Child Stories from the Masters Part 2

By Yeend King

"AT THE FARTHEST END OF THE MEADOW"]

A FISH AND A b.u.t.tERFLY.

At the very farthest end of the meadow there is water, blue with sky. It flows on and on, growing broad and strong farther down, to turn the mill wheel. But here in the meadow, you can see far off on the other side, and hear the cows ripping off the tender gra.s.s, and smell the perfume of wild plums.

Boy Blue lay in the long cool gra.s.s watching the water. How sleepily it moved, and what a pretty song it sang! How clear! he could count the pebbles at the bottom; and there, swimming straight toward him, came a tiny fish, making little darts from one side to another, and snapping at the tadpoles on the way. Then he stopped just in front of him.

"Oh, dear!" said a voice; and the little boy could not tell whether it was the fish, or the tomt.i.t scolding on the elder bush. "Dear me!" came the voice again; and the little fish sighed, making a bubble on the top of the water, and rings that grew and grew till they reached the other bank.

"What's the matter?" asked Boy Blue.

"I'd like a new play and new playmates," sighed the fish. "I'm so tired of the old ones!"

"Oh," said the boy, and was just about to ask, "Would I do?" when there came floating along in the air a beautiful b.u.t.terfly, floating, floating like a s.h.i.+p in full sail.

"Oh!" cried the fish, "how beautiful! how beautiful! Come let us play together--let us play."

The b.u.t.terfly rested on a thistle bloom and stirred her pale wings thoughtfully. "Play?" she said.

"Yes, let us play. How beautiful thou art!"

"And thou!" said the b.u.t.terfly; "all the s.h.i.+ne of the sun and sea gleams in thy armor. Let us play together."

"Let us play."

"Come then," said the b.u.t.terfly; "come up into the fresh morning air and the sunlight, where everything smiles this sweet May day."

"There?" cried the fish; "I would die there; I would die! There is no life for me in your suns.h.i.+ne world. But come with me into this glittering stream; here swimming against the swift current is strong life. Come, let us play here."

But the b.u.t.terfly trembled. "There?" she cried; "if I touched one single little wave I should be swept out and away forever. There is no life for me in the glittering stream."

They looked across at each other.

"But see," said the b.u.t.terfly, "I will come as near as I dare to your water world;" and she spread her beautiful wings and floated down to the edge of the water. The fish with a great stroke swam toward her. But they could only touch the same bit of earth, and the waves always bore him back.

"Ah," he cried at last, "it is useless! we cannot play together."

"Ah," wept the b.u.t.terfly, "we cannot play together."

"Boy Blue," said the farmer, brus.h.i.+ng aside the long gra.s.s, "you were asleep."

"Asleep!" said the little boy, jumping up; "I couldn't have been. I heard every word the fish and the b.u.t.terfly said."

The indescribable-- Here it is done; The woman soul Leadeth us upward and on.

--_From Goethe's "Faust."_

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_By Jules Le Febvre_

LISEUSE]

HOW MARGARET LED FAUST THROUGH THE PERFECT WORLD.

There was once a very great man who understood all of the most mysterious things in the world. He knew quite perfectly how spiders spun and how the firefly kept his lantern burning. All of these marvelous things were plain to him, for he had read everything that had been written in books, and he had spent his whole life searching and peering through a strange gla.s.s at the most wonderful small things. Always and always he was thinking in his heart, "When I know _everything_ then I shall be content, surely!"

So he went on searching and looking and reading, night and day, in his dim room. Always he was growing older and wearier, but he did not think of that; he only knew that the strange longing was growing in his heart, and that he was never any happier than before. But he would say to himself, "It is because there is something I have not learned. When I know everything, then surely the joy will come to me."

One night he shut his book and laid aside the strange gla.s.s, and sat quite still in the dim room. He had found that there was nothing more to be learned; there was nothing of all the mysteries that he did not know perfectly.

And behold, the longing was still in his heart, and no gladness came. He only felt how weary and old he was. He thought: "There _is_ no joy in the world; there is nothing good and perfect in the whole world!" He closed his tired eyes and leaned his head back. The lamp burned low, and the place was very still for a long time. And then there suddenly broke the most beautiful music right under his window; children were singing, and men and women, and above it all bells were ringing--wonderful, joyous bells.

"Can it be," said the old man--"can it be that anyone is really joyful in the world?" He rose up and went to the window, and thrust back the great curtain.

And lo! it was morning!

The most beautiful, s.h.i.+ning morning; people were pouring out of all the houses, smiling and singing, and bowing to one another; little children were going together with flowers in their hands, singing, and answering the tones of the great bells; and one little child, as it pa.s.sed, looked right up at the great Doctor Faust, and held out its white lily. The bells chimed, and the singing grew sweeter and clearer.

"If there is something joyful in the world, surely some one will tell me," said the man; and he went out into the morning.

It had rained in the night; there were pools in the street, and the leaves glistened. "How bright the light is!" he thought, and "how strange the flowers look blooming in the sun!" But the birds flew away when he came, and this made the strange longing in the lonely man's heart grow into pain. So he stepped back in the shadow and looked into all the happy faces as they pa.s.sed, and listened to the singing.

But no one stopped to tell him anything. They were so full of joy that they did not feel his touch, and his words when he spoke were swept right up into the song and the pealing of the joy-bells.

Girls in white veils, with stalks of the most beautiful lilies in their hands, pa.s.sed him in a long line, and the boys came after, in new clothes, and shoes that squeaked. But he only saw their s.h.i.+ning, upturned faces. They were so beautiful as they sang, that tears stood in the smiling eyes of all the fathers and mothers and neighbors who followed after. Little children holding each other's hands went together, and one little one had a queer woolly lamb on wheels trundling behind him.

"Can it be," said the old man, "that there is a deep joy in the world?

will no one tell me?" And he turned and went with the people; and after awhile he met a young girl.

She was not singing, but the most beautiful light shone from her face; so he knew she was thinking of the deep joy, and he asked her what it was, and why the people were glad.

She looked at him with loving wonder, and then she told him it was Easter morning, when everything in the wide world remembers fully that the joy can never die. "It is here always," she told him.

"Always?" said the old man; and he shook his head sadly.

"Always," she said; and she took his hand and led him out of the throng into the most beautiful ways. He did not know that in the whole world there were such wonderful gra.s.sy lanes. Why, there were hedges with star-flowers here and there; apple trees were blooming, and between the cottages there were gardens where seed had sprung up in rows.

In some of the houses people were going about their homely tasks, and they were singing softly, or saying the most gentle words to one another as they worked. And before a very humble door, where only one tall lily bloomed, there sat a beautiful mother with a baby on her knee and a little one beside her; and they were looking straight into her eyes, listening to the wonderful story of the Easter morning. The father stopped to listen too, and in every single face shone the same holy light.