeremy. "If we could get him dry before Nurse comes up, she 
mightn't say so much."
But alas, it was too late for any towel. The door opened and Nurse entered.
" Well! " For a moment words failed her; then she began. " Master Jeremy, wherever did you get that 
dirty animal, dropping water all over the carpet, and smelling
awful, I'll be bound? You know what your father will do, when he knows of it. Go on out, you ugly, 
dirty animal-ough-you horrible creature. I'll-"
But her advance was stopped. Jeremy stopped it. Standing in front of the dog, his short thick legs 
apart, his fists clenched, he almost shouted, " You shan't touch
him. No, you shan't. He shan't go out again into the snow, and die! "
Nurse gasped. Never had she been so defied.
"The moment your mother comes-" she began again. At that moment the door opened and in came Mother, 
Aunt Amy, and a visitor, the Rev. Mr. Jellybrand, who
was not a favourite with the Cole children.
[To be continued.]

THE GREEN PARROT.
A friend of mine, who was going away for a few days, brought me his parrot to look after during his 
absence. The bird,
feeling himself to be among strangers, had climbed to the top of his perch by the help of his beak. 
There he was,
rolling his eyes, which were like brass-headed nails, and blinking the white skin, which served him 
for eyelids, in a
very nervous way.
Mrs. Puss had never seen a parrot, and this new creature caused her much surprise. Still as a cat of stone, and with an air of deep 
thought, she watched the bird. She was putting together all the ideas of animals that she had been able to gather on the roof, in 
the yard, and in the garden. The shadow of her thoughts passed across her clear eyes, and I
could read in them when she made up her mind. " That creature is, without doubt, a green chicken," she decided.
Her mind made up, the cat jumped down from the table where she had posted herself to study the 
parrot. She went to
a corner of the room, and flattened herself on the floor, with elbows out and head down, all ready to 
spring, like a
black panther watching gazelles.
The parrot followed the cat's movements with nervous anxiety. His feathers bristled; he rattled his 
chain, raised one
foot and twirled his toes, and whetted his beak on the edge of his food-box. He knew that this was an 
enemy planning
some evil deed. As for the cat's eyes, which were fiercely fixed on the parrot, they said in language 
that the parrot
could not fail to understand, " Although it is green, this chicken must be good to eat."
I watched the scene with interest, ready to step in if it became necessary. Mrs. Puss had quietly 
drawn nearer. Her pink nose quivered, her eyes half closed,
and her claws went in and out. Little shivers ran down her spine, as they do down a gourmand's who is 
just going to sit down to a fat roast fowl. She gloated over
the idea of  the rare and juicy feast she was going to enjoy. This choice dish excited all her 
greediness. Suddenly her back was bent like a bow, and with one
strong elastic bound, she alighted on the perch.
 The parrot, seeing the danger, promptly exclaimed in a solemn, deep, man's voice: "Have you had lunch, James? " This speech 
made the cat spring back in
great terror. A blare of trumpets, a crash of broken crockery, or a pistol fired close to her ear 
would not have caused wilder alarm. All  
her ideas about birds were upset. "And what did you have? A good roast? "
The parrot went on. 
The cat's face clearly said, " This is not a bird; it is a man; he is speaking ! "
" When you have drunk your wine, let us
all have a dance,"  the parrot now shrieked in a deafening voice. He had grasped the
fact that the alarm caused by his speech was
his best defence.
The cat looked at me as if asking me to explain things to her, and then, not being pleased with my 
reply, she went and hid herself under the bed, where she
remained for the rest of the day.
- THEOPHILE GAUTIER . (Translated and adapted.)

ANDERS' ADVENTURE.
[A Swedish family were travelling north in search of work. They were, taking their belongings on a 
handcart, on which the Baby Anna's cradle was also packed.]

All the morning things had gone wrong with Anders. It couldn't be that he had got out of bed on the wrong side. When one sleeps 
rolled in a blanket under a green cart in a grove of quivering
aspen trees, how can
there be a right or wrong side to the bed? But all during the bright Swedish summer night, which is 
almost like day, mosquitoes had stung Anders. His face and arms
were covered with red spots that itched. So Anders was being cross.
There was a sound of thunder, and Father said they had better hurry. Anders did not want to hurry. He 
was tired of pushing the cart. It was not so bad when Father or
Mother helped; but, when Kristin and he
had to pull it together, he was sure he did all the work. Anders felt very sorry for himself. It 
wasn't fair, either, that he should never have a chance to ride the cow, Tacka,
while young Karl was allowed to sit astride her back whenever he said he was tired of walking.
Then the sun came out, and it was harder than ever to push the cart up the hill. Anders grumbled and 
grumbled. Father said, " Are you tired of the journey already? "
Anders slapped at a fly and answered nothing. He thought they might go bathing in each lake they passed, 
but Father only said, "No, we must not waste time."
When Mother spoke sharply to Anders for
letting the blanket slide off Baby Anna's cradle, so that she was left without shade, Anders could 
bear it no longer. They had
come to a fork  in the road. He stopped pushing the cart.
"I am leaving you here," he said.
"What are you saying? " Mother gasped. "I am not going any farther with you,"
said Anders sadly.
Father's eyes twinkled as he asked, " Then, what do you mean to do ? "
" Oh, I can find work for myself," said Anders. " I do not need to push a heavy cart day after day 
without so much as thanks
for it. Some day when I am rich I shall come back. "
" Dear me! " said Father. " And what kind of work would you find? "
Anders held himself straight. "I can get work white-washing stables to begin with. I have done some of 
that. "
" Yes, that might be," said Father.
"You are not going to listen to such nonsense, Father? " said Mother sharply.
" Yes, I am," said Father. " If Anders can do better by himself, it is not right for
us to stop him." Father said something more in a low voice to Mother.
The milestones pointed to the east and the north. The next village was half a mile away but, as a 
Swedish mile is as long as seven English miles, it was not very near.
"I suppose you will want your clothes, then," said Mother, turning to Anders.
All this time, Kristin had said nothing; but, when Mother opened the small leather trunk to lift out 
Anders' clothes, Kristin began to cry. " Don't go away and leave us,
Anders," she sobbed.
Anders looked sad, but his mind was made up. He fastened his little bundle on a stick, swung it over 
his shoulder, and said good-bye
to them all. Kristin had her head buried in Mother's skirt and would not say good-bye, but little 
Karl waved and beamed as Anders set off on the eastern fork of the road.
Anders turned once and waved his hand; Then he trudged on. Kristin wiped her eyes long enough to see 
the thin little figure grow smaller and smaller, as Anders climbed
the long hill. When he reached the top, he stopped and waved to them once again, and
disappeared down the other side. The last Kristin saw was his round blue cap bobbing over the 
horizon. Then he was gone.
Mother wiped her eyes with her apron. Father said not a word, but pushed the cart along the north 
road. On and on they walked. Kristin could not stop crying. " Cry-baby,"
said little Karl cheerfully. How could she ever live without Anders? Oh, he was fond of teasing, of 
course, but what of that? Kristin wondered how long it would take him to
become rich. Perhaps years and years. Oh, that was terrible! And Kristin sobbed out loud.
" What can this mean? " said Father suddenly. " If you look to where the roads come together ahead, I 
think you will see someone you know."
Mother and Kristin both stared. A little way in front  a road led into theirs from  the east. Along 
this road trudged a thin little fellow with yellow hair under his round blue cap,
a bundle slung over his shoulder on a stick.
" Father," said Mother softly, " please, say nothing. "
Father grinned. Anders had seen them. He walked on, head down, his feet clumping heavily in the dust 
and heat of the road. They all reached the meeting place at the
same time. Father could not keep the twinkle out of his eye, but he pushed away alone at the cart 
without a word to Anders.
Anders stole a quick look at Mother. She smiled but said not a word. He looked at Kristin. Her blue 
eyes were round with
wonder and happiness. He looked up at Father. Father was gazing straight ahead, and now he burst into a song, 
letting his great voice boom out among the
hills and the buffs.
Anders said nothing. He slipped his stick out of the bundle, laid the 
bundle softly in the cart, and took his place
beside Father both hands firmly on the handle-bar.
-Adapted from "Flaxen Braids," by ANNETTE TURNGREN. (Nelson.)

