Classic Myths Part 7

But North Wind said nothing. He put a queer stick into a bag and gave it to the boy and told him to go back and lock his door as tightly as before.

"Talk to the bag," he said, "and guard it as carefully as if there was a jewel in it."

That night the boy was wakened out of his soundest sleep by screams for help in his room. There was the innkeeper running about, and that queer stick was pounding him, first on the head, then on the feet, then on his back, then in his face.

"Help! help!" he cried.

"Give me back my sheep," said the boy.

"Get it; it is hidden in the barn," said the innkeeper.

The boy went out and found his sheep in the barn and drove it away as fast as he could, but he forgot about the innkeeper, and, maybe, that stick is pounding him to this day.

ORPHEUS, THE SOUTH WIND

_Greek_

In the land of Thrace there lived, years ago, one who was called Orpheus. He was the sweetest singer ever known. His voice was low and soft.

When men heard this voice all anger ceased, and their thoughts were thoughts of peace. Even wild animals were tamed.

Orpheus went into the woods one day and took nothing but his harp with him.

No quiver of arrows was on his back, nor hunting spear at his side.

He sang and sang till the birds flew down on the ground about him, and seemed to think that a creature with such a voice must be merely another kind of bird.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORPHEUS. Showing his broken harp]

A wild cat came creeping slyly between the trees, trying to catch the little feathered listeners. Orpheus took his lute and played upon it, and the wild cat became as tame as the birds. They all followed Orpheus farther into the forest.

Soon, from behind a rock, a tiger sprang to attack the wild cat. The birds and the wild cat called to Orpheus. When he saw the trouble he took his harp again, and while he sang the tiger came trembling and purring to his feet and the birds, the wild cat, and the tiger followed Orpheus still farther into the forest.

He sat down by a tree to rest and the bees came and showed him where their honey was hidden in the tree. He fed his friends, and then he and the tiger led the way to a river where there was the purest water.

Tall trees bent low before him, and young trees tore themselves from the ground and followed in his train.

Foul waters parted so that Orpheus and his band might pa.s.s through unharmed; they knew no longer any evil thing.

Before they reached the river of pure water, to which the tiger was leading them, a lion, fierce with anger, sprang madly at his old enemy.

Orpheus took his harp and played so wonderfully that the pine trees sighed with sorrow, and the lion, loosing his hold on the tiger, followed the sweet singer of Thrace. At the river the birds, the wild cat, the tiger, and the lion drank together with Orpheus, with not one thought of hurting one another.

"We are tired," said the birds. "Let us stay here by this river," and Orpheus agreed. The birds flew to the trees, while the others tried to rest on the huge rocks by the sh.o.r.e, but these were jagged and rough.

They would give no rest to any one.

Then Orpheus began to play, and the hardest rocks were stirred. They rolled over and over into the river, and in their places the softest beds of white sand were ready for all. Orpheus rested, with the lion and the tiger for his night-watchers, and the wild cat asleep in the tree with the birds.

In the morning the harp sounded again, and the strange company wandered away, happy to be near the music. The three wild beasts fed together on the river gra.s.ses and forgot that they had been life-long enemies.

Orpheus had said, before he came into the wood, that he was tired of men and their quarrels; that wild beasts were easier to tame than angry men; and so he found it during these two days in the forest.

He took his harp and played and sang a sweet, wild song of love and peace, and overhead the leaves and branches of the oaks danced for joy of living. Not one growl, not one quarrel was heard where even the echoes of the music went. The very rocks answered the voice of Orpheus, and everything was at peace.

Then came the sound of the hunting dogs. The lion raised his s.h.a.ggy head, but put it down again. Savage light came again into the eyes of the tiger and of the wild cat. The dogs came nearer. Orpheus played on his lute and the dogs came and lay down at his feet, and the hunters went home without their prey.

That night Orpheus led the birds and beasts all back to the places where he had found them, and went home to live once more in his cave in Thrace.

For years hunters told, over their camp-fires, strange stories of a tiger and a lion who lived together in the deep forest; of a wild cat with eyes like a pet fawn; and of birds whose songs were so sweet that wild beasts grew tame as they listened.

Sometimes, even in these days, it seems as if Orpheus were singing again.

When the wind stirs, there comes sweet music. The pine trees sigh, the leaves and branches of the forest trees dance as in the days when Orpheus first went into the woods of Thrace.

When the south wind blows, earth's voices become low and sweet, and the birds sing soft melodies to greet its coming.

Old books tell us that Orpheus was really the south wind itself.

THE LITTLE WIND-G.o.d

_Greek_

"What is it in the thermometer that s.h.i.+nes so, mother?"

"Oh, that is quicksilver, Ethel. See the line of silver run up the tube while I hold it in my hand."

"Quicksilver? I should think it was quick! See it run back, now the tube is cool. But father called it something else the other night.

What was it?"

"Oh, yes; he called it mercury, my dear. It is named after one of the G.o.ds the Greeks used to wors.h.i.+p, their swift wind-G.o.d, Mercury. We read of him in many old stories. He was so quick that he became a messenger boy for the other G.o.ds."

"Oh, I like those old myths. Tell me about Mercury. I am going to name my dove after him, for it takes messages for me. Tell me a long one, please."

"Well, my dear, Mercury is also the name of the planet that will soon be our evening star. And, Ethel, if I tell you this story now, you must tell it to me sometime when we watch his beautiful namesake in the sky.

Will you try to remember it?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, I'll remember. I love the stories about the stars. It makes them seem so real. I know Venus and Jupiter, and Mars with his red eye, and now I am going to have another friend among them. Oh, I am glad I asked about that quicksilver," and Ethel settled down on a footstool at her mother's feet.

This is the story Mrs. Brown told Ethel:

"In the days when the earth was young, a little baby lay alone in its cradle in a beautiful cave in a mountain side. This baby was Mercury.