I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel,

With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel.

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses.

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

Five Out of One Shell.*

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

HERE were five peas in one shell.

THERE

They were

green, and the pod was green, and so they thought all the world was green, and that was just as it should be. The shell grew and the peas grew.

The sun shone without and warmed the husk, and the rain made it clear and bright. It was mild in the bright day and in the dark night, just as it should be, and the peas as they sat there became bigger and bigger, and more and more thoughtful, for something they must do.

"Are we to sit here forever?" asked one. "I'm afraid we shall become hard by long sitting. It seems to me there must be something outside." And weeks went by. The peas became yellow, and the pod also.

"All the world's turning yellow," said they, and they had a right to say it. Just then they felt a tug at the shell. The shell was torn off, passed through little hands, and fell down into the pocket of a jacket, along with other full pods.

"Now we shall soon be opened!" they said; and that was just what they were waiting for. "I should like to know who of us will get farthest!" said the smallest

*These translations from Hans Christian Andersen and from Æsop's Fables are taken from Williams' Choice Literature, by permission of Sheldon & Company, New York.

of the five.

"Yes, now it will soon show itself." "What is to be will be," said the biggest.

"Crack!" the pod burst, and all the five peas rolled out into the bright sunshine. There they lay in a child's hand. A little boy was clutching them, and said they were fine peas for his peashooter, and he put one in and shot it out.

wide world; catch me "I," said the second, That's a shell worth And away he

"Now, I'm flying out into the if you can!" And he was gone. "I shall fly straight into the sun. looking at, and one that just suits me." went.

"We'll go to sleep wherever we are sent," said the next two, "but we shall roll on all the same." And they did roll and fell down on the ground before they got into the peashooter, but they were put in for all that. "We shall go farthest," said they.

"What is to be will be," said the last, as he was shot out of the peashooter, and he flew up against the old board under the garret window, just into a crack which was filled with moss and soft mold, and the moss closed round him; there he lay, held fast, but not forgotten.

In the little garret lived a poor woman, who went out in the day to clean stoves, chop wood, and to do other hard work of the same kind, for she was strong and liked to work. But she was always poor, and at home in the garret lay her only child, who was very ill and weak; and it seemed as if she could not get well.

"She is going to her little sister," the woman said. "I had only the two children, but it was not an easy thing to care for both, so the good God took one to

himself to care for; now I should be glad to keep the other that was left me; but I suppose they are not to remain apart.

But the sick girl did not go. She lay quiet all day long, while her mother went to earn money out of doors.

It was spring; and early in the morning, just as the mother was about to go out to work, the sun shone through the little window, and threw its rays across the floor, and the sick girl fixed her eyes on the lowest pane in the window. "What may that green thing be that looks in at the window? It is moving in the wind."

And the sick girl's bed was moved nearer the window, so that she could always see the growing pea; and the mother went forth to her work.

"Mother, I think I shall get well," said the sick child in the evening. "The sun shone in upon me to-day so warm and bright. I shall get well soon, and get up and go out into the warm sunshine."

"God grant it!" said the mother, but she did not think it would be so; but she took care of the little green plant which had given her child the pleasant thoughts of life, so that it might not be broken by the wind.

She tied a piece of string to the window sill and to the upper part of the frame, so that the pea might have something around which it could twine when it shot up; and it did shoot up; one could see how it grew every day.

"Why, here is a flower coming," said the woman one day; and now she began to hope that her sick child would get well. In the last few days she had sat up