THE UNHAPPY DRAGON
" Dancing and Games 7.30 p.m. to 10 p.m.  R.S.V.P." 
The Unhappy Dragon put the invitation in an envelope and addressed it to himself. He then went for a 
long lonely
walk, until it would be time to write the reply.
It was very sad that he knew of no one but himself to invite to his birthday party; but he was used to sad things. Ever since he bad 
crawled out of his egg, all the creatures
that he had met had run for miles at the sight of him. This was because he was large and fearful to 
look at, with
points and bony knobs all over him. Nobody knew that he had a heart of gold, which was full of kind 
thoughts and
good intentions, because he kept it inside him, and all people saw was the ugly and frightening part, which was outside.
As he walked across the great, sad, empty, sandy desert, he wondered what he could give himself for a birthday
present, and presently he saw something white gleaming on the sand. Running up to it  he found it 
was smooth and
round. He pushed it with his paw, and it rolled away; he pushed again, and it rolled faster. The 
Unhappy Dragon was
delighted. " A ball," he said, " that's what it must be: a ball for playing tennis and cricket and 
rounders in the summer,
and football and hockey in the winter."
While he was looking about for something to use for a bat, he caught sight of a large sheet of brown paper blowing across the 
desert. "Why," he shouted, " what could be a better birthday present than this ball 
wrapped up in brown
paper, so that it would have to be unwrapped before I knew what was inside it? How remarkable to 
find something to
wrap with and something to wrap, in a great, sad, empty, sandy desert! "
For the next fortnight, the Unhappy Dragon reminded himself each morning not to forget where he had 
hidden his
brown paper parcel. At the end of that time he wished himself Many Happy Returns of the Day, and went 
to the
secret hiding place to dig up his present.
As he drew near the spot, he began to feel worried, especially when a crumpled sheet of brown paper 
blew towards
him. " There is something wrong here," said the dragon. " The wrapping should not come off a parcel 
that has not
been unwrapped." He was more certain still that something was amiss, when he saw that the sand had 
been
disturbed and that, instead of a beautiful ball, there were only a few pieces of ball lying untidily  
about. He was fairly
used to being an Unhappy Dragon, but now he knew what it was to be a Most Unhappy Dragon.
The Most Unhappy Dragon picked up a little piece of his broken ball and turned to go home, when what 
should he see
but a tiny working model of himself! An ugly little green dragon sat sighing on a heap of sand, 
brushing away the salt
tears with the back of his paw. When the Unhappy Dragon had got over his surprise, his big, kind 
heart (which he
kept inside him) was touched with pity for the hideous little fellow.
" I say, I say, old chap, don't take on so about it! Come, come, come! " He patted the baby dragon on 
the head and,
although he did it somewhat clumsily, the Unhappy Dragon was delighted to find that the youngster 
didn't run away.
After much sighing and sobbing the little dragon managed to tell the Unhappy Dragon that he was lonely.
" Do they all run away from you, too?" asked the Unhappy Dragon.
"I don't know," said the little dragon. "I've never met anyone but you."
" Never met anyone!"  cried the Unhappy Dragon. " What a strange creature you must
be! I am always meeting things, but they always run away before anything really friendly happens. And 
where have
you been hiding all this time, my little man? "
" In those," said the little dragon pointing to the remains of the birthday present lying on the 
sand; " and when I came
out of my hiding place, there was nothing but sand and sand, and sand, till you came."
The Dragon began to feel quite a different creature. He had met something alive that did not run away 
from him: that
was a pleasant thought. A little of his stored-up kindness had been spent on comforting the little 
dragon: that was a
great relief. He began to wonder if he need be an Unhappy Dragon any longer, for it was only 
loneliness that made
him so unhappy.
" And now," he explained to himself, " I have got a companion."
" A tidy companion, too," he added, as he noticed the baby dragon putting the bits of old eggshell in 
a neat pile, " and
a birthday present that was so well wrapped up that I mistook it for a ball - a mere paltry plaything - well I never! "
Then the Big Contented Dragon took the Little Contented Dragon by the hand, and walked away with him 
far across
the desert. He gave his little friend all sorts of helpful advice about where to find the juiciest 
cactus, and about
chewing his food slowly, and taking a rest after dinner. And from that day onwards, the Two Contented Dragons were never 
apart, and they never became unhappy again.
-Retold from the story by KATHLEEN MORLEY, in "The Merry-go-Round."

JEREMY'S DOG.
(Continued from page 68.)
Mr. Jellybrand stood in front of the group in the doorway and stared. The dog, catching sight of the 
black-coated figure, forgot his toilet, rose dripping from the rug, and
advanced growling, his lips back, his ears out, his tail erect. Mr. Jellybrand, who was
afraid of dogs, stepped back upon Aunt Amy. The dog, when only a fraction of an inch
from Mr. Jellybrand's tempting gleaming black trousers, stopped, crouched like a tiger, and with 
teeth bared, continued his growls. Aunt Amy cried in a shrill voice, " Take it
away! Take it away! It's going to bite Mr. Jellybrand."
" It's all right, " said Jeremy scornfully,
"he wouldn't bite anything." He took the dog by the scruff of the neck and led him back to the fire. 
It would be too much to say that the animal exchanged a wink with
Jeremy, but something certainly passed between them. The dog then lay down on all-fours, and looked 
up into Mrs. Cole's face: it was she who would decide his fate. He
bared his teeth, this time in a smile and not in a growl, and wagged his absurd tail.
Mrs. Cole smiled back at him. " There's no reason to be afraid, Mr. Jellybrand," she said. "He's such 
a little dog. Poor little thing! He must have nearly died in the snow."
After that, affairs were quickly settled.
" Of course it can only be for the night, children," she said. " Father will arrange something in the 
morning. Poor little thing! Where did you find him?
"We saw him from the window," said Jeremy quickly, " and he was shivering like anything, so we called 
him in to
warm him."
" My dear Alice, you surely don't mean--" began Aunt Amy; and Nurse said, "I really think, mum -" and Mr Jellybrand 
murmured, " Is it quite wise, dear Mrs. Cole, do you think? " 
" Oh, for one night I think we can manage," said Mrs. Cole. " He seems a clean
little dog, and really we can't turn him out in the snow at once. It would be too cruel. But mind, 
children, it's only for
one night. He looks a good little dog."
The next visitor to the nursery was Uncle Samuel. " I hear you have a dog," he said. "Where is the creature? "
The new addition to the Cole family had finished his washing; the blazing fire had
almost dried him, and his hair stuck out from his body in little stiff prickles, hedgehog fashion .
giving him a truly
original appearance.
" There he is," said Jeremy. "Isn't he lovely! ',
" Lovely! My word! " Uncle Samuel's smile broadened. " He's about the most hideous mongrel it has 
ever been my
lot to set eyes on. But he has his points. He despises you all, I'm glad to see."  
" He looks a bit funny just now," Jeremy
 explained. " He's been drying on the rug. He'll be all right soon. He 
wanted to bite Mr.
Jellybrand. It was funny. Mr. Jellybrand was as frightened as anything."
" Yes, that must have been delightful," agreed Uncle Samuel. " What's his name? "
" We haven't given him one yet. Wouldn't you think of one, Uncle Samuel."
The uncle looked at the dog. The dog with grave and scornful eyes looked at the uncle.
" What about Hamlet? " said Uncle Samuel.
" What's Hamlet? " asked Jeremy.
" Hamlet was a prince who was unhappy because he thought so much about himself."
" Hamlet will do," said Jeremy. " I've never heard of a dog called that, but it's easy to say. "
"Well, I must go," said Uncle Samuel. "Glad to have seen the animal. Good-bye."
He vanished.
" Hamlet," said Jeremy thoughtfully. " I wonder if he'll like that!"  Hamlet was now stretched out 
upon the rug, his
nose between his paws, fast asleep. " Well," Jeremy went on, " it's awfully nice to have a dog, anyway. "
Such is the account of Hamlet's entrance into the Cole family.
-Retold from "Jeremy," by HUGH WALPOLE. (Macmillan.)

