The Child's World Part 4

Si-ling and the emperor stood still and watched the worms. "How wonderful!" said Si-ling.

The next morning Hoangti and the empress walked under the trees again.

They found some worms still winding thread. Others had already spun their coc.o.o.ns and were fast asleep. In a few days all of the worms had spun coc.o.o.ns.

"This is indeed a wonderful, wonderful thing!" said Si-ling. "Why, each worm has a thread on its body long enough to make a house for itself!"

Si-ling thought of this day after day. One morning as she and the emperor walked under the trees, she said, "I believe I could find a way to weave those long threads into cloth."

"But how could you unwind the threads?" asked the emperor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hoangti and Si-ling walking among the trees]

"I'll find a way," Si-ling said. And she did; but she had to try many, many times.

She put the coc.o.o.ns in a hot place, and the little sleepers soon died.

Then the coc.o.o.ns were thrown into boiling water to make the threads soft. After that the long threads could be easily unwound.

Now Si-ling had to think of something else; she had to find a way to weave the threads into cloth. After many trials, she made a loom--the first that was ever made. She taught others to weave, and soon hundreds of people were making cloth from the threads of the silkworm.

The people ever afterward called Si-ling "The G.o.ddess of the Silkworm."

And whenever the emperor walked with her in the garden, they liked to watch the silkworms spinning threads for the good of their people.

THE FLAX

I

It was spring. The flax was in full bloom, and it had dainty little blue flowers that nodded in the breeze.

"People say that I look very well," said the flax. "They say that I am fine and long and that I shall make a beautiful piece of linen. How happy I am! No one in the world can be happier."

"Oh, yes," said the fence post, "you may grow and be happy, and you may sing, but you do not know the world as I do. Why, I have knots in me."

And it creaked;

"Snip, snap, snurre, Ba.s.se, lurre, The song is ended."

"No, it is not ended," said the flax. "The sun will shine, and the rain will fall, and I shall grow and grow. No, no, the song is not ended."

One day some men came with sharp reap hooks. They took the flax by the head and cut it off at the roots. This was very painful, you may be sure.

Then the flax was laid in water and was nearly drowned. After that it was put on a fire and nearly roasted. All this was frightful. But the flax only said, "One cannot be happy always. By having bad times as well as good, we become wise."

After the flax had been cut and steeped and roasted, it was put on a spinning wheel. "Whir-r-r, whir-rr-r," went the spinning wheel; it went so fast that the flax could hardly think.

"I have been very happy in the sunshine and the rain," it said. "If I am in pain now, I must be contented."

At last the flax was put in the loom. Soon it became a beautiful piece of white linen.

"This is very wonderful," said the flax. "How foolish the fence post was with its song of--

'Snip, snap, snurre, Ba.s.se, lurre, The song is ended.'

The song is not ended, I am sure. It has only just begun.

"After all that I have suffered, I am at last made into beautiful linen.

How strong and fine I am, and how long and white! This is even better than being a plant bearing flowers. I have never been happier than I am now."

After some time the linen was cut into pieces and sewed with needles.

That was not pleasant; but at last there were twelve pretty white ap.r.o.ns.

"See," said the flax, "I have been made into something. Now I shall be of some use in the world. That is the only way to be happy."

II

Years pa.s.sed by, and the linen was so worn that it could hardly hold together.

"The end must come soon," said the flax.

At last the linen did fall into rags and tatters; it was torn into shreds and boiled in water. The flax thought the end had come.

But no, the end was not yet. After being made into pulp and dried, the flax became beautiful white paper.

"This is a surprise, a glorious surprise," it said. "I am finer than ever, and I shall have fine things written on me. How happy I am!"

And sure enough, the most beautiful stories and verses were written upon it. People read the stories and verses, and they were made wiser and better. Their children and their children's children read them, too, and so the song was not ended.

--HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Girl reading a book]

THE WONDERFUL WORLD

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World, With the wonderful water round you curled, And the wonderful gra.s.s upon your breast, World, you are beautifully drest.

The wonderful air is over me, And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree-- It walks on the water, and whirls the mills, And talks to itself on the top of the hills.

You friendly Earth, how far do you go, With the wheat-fields that nod and the rivers that flow, With cities and gardens, and cliffs and isles, And people upon you for thousands of miles?

Ah! you are so great, and I am so small, I hardly can think of you, World, at all; And yet, when I said my prayers to-day, A whisper within me seemed to say, "You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot!

You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!"