"Let us fly away together!"

Then they rose silently, and, lifting themselves far up in the air, they looked to the north: far away they saw the snow coming. They looked to the south: there they saw flowers and green leaves! All day they flew; and all night they flew and flew, till they found a land where there was no winter-where flowers always blossom, and birds always sing.

K

The Brook's Song.*

MRS. M. F. BUTTS.

ING FROST comes and locks me up,
The sunshine sets me free;

I frolic with the grave old trees,
And sing right cheerily.

I go to see the lady flowers,

And make their diamond spray;
The birds fly down to chat with me,
The children come to play.

I am the blue sky's looking glass,
I hold the rainbow bars;
The moon comes down to visit me,
And brings the little stars.

Oh, merry, merry is my life,

As a gypsy's out of Spain!

Till grim King Frost comes from the North,
And locks me up again.

* From Boyden's Speaker, Scott, Foresman & Co., publishers.

The North Wind and the Snow Princess.*

Tare brown and bare.
THE

'HE days are growing short.

The trees and fields

are brown and bare. No cheery song is heard in the forest save the chirp of the merry little chickadee. Now is the time to look for the gruff old North Wind, who roars and growls and howls across the plains, scattering the brown dry leaves and bending even the sturdy oaks beneath his power.

A testy, cross old fellow, this North Wind seems to be, as he goes shrieking around the corners and up and down our chimneys; but after all he is not so cruel as he seems.

Did you ever watch the beautiful cloud-horses that he drives across the sky; and the shining cloud-chariot in which he sits?

The little stars laugh down at him; and the louder he roars, the happier their sparkling eyes shine out.

"Boo-oo-oo!" he cries, but his cold breath lays a beautiful shining cover over lakes and rivers and ponds, and the happy waters go sparkling along almost as happy as if the sun shone down upon them.

But best of all, he brings the little Snow Princess with him. And such a beautiful little Princess she is!

Her robes are snowy white; her eyes are sparkling in the sunlight, and she floats down from her home *From Stories of Garden and Field, by permission of Educational Publishing Co.

above and touches the brown leaves and shrubs, the bare rocks and fields with her soft and gentle hand.

Often the little Princess comes in the still gray morning when all the world is asleep; sometimes she comes when the darkness falls; and then she works all night long to make the earth beautiful for the Sun to shine upon.

She floats over the fields and across the lakes; she dances along the hedgerows; she reaches up and kisses the tree-tops; she bends down and softly touches the tiny grasses and little shrubs.

She strews her shining crystals up and down the forest paths, and all along the roads; she loads the branches with precious jewels; she covers the housetops and fences.

But best of all, she covers the little, sleeping flowers with her soft, warm blanket and whispers a great secret in their ears—a secret that only she and they can understand.

And she tells them of another beautiful Princessthe Rain Fairy she is called-that shall come by and by to wake them up, when they have finished their long sleep.

Then when the flowers and trees are rested, and the little plant babies in their cradles begin to long to reach forth their tiny hands, the old North Wind takes the little Snow Princess up in his big, strong arms, and away they fly to the Land of Frost.

There they dwell in a towering iceberg palace whose colors are like those of the rainbow and whose towers are like the mountain tops.

But before they hurried away the old North Wind,

who, some people think, loves only to destroy the beauty of the autumn, called to the soft South Wind and to the little Rain Fairy who comes always with the soft South Wind.

"The beautiful tall trees are ready for you! And the tiny flowers are waiting for you!" the North Wind called, and the soft South Wind answered, "I am coming! I am coming!"

And when the North Wind heard the soft whisper, he roared with joy and drove his cloud-steed across the sky with a speed that made the Sun himself look with wonder upon the flying chariot.

The little Snow Princess danced with joy. "The flowers are waking! the flowers are waking!" she cried; and the beautiful colors in her robe grew brighter and brighter.

Then she shook down millions upon millions of tiny snowflakes and covered the earth anew; she heaped them up as high as the fences; she loaded the trees till they could hardly hold themselves erect. Some of the earth children grumbled and said, "O, dear! another snow-storm!" But the Snow Princess knew, and the flowers knew, and the tree roots knew that this last snow-storm was the Snow Princess's very best gift of all the winter.