THE FIR-TREE.
There was once growing in a a Newfoundland forest a fir-tree which lived a delightful
life. The rain fell on it and nourished its roots, the sun shone on it and warmed its heart; now and 
then a great jolly
wind
came to wrestle with it and try its strength. The children would sit at its foot and play their games 
and sing their little
songs, and the birds sheltered in its branches. The tree, however, was not contented. It longed to be 
something else,
it longed to be, as it said, important in the world.
" Well," said the tree next to it, " you will be important; we all shall. Nothing is so important as 
the mast of a ship. "
" The mast of a ship! Pooh! " said the fir-tree.. " I hope to be something better than that. "
Every year woodcutters came and cut down some of the taller trees, and dragged
them away to the shipbuilders. With disdain the fir-tree watched them go. Then one day, the woodcutters, instead of choosing the 
tallest and straightest trees, cut down
down hundreds just as they came to them; and our tree was amongst them.
" Never fear," said the woodcutter, as he gave the fir-tree a blow with his axe; " you won't be a 
mast - nothing so useful.
You are going to make paper, my friend."
"What is paper? " asked the tree of the sparrows.
" Paper, " said they, " is the white stuff that men read from . It used to be made from rags but the 
cheaper kind is now
made from trees. "
" Then, will people read me? " asked the tree, nearly fainting with joy. " Yes," said the sparrows, " 
but only for a few
minutes. You're going to be made into a newspaper, not a book. "
" All the same, " said the tree, " I might have something worth reading on me something beautiful or 
grand - mightn't I?"
" You might, but it's not very likely," said the sparrows.
Then the men came to haul the tree away; and, poor tree, what a time it had ! It was sawn into logs 
and pushed with
many others into a pulping machine. The sap oozed out of it, and it screamed with agony. Then, by a 
dozen
treatments, all most painful, it was made into paper.
Oh, how it wished it was still growing on the hillside, with the sun and the rain and the children at 
its foot, and the
birds in its branches! " I didn't think the world would be like this," it said; and the other trees 
in the paper all round it
agreed that the world was a much over-rated place. Then it went to sleep and dreamed it was a mast, and woke up 
crying.
The tree, now a great roll of paper, was put down into the hold of a ship where it lay for a week all 
forlorn and seasick.
The worst of it was that it was lying close to the foot of the mast, which came through the hold just 
there, and it found
that they were old friends. The mast said that there was no life so pleasant as his. "One has the sun all day," he said, " and the 
stars all night; one carries men and goods about the world; one lies in strange 
harbours and sees
strange and amusing sights. One is doing something worth while in the world all the time."
At these words our tree wept again. Then, trying to comfort itself, it asked timidly, "But you 
don't think, do you, that
a mast is so important as, say, a newspaper? " The mast laughed till he shook. "Well, I like that," 
he said. " Why, a
newspaper - a newspaper lasts a day; a mast goes on for years. Besides, sometimes the captain leans 
against it – the captain - think of that!"
But the tree was too miserable.
In the harbour it was taken out of the ship and thrown into a cellar below a newspaper office in 
London. How different it
was from the forest, where there was light and air! Here it was dark and stuffy, and the rolls talked 
to one another with
tears in their voices. Then, one night, the roll in which our poor tree found itself was carried to 
the printing rooms and
fixed in the press. Down came the heavy inky type
on it, all black and smothery. When the tree came to itself in the light again, it was covered with 
words; but alas! the
sparrows were right, for they were not beautiful words or grand words. They were only words telling 
of accidents,
quarrels, crimes, the weather, battles, and strikes.
"Oh dear! " sighed the tree when it saw what it was bearing on its surface, " how I wish I had gone 
to sea as a mast!" Alas, it was now too late! Cut and folded, it was, with others like it, carried away in the cold 
grey morning to a
railway-station bookstall. A man bought it for a penny, read it all through, said there was nothing 
in it, and threw it
under the seat. Later, another man found it and read it, and blew choking smoke over it. Then he 
wrapped up some
fish in it and took it home to his family.
All that night, our poor tree lay scrunched up, feeling very faint from the smell of fish, and 
longing for the forest and the
sun and the rain and the children and the birds. In the morning a woman used it to light the fire. It was a poor fire, and went out 
directly.
-Adapted from the "Fir Tree (revised version),"  by
 E. V. LUCAS. (Methuen.)

IN A CHINESE COPPERSMITH'S SHOP.
[Young Fu was a Chinese country boy, who had lately come with his mother to the city of Chungking on 
the Yangtse-kiang. He was working in a coppersmith's shop.]
One afternoon Young Fu was squatting in the middle room of the coppersmith's shop polishing a brazier 
which a workman, named Dsen, had just finished. Through the doorway he watched
coolies lower an open sedan chair from which a tall, strangely dressed person stepped. This weird 
person sauntered into the store, and Young Fu stopped his work and gazed open-mouthed. It
was a foreigner. In the weeks of living in Chungking, the boy had never been close to one. The master, 
Tang, at once took charge of the stranger and the clerk and Small Den rushed about 
displaying goods.
"Is that a man? " Young Fu asked Dsen. Dsen laughed. " Truly you are from the country," he said. "Have 
you never seen a foreigner before?"
" Not so close. And if it is a man, he wears the jacket and loose trousers of a woman. "
"All their  men dress in this fashion,", said Dsen; " and their women clothe their bodies in men's 
skirts. Everything they do is the opposite of approved custom. The women all have feet as large as
coolies', and they go about in open chairs that expose their faces to the gaze of the world. Their 
shoes have thin pegs under the heels to make them taller, I suppose, though, goodness knows,
they are ungainly enough by nature. Their hair flies loose about their faces, and they laugh and 
talk as freely as a man. But they are as all other barbarians: they have no
polite rules of conduct, and we of the Middle Kingdom can feel pity."
Young Fu listened, but his eyes never left the figure in the store. The foreigner moved restlessly 
about, pointing at objects with a long stick, and refusing to sit down and drink tea, as any Chinese
gentleman would have done.
" I like not his face," said Young Fu. "The skin is white, with bristles like that of a poorly plucked fowl, and his nose is twice the 
size it should be."
Dsen went on with his work. " I felt the same about the first one I saw. When he opened his mouth to 
smile, he was so ugly I thought it would kill me. I am used to them now, and I do not believe,
as our women do, that they cause bad luck. Indeed, they are too stupid for any sensible man to fear. 
With money they are fools, paying coolies twice the proper amount; but they are rich and
silver means nothing to them. They have meat every meal, it is said, and the choicest vegetables and 
fruit. Even the poorest among them lives like a Mandarin."
" What language does he speak? " asked Young Fu.
" English and some few words of Chinese. Tang does not understand English, but what the fellow cannot 
say in Chinese, Tang guesses. "
Tang came into the inner room and unlocked a large chest. Young Fu had noticed that chest many times, 
but that shopkeepers did not show their finest stock in the outer store was news to him.
Tang beckoned to him. " Wipe your greasy hands and carry these to Small Den."
At the partition to the outer room, Young Fu halted. His mother's warnings about foreigners returned 
to him in full force. Suppose evil should fall on him as a result of being
close to this creature! His skin prickled. Then he moved forward. Evil was certain to follow if he 
made Tang angry by not obeying orders, and the unknown evil seemed the
lesser of the two. He gave the articles carefully to Small Den. On his third return to the inner room 
a voice called after him, " Tell your master to hurry."
Startled, Young Fu glanced over his shoulder. That was surely the foreigner speaking. He himself knew 
no English, so the man must have used Chinese words. In a daze he
repeated the message to Tang.
" Always these foreigners must hurry," remarked the coppersmith. " They hasten to earn money, and 
hasten to spend it."
Taking a tray and a jar, Tang strode towards the customer. In a moment the latter had selected the 
tray and asked its price. Young Fu was amazed at such stupidity; even a
child knew better than to let a merchant guess which article pleased him most. One pretended to be 
interested in everything else, and asked the price only after the
storekeeper himself had pointed out the desired object. Tang mentioned a sum that made Young Fu 
catch his breath. The foreigner offered half the amount. Tang brought it
to three-fourths of the original price, and the customer said he would give two-thirds. His hand then 
drew from a slit in the side of his trousers - a queer place indeed to keep
money! - several silver dollars. Tang took them. Small Den wrapped the gleaming tray in tissue paper and carried it out to the 
chair. With 
a nod, the foreigner was gone.
That night Young Fu said to his mother, "To-day a foreign man bought a tray in our shop."
" He did not see you, I hope."
" He did. Tang told me to carry brasses into his presence. Also the foreigner spoke
to me. Do not be afraid. He is ugly, but harmless. "
"Who taught you this?" asked Young Fu's mother. " Already you copy these city people. No one now is 
wise save those within the walls of the brass-shop! But in the country
we still know a few things, and one is that foreign barbarians should be avoided."
" But do you wish me to disobey Tang's orders ? "
No reply came, and presently Young Fu fell asleep.
-Adapted extract from "Young Fu of the Upper Yangtse'' by ELIZABETH FOREMAN LEWIS. (Harrap.)

THE CONJURER.
John and Mary went one day to a children's party in the Council Chambers. They went up to the front 
row and sat
there to see the conjurer.
The conjurer stepped up on to the stage. He was oldish, Mary thought, over twenty at any rate, but 
he had thick dark
curly hair, and nice clean hands, and a twinkle in his eye. All the children liked him. Even when he was not making jokes, he 
seemed to have something funny in his mind, which they felt sure he would tell them later.

THEY WENT UP TO THE FRONT ROW.

He had, too, the most lovely manners.
" Ladies and gentlemen," he said; and later on, " Can any lady here lend me her handkerchief ? I 
promise to take the
very greatest care of it, and I will return it safely to its owner." Mary lent her best handkerchief 
to the conjurer. She
was surprised when he took a large pair of scissors and cut it into little bits, but she said to 
herself, " It will be all
right. He is a fair man. I am sure he is a fair man. " The conjurer put the bits of handkerchief into a red box 
which he locked. He
gave the box to Evangeline Lane to hold, and he gave the key to the Mayor.
" That's fair," said Mary. "That's perfectly fair. "
Next the conjurer showed them what he could do with six balls, three gold and three silver. He 
juggled with them,
tossed them up and caught them; they seemed to be all in the air at once, and the children grew dizzy 
with watching.
John whispered to Mary, "He has forgotten all about your handkerchief."
" No, he hasn't," said Mary. " Wait."
She was quite right. Presently the conjurer politely asked Evangeline for the red box, and the Mayor 
handed him back
the little silver key. The conjurer unlocked and opened the box - and what do you think? The box was 
empty!
" It's magic," said John, " pure magic."
" I saw him put the bits into the box," said Mary rather bewildered; but through it all she trusted 
the conjurer. He was
holding up the little box and poking it with his magic wand to show it was quite empty.
" And now," said the conjurer, " I must reward the very kind lady who lent me her pretty 
handkerchief. I hope you will
agree that I have taken the greatest care of it. Hey, presto! "
He waved his magic wand over a pot of pink paper roses, and then slowly and carefully, from the very 
heart of the
middle and largest rose, he drew a tiny pink silk
bag which he handed on a silver tray to Mary. " Kindly open the bag, Miss," he said, "and tell us what is inside."
" My handkerchief! " cried Mary.
" Not in any way injured, I hope?" asked the conjurer.
Mary spread out the handkerchief on her knee and had a good look at it before she answered. " No, 
thank you. I think
it is all right. Here is your little pink bag."
"I should like you to keep that," said the conjurer. And how pleased Mary was!
"Now," said the conjurer, "I want somebody to come up on the stage to help me."
" Would I do?" asked John. " I am not exactly a- "
"You will do very well, indeed," said the conjurer. " Come along. "
John went up on the stage, and the conjurer shook hands with him, asked him his name, and set a chair 
for him.
" John," said the conjurer, " I've taken a fancy to you, and I'm going to make you a pudding. What 
shall I make it in?
I've carelessly forgotten to bring a basin. I know! I'll make it in my old top hat. Which will you have, a milk pudding or a trifle? "
" A milk pudding," said John instantly.
Mary was not surprised. She knew that tapioca pudding was John's favourite, with rice pudding second, 
and sago
third. Some of the grown-ups, however, laughed, but not the conjurer. He stopped talking for a 
moment and looked
a little disappointed.
" He doesn't like milk pudding, himself," Mary thought. Presently, however, the
conjurer cheered up. " No accounting for tastes," he said, and showed the children the top hat, 
inside and out. It was
quite empty.
"Now, I'll put into it two eggs," he said, " some sugar and some flour.''
"In paper bags? " asked John.
"Oh, yes, it will not matter in the least. You see this is going to be a magic trifle.
"Milk pudding, " said John.
"I beg your pardon, " said the conjurer. "Milk pudding it is. Then I lay my handkerchief over the whole for one moment."'
"Why? " asked John.
"It helps the mixture to rise." The conjurer whipped away his red handkerchief with a flourish, and, 
taking his magic
wand, he whisked it round in the top hat to mix the pudding thoroughly, as he said.
" That ought to do. Now we'll let the pudding be for a moment," he said.
" I suppose you are going to cook it," said John.
" Trifles don't need cooking."
" But I said a milk pudding. "
" Nor yet this kind of milk pudding," said the conjurer, quickly. "Now, John while we are waiting, 
we'll see if we can get
some fun out of a pack of cards. "
He did a marvellous card trick. " It's wonderful," said John when the conjurer showed him the Queen 
of Hearts, which
was the card he had chosen.
" Oh, no," said the conjurer modestly, "just knack, nothing more. Now suppose we have a look in my old top hat! " He lifted it 
from the table 
with a flourish
and took
out - just an ordinary sponge cake ! Mary was disappointed, but the conjurer did not seem to know there 
was anything wrong.
" Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "here you see the pudding that John ordered, come by magic into my 
old top hat."
John 's eyes opened very wide. "But I said a -" he began slowly.
The conjurer took no notice, but went on talking: " And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings my little 
entertainment to a close. I must thank John for his very kind help. I don't know how I should have got on without him. " 
As they were all going downstairs to tea, John felt a touch on his shoulder, and there was the 
conjurer. " I'm sorry, John," he said, " about your milk pudding. It couldn't be done - not at the
moment. If I may say so, yours was an unusual choice. As a rule it's safe to bank on the trifle. I've 
never known such a thing to happen before - not in
all the years I've been in business."
" It would have been messy in the top hat," said Mary.
" You are right, Miss, it would; but I would have done it had it been humanly possible, as you may 
say."
"It doesn't matter," said John.
"It doesn't really," said Mary. " We are quite sure to have tapioca pudding at home very soon, perhaps 
to-morrow, so please don worry about it any more."
" No, don't, " said John.
" It's a weight off my mind, " said the  conjurer, gratefully. "Will you do me the honour to accept my card, sir? "
" Thank you very much," said John. The conjurer said good night and went away.
"What a nice man," John said. "Do you think we shall see him again? I expect he lives in Arabia. They 
have magicians there. "
-Adapted extract from "More about John and Mary," by GRACE JAMES. (Frederick Muller.)

THE FIRST SNOWDROPS.
An old man sat alone in his house. It was full of shadows, and dark and gloomy. The
old man cared nothing for the shadows or the
darkness, for he was thinking of all the mighty deeds he had done. "No one," he muttered, " has done 
such deeds as
I; " and he counted them over aloud.
There was a noise outside. " What can that be? " he said. " How dare anything disturb me? I have told 
all things to
be still. It sounds like the rippling of waters, and I have told the waters to be quiet in their 
beds. There it is again! It is
like the singing of birds, and I have sent the birds all away."
Someone opened the door and came in. It was a boy with sunny curls and a rosy face.
" Who said you might come in? " muttered the old man.
" I am afraid I came in without being asked," said the boy, with a merry laugh. "You see, everyone is 
glad to see me
and- "
I am not, " broke in the old man.
"I have heard rumours of your great deeds, " said the boy, " and I came to see whether the tales are true. "
" My deeds are greater than any tale can tell," said the old man.
" And what are they? " asked the boy gravely, but with a merry twinkle in his eye. "Let us see 
whether you or I can
do the greater deed. "
 " I can breathe upon a river and I turn it into ice," said the old man.
"I can breathe on the ice and turn it into a river,'' said the boy.
" I can say to water, ' Stand still,' and it will not dare to stir."
"I can say, ' Stand no longer,' and it will go running and chattering down the mountain side," replied the boy.
" I shake my white head," said the old man, " and snow covers the earth."
" I shake my curls, " said the boy, " and the air sparkles with sunshine. In a moment the snow is gone. "
" I say to the birds, ' Sing no more. Leave me,' and they spread their wings and fly far away. Can 
you beat that? "
asked the old man.
" I say, ' Little birds come back,' and in no time they are back again and singing their sweetest 
songs to me," said
the boy, and he whistled happily.
" No one can count the leaves," said the old man, " but, when I shake the trees with my icy touch or 
turn my cold
breath upon them, they fall to the ground with fear and trembling. Did you hear that I could do that?"
The boy answered with a laugh in his voice, " I have never seen leaves falling to the ground, for when I appear they
are all fair and green, and quivering with gladness at my coming."
 The two talked in this strain all night long.
As morning drew near, the old man seemed weary, but the boy grew merrier. The sunlight brightened, and the boy turned to the 
open door. The trees were full of birds, and when they saw him they sang, " O beautiful Spring! Glad are we to look again upon 
your face ! "
"My own dear birds," cried Spring. He turned
 to say good-bye, but the old man was gone, and
where he stood were only some flakes of snow. But were they snow-flakes ? The boy looked again. They were little white 
snowdrops, the first flowers of Spring, the only flowers that can remember Winter.
- Adapted from a " Book of Nature Myths," by FLORENCE HOLBROOK. (Harrap.)

DAVID LEARNS TO SWIM.
 Henry   Bargery   was a good swimmer. He
had a strong stroke and a swift stroke, and
he could keep up the pace for a fairly long
time. He could go a long distance without
getting tired, because he could change his
stroke at will. Not only had he learnt to
swim in more ways than one, but he had also
learned to float and to tread water. And so
well had he learnt all these that he had forgotten how he had learnt them.
 David, however, was different. He was three years younger than Henry, and he could not swim at all. 
When he was taken by Henry to the swimming-bath, he got in at the shallow end, grasped
the rail at the side, and just jumped up and down in the water.  Henry poked fun at  him and tried 
to  shame him into letting go the rail. He  even tried to pull  him away. But it  was of no use.
David  clung to the rail as  though his life, depended on it.
On the third visit, however, David gained a little courage. With Henry at his side he ventured out 
into the bath, but nothing could induce him to wet his head. Then Henry, losing patience with
him, suddenly seized him by the shoulders and ducked him under the water.
The little chap came up frightened and spluttering. Blowing water out of his nose and mouth, he 
clutched wildly at Henry
and  complained bitterly, but he was soon smiling at his own timidity. He even asked Henry to duck him again. It was quite clear 
that he had begun to 
get over his fear of the water.
 On his next visit to the baths, so long as he was not beyond his depth, he was not in
the least  frightened. He could lift his feet
from the bottom and do a sort of duck-dive. He could even jump in from the side; it was not a real 
dive, but it was better than creeping down the steps into the water. In a
short time he could do all sorts of things in the water, but he couldn't swim. He tried over and over 
again. He tried by himself, he tried with Henry holding his head, and he
tried with Henry holding him up by a belt. All went well while Henry held him but, as soon as he 
let go, down David went.
On the way to the baths, and indeed at other times as well, Henry used to talk to David about 
swimming and give him plenty of advice. "All you have to do," he said one
day, " is to trust yourself to the water. It will keep you up all right. Then move your arms and 
legs as I have shown you, and you are bound to swim."
"It's all very well to talk," said David, "but when I do as you say, the water gets into my mouth and 
up my nose, and I feel myself sinking to the bottom."
" You are not really sinking," said Henry, "and you mustn't mind swallowing some water. Have you ever 
tried to sink to the bottom? It's not so easy as you think. If you can lie down flat on the water, even at the shallow end, and sink to 
the bottom, I'll give you all the 
money in my money box. I don't know exactly how much it is, but it's quite a
big
sum - perhaps a shilling."
" How is it, then," asked David, "that my head goes down under the water?"
" It's not the whole of your head," replied Henry; " it's only your mouth and nose, and they'll come 
up again. You watch my head when I do the trudgen stroke. Half the time it is under water; but I don't mind that; I just 
hold my breath till my head comes up again."
Argument, however, was of little use. David couldn't swim, and no amount of talk on Henry's part 
could make him swim; nor, indeed, could the dry-land practice that Henry
taught him.
One day, when David in his swimming costume was standing at the side of the bath near the deep end 
watching the swimmers, somebody pushed him into the water.
Henry saw him fall and rushed to the rescue; but, when he reached David, he found that his help was 
not needed. He saw to his astonishment, that David was swimming,
but not as he had been taught. He was swimming like a dog. When he had fallen into the water, he had 
splashed about wildly with his arms and legs, and had found himself
able, not only to keep his head out of the water, but to move along.
That day, David began to swim - to swim like a man. The dog-stroke had given him confidence, which was 
the one thing he really needed. In six months' time he was racing
with Henry along the whole length of the swimming-bath.
- Adapted extract from "The Bargerys," by  P. B. BALLARD. (University of London
Press.)

WHEN THEIR MAJESTIES WASHED-UP.
The King of Pennidip came cheerfully down to breakfast, and twiddled the knob of the wireless. "Tum-te-tiddley-um-te-tum, " 
said the wireless, beginning to play " The Teddy Bears' Picnic. "
" Oh, that reminds me, " said the King to the Queen; " talking of picnics, I've just told the 
servants they can have
the day off. They wanted to go for a picnic, and I said it would be all right."
" Oh, did you? " said the Queen. " Well, I hope you like washing-up."
" Why, what do you mean? " asked the King.
" There was a big banquet last night," said the Queen.
" I know," said the King, who had eaten too much.
" The kitchen is full of dishes waiting to be washed-up," went on the Queen, " and now you've let the servants go to a picnic, we 
shall have to do it ourselves."
" But I've got simply lots of ruling to do this morning," said the King.
"You've got simply lots of washing-up to do this morning," said the Queen. " The ruling can wait; the 
washing-up can't. We can very well do without new laws for a little while,
but we can't do without clean dishes."
Her Majesty put on a sweet little apron with pink daisies worked on it, tied the King up in an 
overall, and led him to the kitchen.
" Wow! " exclaimed His Majesty when he saw the dirty dishes. There were simply towers of them - 
cart-loads of cups, piles of plates, showers of saucers, stacks of spoons,
and a great many glasses.
The Queen turned on the hot tap, and everywhere was at once full of steam. She splashed away in the 
washing-up bowl, and the King with an " Oh, bother! " got the tea
towel. Then there was silence for some time, except for a slight crash when the King dropped a plate.
" Here," said the King, after they had been washing and drying for simply ages " how many more things 
are there? I didn't know we had a hundred and fifty tea-cups with pink
roses on them."
" Neither we have," said the Queen. "We had twenty-four, but one of the maids broke two, and one is on the dresser with tokens 
in it for 
the milkman. You borrowed one to mix gold paint in it for that cardboard
crown you wear indoors to save your proper one. That makes twenty left."
" Well," said the King, scratching his head, and forgetting that he had a bunch of forks in his hand 
which scratched it more
than he meant, " I've been counting them, and I've dried a hundred and fifty already, and there are 
still more to do. Why, ow, oo-er, good gracious, magic, impossible! "
"What's the matter? " asked the Queen.
"Look! " said the King pointing to the table where he'd been putting the dried things. "I've dried a hundred and fifty teacups and 
there are only six there. Where are the others?
Vanished! Disappeared? The Palace must be haunted! "
He put down a cup he had just dried, and the Queen and he both stared hard at it. Nothing happened.
"Let's look away and perhaps it will vanish," said the Queen. They looked away, counted ten, and 
looked back. The cup was still there. Just then, the Lord Chamberlain
came in, and they told him about the strange
 business of the cups.
" I know," said the Lord Chamberlain, "I'll hide in a cupboard while you go on
with the washing-up, then perhaps I shall see where the things disappear to." He squeezed himself 
into a cupboard, which took some doing, as the cupboard was a skinny
one and rather full of shelves, while the Lord Chamberlain was rather a fat one and very full of 
breakfast. At last he got himself packed in, and he watched through the
keyhole while the royal washing-up began again.
The King dried five more cups and three plates. Suddenly the Lord Chamberlain gave
a shout, and burst out of the cupboard with
a loud pop like a cork out of a bottle.
" I see it! " he cried, " I see it! Oh ha, ha, ha, it's ever so funny. "
" Is it? " said the Queen, not thinking it was, much.
" There isn't any magic about it," said the Lord Chamberlain. " You keep washing up the same things 
over and over again."
" What are you saying? " gasped the King.
" You see," said the Lord Chamberlain, when Your Majesty dried a cup you put it on this table. Then 
when the Queen had washed a few things and went to get more, she
took the ones you had already dried without noticing they had been done."
" And so we kept on washing and drying the same things over and over again," said the Queen. " Ha, 
ha, very funny! You are very clever to find it out. Now you can be
still more clever, and help us to finish the rest of the washing-up."
But the Lord Chamberlain was cleverer than that, and he persuaded the Queen to
leave the rest of the washing-up until the servants came back from their picnic.
" Next time you give everyone the day off to go for a picnic, " said the Queen to the King, " you can 
do the washing-up yourself."
" No fear," said the King. "I shall go to the picnic with them."
-NORMAN HUNTER in " Blackie's Children's Annual." (Adapted.)

REYNARD THE FOX'S TALE.
As I was talking to the wolf, we saw a
fine mare grazing with a black foal at her side, which was very fat and playful. The wolf at that 
moment was almost dead with hunger, so much so that he begged me to go to the mare and ask if
she would sell her foal.  I went and put the question to her.
The mare said she would willingly sell it for money, and I asked her the price. She replied that the 
price was written on her hinder foot which, if I liked, I might come
and read at my pleasure. I, however, well understood her anger, and I said, " It is
true that I cannot read, neither do I desire to buy your foal; I am a messenger from the wolf, who 
wants it very much."
" Then," said the mare, "let him come himself, and I'll give him the answer."
I gave the wolf the mare's message, assuring him that he could have his fill of the foal, provided he could read, for the price was 
written on the mare's hinder foot.
" Read! " said the wolf. " Why shouldn't I? I can read Latin, French, English, and
Dutch; I have studied at Oxford and argued with many learned men; I have heard many stately plays; I 
have taken many degrees; and there is no writing I cannot decipher."
 Asking me to wait there for him, away he
 went to the mare, and begged that he might
see and read the price of the foal. To this
the mare consented. She lifted her hinder
 foot, which was newly shod with strong iron
 and seven sharp nail-heads, and, as the wolf
looked at it, she struck him on the forehead
and threw him over and over. The wounded wolf lay in a dead swoon, and away trotted the mare with 
her colt.
I went to the wolf and said, " Have you eaten too much of the colt? You are unkind not to have left 
me a share. Tell me what was written on the mare's foot? Was it in prose or rhyme? "
" Alas, Reynard," said the wolf, " please don't sneer at me, for I am badly hurt, and a heart of 
flint would pity me. The mare on her long leg has an iron foot, and I took the nails for letters. She
hit me so hard on the head that I think my skull is broken."
" Really," I said, " I am surprised! I took you for one of the greatest scholars in the land. Well, well, I see that the old proverb is 
now made good in you. The greatest scholars are not always the wisest men."

THE BRONCO BUSTER.
One spring a stranger came riding up to the X bar Y ranch and the cowboys stared at him. His 
high-heeled calfskin
boots, his silver spurs, and his hat with gold and silver trimmings were much smarter than they were 
used to among
themselves.
" Some swell, eh? " said one of them. "Thinks he's come for a randy. " The idea amused the cowboys, 
and there was
a general laugh. When they saw the stranger's saddle and rope, they laughed again. The rope was at 
least sixty feet
long and made of raw cowhide. The saddle had a high horn and broad stirrups covered by a leather 
flap. It was kept in
place by only one girth about the horse's middle. The stranger's stirrups were placed well forward so 
that his legs
were thrust out in front, instead of being in a straight line with the body.
With a wink at his mates, Lanky Bill said loudly, " It seems he's a circus rider come to show off his 
tricks."
The stranger did not seem in the least to mind the cowboys' laughter. He told John Barrett that he 
was from Nevada,
and was making his way south. He asked for a job on the ranch, saying that if there were any wild 
horses to break in
he could do it.
The cowboys roared at this, but John Barrett stopped them with a sharp word. He knew that the cowboys 
west of the
Rockies rode differently from those on his side of the mountains, and he also knew that they were 
fine riders. Among
the horses being driven in for the spring round-up were many wild ones, and Barrett had not very many good horse-breakers. " 
Yes," he said, " you can stay. There are plenty of wild broncos coming in. Let's see you ride."
Next morning the stranger, who was called Pedro, went down to the breaking corral. He carried his saddle, whip and rope, a 
halter, and a leather blind. Harry pointed out a big bay horse with a wild mane and long 
tail. " Try that brute,"
he said. " He's broken one man's arm already, and half killed another. "
Entering the corral, Pedro moved slowly towards the horse. The animal laid back its ears, kicked up 
its heels, and
was off. Round and round the corral it dashed, scattering the other horses. Suddenly out flew Pedro's 
long rope, and
the noose settled round the horse's forefeet. It ran on until the rope stretched taut; then it went 
on its nose with a
crash. Pedro dug his heels into the ground and held on while the horse struggled and fought. At last, 
completely
winded, it lay still. Coiling in his rope, Pedro walked up to it. With a quick movement he slipped on 
the halter, then he dropped the blind over its eyes and jerked it to its feet.
The horse stood quietly until it felt the touch of the saddle. Then it started to kick and buck. Like 
greased lightning,
Pedro twisted and turned out of the reach of its flying hoofs. He tugged on the halter with one hand and strapped the
saddle-girth tight with the other. By this time the cowboys were lined up round the corral. With a leap Pedro was in the saddle, 
the blind was twitched away, and the real contest between man and horse began.
Up in the air went the horse, its back arched almost to a point; then down it came with a thud on its 
four feet. The cowboys were waiting to see the saddle slip and Pedro fall to the ground;
but the single girth held the saddle firm, and Pedro still seated was smiling gently. When the horse was tired of bucking, it sat on 
its tail and reared straight up in the air. Pedro gripped
its sides with his thighs and brought his leather whip down smartly across its shoulders. In a flash 
it was on its forelegs, lashing out wildly with its hind feet. It was a trick that would throw even a good
rider, but after some minutes of it, Pedro was still sitting tight.
The horse's next move was to make a rush for the side of the corral, trying to crush its rider's 
leg against the rails. Pedro let it go almost to the bars. Then he jerked the halter with such force
that the horse fell back on its haunches, and before it could recover it was wrenched round towards 
the middle of the corral. The battle went on for a long time, the horse trying every trick to
unseat its rider, but after every buck, jump, and rush, Pedro was still in the saddle.
The cowboys began to shout approval. They knew when a man could ride. At last the horse stood shaking 
and sweating. It was mastered. There was a regular roar which almost started the bay
off again.
Lanky Bill made amends for his earlier jeers with a hearty, " Say, stranger, you can ride. We'll have 
a match together before long." Lanky Bill was one of the best riders on the range, and the
cowboys knew from his words that he regarded Pedro as his equal.
A long ride in the open finished the bay's lesson for that day, and it was turned loose in the 
corral again. For several days Pedro did nothing but break the wildest of the horses, and John Barrett
kept him on for the round-up. Then the cowboys saw that his sixty-foot rope could be just as good for 
roping as their shorter ones. Pedro roped his horse from a greater distance than they did,
and took twists round his high saddlehorn to hold the animal. The men began to have a great respect 
for his skill. As one of them said, "Well, there are more ways than one of roping a creature, and this chap can rope his."
When autumn came, Pedro said good-bye to the ranch and went on his way. The cowboys gave him a rousing cheer as he set out. 
They were sorry to see him go.
-From " X bar Y Ranch," by K. M. GADD. (Ginn.)

SHAG SCENTS AN ENEMY.
Shag was a fine youngster, and Lua, the caribou doe, was justly proud of him. His coat was a warm 
mouse colour,
shading to white and grey in places; and, when he was only an hour old, he struggled bravely to his 
feet and followed
his mother with stumbling, awkward strides.
Those first days of Shag's life were spent in the forest.  Under the trees there were fewer insects 
to torment him, and
those that were about were more easily kept at bay by his watchful mother. And how tenderly
Lua watched over her first fawn, who would one day be a magnificent caribou stag!
 In the surrounding Newfoundland forests were hundreds of other doe mothers and their fawns, but Lua 
and Shag kept
very much to themselves, and Lua rarely left the fawn and then for only a short length of time. 
One of these
absences took place when Shag was ten days old. Lua had sighted a tempting growth of moss on the other side of the stream. Not 
wishing 
her baby to
enter the chilly water, she led him into a dense thicket, telling him in caribou talk to wait there.
Shag made a sound which meant: " All right, Mother; I'll be good "; and having seen him comfortably 
settled, Lua
went off to feed. Unfortunately, Grim the Lynx was that day wandering in the neighbourhood. He was 
hungry, for
hunting had been bad, and presently he came close to the thicket where Shag was lying. Nearer and 
nearer he came.
The day had been almost windless, but now a little breeze sprang up and carried Grim's scent to 
Shag's sharp nose.
Shag gave a start. Never had he smelt that smell before, but instinct told him it belonged to an 
enemy, and his baby
heart turned cold with dread. He very nearly jumped to his feet with the idea of running to Mother Lua for safety - nearly, but not 
quite. Instinct again came to his aid. " If you move," it told him, " the enemy will 
hear you. If you keep
still he will not hear you. He may not even see you, although he comes quite close; and as he is to windward of you he cannot 
pick up your scent."
So Baby Shag froze. He froze so completely that not a hair on his body moved He was so still that he 
became part of the gloom about him, with the result that Grim passing six yards away had
no idea that an ample meal lay within his reach. Shag was safe, but still he kept as motionless as a 
stone image. 
Meanwhile the little breeze danced through the trees, and Grim turned and began to circle the 
thicket. It looked a likely place for a caribou fawn to be lying, but, as he told himself with 
disgust, the
fawn's mother was sure to be with him. Still, one never knew, and he was oh, so hungry! Presently he 
stopped, raised his head, and sniffed; his nostrils picked up a strong caribou smell. He
pricked up his ears and listened. No sound came from the thicket. Was the mother caribou there? 
Something told Grim that she was not, and with a greedy look on his savage face he began to creep slowly through the 
undergrowth.
In the thicket Shag relaxed. He was to windward of Grim now, and the breeze brought him no warning scent, while Grim moved 
as silently as a shadow. Foot by foot he advanced, and with every step he became more certain that the mother doe was away, 
and that before him was a helpless fawn. 
Caribou meat was good and it was very rarely that such a chance came his way.
Still the breeze frolicked on. It reached Lua contentedly munching moss on the farther side of the stream, and it tickled her 
sensitive nose. Now, the caribou's sense of smell is amazingly strong, nd they depend
upon it more than anything else for their safety. Thus it happened that, as the breeze touched Lua's 
nose, she stopped in the middle of a mouthful, swung round, and the next moment was
plunging back through the stream. The breeze had brought her the scent of lynx, and the lynx was 
between her and her baby.
Grim, meantime, with the warm luscious
smell of caribou fawn hot in his nostrils,
had for once forgotten his caution in his
hunger. So it came to pass that, in the same
moment as he espied Shag lying in the
shadows, Lua caught sight of him and uttered
a snort of fury. With a scream of baffled rage Grim swung round, but already Lua had reared herself 
on her hind legs, and before Grim could save himself her fore-hoofs had come down upon his
head with shattering force. One blow was enough. With his skull battered in by those vengeful hoofs, 
Grim sank dead upon the ground. For some moments Lua stood with smouldering eyes
regarding her fallen enemy; then she stepped daintily over him and nuzzled Shag.
" Are you all right, Baby Shag? "
" Yes," answered Shag, " but I have had a terrible fright."
" Then you need be frightened no longer," replied Lua, licking him tenderly. " The lynx-folk are few 
on this island, and that one will trouble you no more."
-Adapted extract from "Shag, the Caribou," in Macmillans' Wild Life Story Readers.

HIS FIRST FLIGHT.
 The young seagull was alone on his ledge.
His two brothers and his sister had flown
away the day before. He had been afraid to fly with them. Somehow, when he had taken a little run 
forward to the brink of the ledge and attempted to flap his wings he became afraid.
The great expanse of sea stretched beneath, and it was such a long way down - miles down. He felt 
certain that his wings would never support him, so he bent his head and ran away back to the
little hole under the ledge  where he slept at night. Even when his brothers and his little sister, 
whose wings were far shorter than his own, ran to the brink, flapped their wings and flew away, he
failed to muster up courage to take that plunge. His father and mother had come round, calling to him 
shrilly, threatening to let him starve on his ledge unless he flew away; but for the
life of him he could not move.
That was twenty-four hours ago. Since then nobody had come near him. The day before, all day long, 
he had watched his parents flying about with his brothers and sister, perfecting them in the
art of flight, teaching them how to skim the waves and how to dive for fish. He had, in fact, seen his 
elder brother catch his first herring and devour it, standing on a rock, while his parents circled around raising a proud cackle. And 
all the morning the whole family had walked about on the broad ledge down the opposite cliff, jeering at him for
being a coward.
The sun was now blazing on his ledge. He felt the heat because he had not eaten since the night 
before. Then he had found a dried piece of fish at the far end of his ledge. Now there was not a
single scrap of food left. He had searched every inch, rooting among the dirt-caked straw nest where 
he and his brothers and sister had been hatched. He had even gnawed at the dried pieces of
spotted eggshell.
He had then trotted back and forth, from one end of the ledge to the other, trying to find some way 
of reaching his parents without having to fly. On each side of him, however, the ledge ended in a steep wall, with the sea beneath, 
and between him and his parents there was a deep, wide chasm.
He stepped out to the brink of the ledge and, standing on one leg, he closed one eye and then the 
other, pretending to be falling asleep. Still the family
 took no notice of him.
 He saw his two brothers and his sister lying
 on the opposite ledge dozing, with their heads
 sunk into their necks. His father was preening
the feathers on his white back. Only his
mother was looking at the lonely one. She
 was standing on a hump, her white breast
thrust forward. Now and again she tore at
 a piece of fish, and then scraped each side of
 her beak on the rock. The sight of the food
maddened him. How he loved to tear food
that way , scraping his beak now and then to
whet it! He uttered a low cackle. His
 mother cackled, too, and looked over at him.
" Ga, ga, ga," he cried, begging her to
bring him over some food. " Gaw-oo-ah," she
screamed  back mockingly.  He kept calling and after a minute or two he uttered a joyful scream. His mother had picked up a 
piece of the fish and was flying across to him with it.
He leaned out eagerly, tapping the rock with his feet, trying to get nearer to her as she flew 
across. But when she
was just opposite to him, she halted, her wings motionless, the piece of fish in her beak almost 
within reach of his
beak. He waited a moment in surprise, wondering why she did not come
nearer, and then, maddened by hunger, he dived at the fish.
With a loud scream he fell outwards and downwards into space. His mother had swooped upwards. As he 
passed
beneath her he heard the swish of her wings. Then a monstrous terror seized him, and his heart stood 
still. He could hear nothing. But it lasted only a moment. The next moment he felt his wings spread outwards. The wind rushed 
against his breast feathers, then under his body and against his wings. He could feel the tips 
of his wings
cutting through the air. He was not falling headlong now. He was soaring downwards and outwards. He 
was no longer
afraid. He just felt dizzy.
Then he flapped his wings once and he soared upwards. He uttered a joyous scream and flapped them 
again. He
soared higher. He raised his breast and banked against the wind. " Ga, ga, ga. Gaw-oo-ah. " His 
mother swooped
past him, her wings making a loud noise. He answered her with another scream. Then his father flew 
over him,
screaming, and he saw his two brothers and his sister flying round him, soaring and diving. He quite 
forgot that he had
not always been able to fly, and began himself to dive and soar, shrieking shrilly.
He was near the sea now, flying straight over it, facing out over the ocean. He saw a vast green sea 
beneath him, with
little ridges moving over it, and he turned his beak sideways and crowed amusedly. His family had landed on this green floor.  
They were beckoning to him, calling shrilly. He dropped his legs to stand on the sea. 
They sank into it.
He screamed with fright and tried to rise again, flapping his wings. But he was tired and weak with 
hunger and he
could not rise. His feet sank into the sea, and then his body touched it, and he sank no more. He was 
floating on it.
Around him his family were screaming, praising him, and their beaks were offering him scraps of 
dog-fish.
He had made his first flight.
-LIAM O'FLAHERTY, in " Spring Sowing." (Jonathan Cape.) (Adapted.)
 
JANE BECOMES A GIRL GUIDE.
Jane had just returned from school in the afternoon. Her face was flushed and her eyes sparkled. "Mummy," she
said, in an impressive voice, " something happened to me to-day that has never happened before and can never happen again."
" Things of that kind happen to me every day," said her mother.
" But this," said Jane, " this is very important. "
" Well, my dear, tell me about it."
 Then Jane said slowly and solemnly, "I was enrolled as a girl guide." Her mother
did not seem to be so deeply impressed by the event as Jane had expected. She listened, however, with 
much
interest to Jane's account of what had taken place.
" First of all," said Jane, " I had to pass my tenderfoot test. I did that last week. There were 
several things I had to
know. I had to know the Guide Law, which is rather hard to remember, because there is not one law, 
but ten. The first
of them is: ' A guide's honour is to be trusted '; and the other nine are of the same sort. Then I 
had to know the
threefold promise, which is easier and goes like this: ' On my honour I promise that I will do my 
best to do my duty to
God and the King; to help other people at all times; and to obey the Guide Law!'"
At this point Jane removed a brooch from her tie and showed it to her mother. " Look at this badge, 
Mother," she
continued. " All girl guides wear it. It is called the trefoil, which means three leaves, and reminds 
us of the three
promises we have made. So does the salute, for we always salute with three fingers like this." Here 
Jane saluted her
mother in the true guide manner.
"Well," she went on, " we had to know how to salute, and to know the scout signs used by the 
guides, and to
understand the Union Jack and how to fly it. Then we had to be able to tie four different kinds of 
knots. Henry helped
me in learning all these things, for he had to pass the same test when he became a boy scout. "
" But tell me what happened to-day, Jane," said her mother.
" I wish, Mother," said Jane, " you could have been there to see it. All the guides and the recruits - I was a recruit - stood round in 
what they call ' horseshoe formation,'
with the patrol leaders inside the horseshoe. My patrol leader introduced me to the Captain as Jane 
Bargery, who had passed the tenderfoot test and wished to become a girl
guide. The Captain then asked me a few questions to see if I knew the meaning of 'honour,' and if I knew the threefold promise.
" She was satisfied with my answers, and we shook hands with the left hand. All the
guides saluted, and the Captain said she trusted me to do my best to do my duty to God and the King, 
to help other people at all times, and to obey the Guide Law. Then she
pinned the trefoil on my tie. After saluting the colours, my patrol leader and I turned round to face 
the company and she said, ' Company, I present to you Guide Jane Bargery.' There was more saluting and the ceremony was 
over. I was enrolled as a Girl
Guide. Yesterday I had no right to wear the guide badge; to-day I have. Yesterday I was only Jane 
Bargery; to-day I am Guide Jane Bargery. "
" Guide Jane Bargery, " said her mother saluting her, " come and have your tea. " She thought to 
herself, but she did not say it aloud, that, if being helpful to others was the
main idea in the girl-guide movement, nobody would make a better guide than Jane Bargery.
-From "The Bargerys," by P. B. BALLARD. (University of London Press.)

THE CRATCHITS' CHRISTMAS DINNER.
 Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, dressed out
but poorly in a twice turned gown, but brave
in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly
show for sixpence. She laid the cloth,
assisted by Belinda, her second daughter, also
brave in ribbons; while Master Peter
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of
potatoes. The corners of his monstrous
shirt collar (lent to him by his father in
honour of the day) were constantly getting
into his mouth, but he rejoiced to find
himself so gallantly attired.
And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and
girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside
I
the baker's they had smelt the goose and known it for their own. Basking in luxurious thoughts of 
sage and onion, they glanced about the table, while Peter, with his collar nearly choking him, blew
the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.
" What has kept your precious father," said Mrs. Cratchit, " and Tiny, Tim? And Martha wasn't as late 
last Christmas Day by half an hour! "
" Here's Martha, Mother," cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"
" Why, my dear, how late you are! " said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her.
"We had a lot of work to finish last night," said Martha, "and we had to clear
away  this morning."
" There's Father coming! " cried the two young Cratchits. " Hide, Martha, hide! "
So Martha hid herself, and in came Bob Cratchit, the father, with his threadbare clothes darned and 
brushed to look seasonable and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas, for Tiny
Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.
" Why, where's our Martha? " cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.
"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.
"Not coming! " said Bob with a sudden drop in his high spirits, for he had been Tim's horse all the 
way from church. " Not coming on Christmas Day!"
Martha did not like to see him disappointed, even in joke; so she came out from behind the cupboard 
door and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hurried Tiny Tim
off to the wash-house to hear the pudding singing in the copper.
Presently Master Peter and the two young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon 
returned in high procession. Such a bustle followed that you might have
thought the goose the rarest of all birds, a feathered wonder, to which a black swan was a matter of 
course. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy hissing hot; Master Peter mashed
the potatoes with remarkable vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot 
plates; and Bob took Tiny Tim beside him at the table. The two young
Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, 
crammed spoons into
their mouths lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped.
At last the dishes were set on and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit looking slowly along 
the carving-knife prepared to plunge it into the breast. When she did and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, 
one murmur of 
delight rose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two
young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife and feebly cried "Hurrah! "
There never was such a goose. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were remarked upon by 
everyone. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a
sufficient dinner for the whole family. Indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight, surveying 
one small atom of bone upon the dish, they had not eaten it all even then. Yet
everyone had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onions to 
the eyebrows.
Now Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone - too nervous to bear witnesses - to take the pudding up and bring 
it in. Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in
turning
out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard and stolen it while they were 
merry with the goose - an idea at which the two young Cratchits turned pale!
Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like washing day! That was 
the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's
next door to each other, with a laundry next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute 
Mrs. Cratchit entered,
flushed but smiling proudly, with the pudding like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing 
in burning brandy
and bedecked with Christmas holly stuck in the top. Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said he 
regarded it as
Mrs. Cratchit's greatest success since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind,
she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody, indeed, had something to say about it.
At last the dinner was all done; the
 cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the
fire made up. Apples and oranges were put
 on the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts
 on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew
 round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called
a circle, meaning half a one, the chestnuts on the fire spluttered and cracked noisily.
Then Bob proposed: " A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us! " Which all the family re-echoed.
" God bless us every one! " said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
-Adapted from "The Christmas Carol." (CHARLES DICKENS.)


