  Long years ago, in a hollow tree dwelt Mosique, the Wood Worm. Mosique is a clever builder, and he builds wigwams for many of his neighbors. Moreover, he is a very proud old man, so that he was anything but pleased when “Huhuss,” the Hen Hawk, came to visit him, saying: “Let me in, Musmi [my grandfather]. I have a little bird here for you.” Now Mosique hated the Hawk, because only a short time before he had killed one of his best friends, little “Getchki-ki-lassis,” the Chickadeedee, and now he came back to taunt Mosique with the fact. “Come, Musmi, let me in.” Mosique is a skilful fighter when he is angry; but the powerful Hawk never believed that that old worm could hurt anything. His house opened just wide enough for Huhuss to put in The Little Birds were glad to see the Hawk go to Mosique’s house, for they trusted in the Worm’s cunning. “Come, Musmi, let me in. I want you to build me a good warm house. I will pay you well for it.” “Yes,” says Mosique, “I will build a house for my grandchildren in your old skull.” The Hawk laughed at him, and spat on him. “You build a house in my skull, indeed,” said he. “Well, let me see what you can do,” and he poked his head a little farther in. Mosique strapped his auger to the top of his pate, turned and twisted, and screwed himself around into Hawk’s head. He soon penetrated his skull, and Huhuss shrieked aloud for help, but no help came. He flew up in agony; he flew so high that he almost reached the blue sky. All the birds, and all the animals, looked at him, but none knew what would become of him. Mosique kept twisting himself around, and soon reached the Hawk’s brain. Of course, the Hawk could not endure this, and he fell Then all the birds flocked together, and had a feast which lasted many days, singing songs, and dancing, and shaking hands with Mosique in token of their gratitude and joy. The Little Ants also came to attend this great feast; and after it was over, Mosique made a long speech, bidding them: “Tell all the Hawks, his brothers, his sisters, his sons, and his daughters, to insult me no more. If they do, they must share the same fate as their chief. You see him now dead. I will give his skull to our neighbors, the ants, for their wigwam, and also a part of his old carcass for food.” The ants ran hastily into Hawk’s skull, and fed upon his brain. “Now,” added Mosique, “my dear Little Birds, you know I have lived in my wigwam for a long time. I have never troubled any one, and no one has troubled me. This is the first one who ever came to disturb me. Here he lies. Tell your leader, the great Woodpecker, my worst enemy, The Little Birds sewed leaves together, placed the Honorable Mosique on them, raised him high in air, and sang songs of rejoicing over him:— “K’mus’m S’n naha kisi nahahat o-usell ennit kilon wecki w’litt hassul tigiqu’,” or “our Grandfather Wood Worm has killed Huhuss. This is what makes us so happy.” Then they flew up almost to the sky, came down again, left Mosique in his wigwam and presented him with a tiny Wisuwigesisl, or Little Yellow Bird,—one of their best singers,—to be his comrade and musician. Every morning she sings: “Etuch ulinagusk tike uspesswin!” (Oh, what a lovely, bright morning! Awake, all ye who sleep!) This delighted Mosique. Time passed, and the Raven fancied the looks of Mosique’s Singer, with her bright yellow feathers shining like gold. He said: “There is but one way to get the beautiful Singer, and that is to kill Mosique. “But that is well-nigh impossible. While he is in his wigwam, no living creature can destroy him. There is but one way to kill him; but it is a sure way, I never knew it to fail. I have a piece of punk which my grandfather, the White Otter, gave me, that will do the work.” So next morning, it being very windy, he went to the foot of the big tree where Mosique lived, put the punk close against the tree, set it on fire, and it soon blazed up. Now this was sure death to Mosique. (Here part of the story seems to be missing, telling how the Worm escaped this “sure death,” but I have been unable to recover it, in spite of all my efforts.—A. L. A.) Mosique, in his rage, gathered together all the Little Birds, and told his sad story to them. “That White Bird,” said he, “has not treated me right; but I will have my revenge. I want you to take me where he lives.” “We will take you to his wigwam, Grandpa,” said the Little Birds. So they sewed the leaves together again, These bark torches always make a dense smoke, which soon blackened the Raven. As the flames drew nearer, the cords which bound the Raven were burned away, or snapped asunder, and he escaped uninjured. But his beauty was gone forever. Up to this time, he was a snow-white bird; but ever since he has been as black as charcoal, down to this very day. THE END. Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications. FAR FROM TO-DAY. A Volume of Stories. By GERTRUDE HALL, 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. These stories are marked with originality and power. The titles are as follows: viz., Tristiane, The Sons of Philemon, Servirol, Sylvanus, Theodolind, Shepherds. Miss Hall has put together here a set of gracefully written tales,—tales of long ago. They have an old-world mediÆval feeling about them, soft with intervening distance, like the light upon some feudal castle wall, seen through the openings of the forest. A refined fancy and many an artistic touch has been spent upon the composition with good result.—London Bookseller. “Although these six stories are dreams of the misty past, their morals have a most direct bearing on the present. An author who has the soul to conceive such stories is worthy to rank among the highest. One of our best literary critics, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, says: ‘I think it is a work of real genius, Homeric in its simplicity, and beautiful exceedingly.’” Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, in the Newburyport Herald:— “A volume giving evidence of surprising genius is a collection of six tales by Gertrude Hall, called ‘Far from To-day.’ I recall no stories at once so powerful and subtle as these. Their literary charm is complete, their range of learning is vast, and their human interest is intense. ‘Tristiane,’ the first one, is as brilliant and ingenious, to say the least, as the best chapter of Arthur Hardy’s ‘Passe Rose;’ ‘Sylvanus’ tells a heart-breaking tale, full of wild delight in hills and winds and skies, full of pathos and poetry; in ‘The Sons of Philemon’ the Greek spirit is perfect, the story absolutely beautiful; ‘Theodolind,’ again, repeats the Norse life to the echo, even to the very measure of the runes; and ‘The Shepherds’ gives another reading to the meaning of ‘The Statue and the Bust.’ Portions of these stories are told with an almost archaic simplicity, while other portions mount on great wings of poetry, ‘Far from To-day,’ as the time of the stories is placed; the hearts that beat in them are the hearts of to-day, and each one of these stories breathes the joy and the sorrow of life, and is rich with the beauty of the world.” From the London Academy, December 24th:— “The six stories in the dainty volume entitled ‘Far from To-day’ are of imagination all compact. The American short tales, which have of late attained a wide and deserved popularity in this country, have not been lacking in this vitalizing quality; but the art of Mrs. Slosson and Miss Wilkins is that of imaginative realism, while that of Miss Gertrude Hall is that of imaginative romance; theirs is the work of impassioned observation, hers of impassioned invention. There is in her book a fine, delicate fantasy that reminds one of Hawthorne in his sweetest moods; and while Hawthorne had certain gifts which were all his own, the new writer exhibits a certain winning tenderness in which he was generally deficient. In the domain of pure romance it is long since we have had anything so rich in simple beauty as is the work which is to be found between the covers of ‘Far from To-day.’” Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. The Keynotes Series. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. I. KEYNOTES. By George Egerton. II. THE DANCING FAUN. By Florence Farr. III. POOR FOLK. By Fedor Dostoievsky. Translated from the Russian by Lena Milman. With an Introduction by George Moore. IV. A CHILD OF THE AGE. By Francis Adams. V. THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT. By Arthur Machen. VI. DISCORDS. By George Egerton. VII. PRINCE ZALESKI. By M. P. Shiel. VIII. THE WOMAN WHO DID. By Grant Allen. IX. WOMEN’S TRAGEDIES. By H. D. Lowry. X. GREY ROSES AND OTHER STORIES. By Henry Harland. XI. AT THE FIRST CORNER AND OTHER STORIES. By H. B. Marriott Watson. XII. MONOCHROMES. By Ella D’Arcy. XIII. AT THE RELTON ARMS. By Evelyn Sharp. XIV. THE GIRL FROM THE FARM. By Gertrude Dix. XV. THE MIRROR OF MUSIC. By Stanley V. Makower. XVI. YELLOW AND WHITE. By W. Carlton Dawe. XVII. THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS. By Fiona Macleod. XVIII. THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT. By Victoria Crosse. XIX. THE THREE IMPOSTORS. By Arthur Machen. XX. NOBODY’S FAULT. By Netta Syrett. XXI. PLATONIC AFFECTIONS. By John Smith. XXII. IN HOMESPUN. By E. Nesbit. XXIII. NETS FOR THE WIND. By Una A. Taylor. XXIV. WHERE THE ATLANTIC MEETS THE LAND. By Caldwell Lipsett. XXV. DAY-BOOKS. Chronicles of Good and Evil. By Mabel E. Wotton. XXVI. IN SCARLET AND GREY. Stories of Soldiers and Others. By Florence Henniker; with THE SPECTRE OF THE REAL, by Thomas Hardy and Florence Henniker (in collaboration). XXVII. MARIS STELLA. By Marie Clothilde Balfour. XXVIII. UGLY IDOL. By Claud Nicholson. XXIX. SHAPES IN THE FIRE. A Mid-Winter Entertainment. With an Interlude. By M. P. Shiel. Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston, Mass. John Lane, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, London, W. NEW ENGLAND LEGENDS AND FOLK LORE. By SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE, Author of “Old Landmarks of ‘Boston’ and ‘Middlesex,’” “Around the Hub,” etc. One volume, 12mo, cloth, illustrated. Price, $2.00. This volume brings together, for the first time, the scattered Legendary and Folk Lore of New England. No subject is so thoroughly fascinating as this is, while very few indeed afford materials at once so rich, so varied, and so picturesque. It is confidently believed that every one who sees how fertile is the field the author’s research has opened, will now wonder why such a work was not long ago undertaken. The collection, preservation, and effective presentation of the Legendary Tales of New England is then the purpose of this book; and that purpose presupposes a work of permanent interest and value. For a work of this character no man is better qualified than Mr. Samuel Adams Drake, the author who has already a high reputation as a writer of History, Biography, and Travel, and who is thoroughly at home in any and every phase of Old New England Life. His “Old Landmarks of Boston,” his “Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast,” are unique works of their kind, to which his “New England Legends” will unquestionably be the appropriate companion and claimant for public favor. Having diligently searched out the origin of the Legendary Tales that compose this volume, Mr. Drake’s method has been to rewrite them in an entertaining manner for his readers of to-day; and as some of these pieces have been the theme of poetry and romance, he has placed the prose and poetic versions side by side, in order that the thousands to whom “The Scarlet Letter,” “The Buccaneer,” or “The Skeleton in Armor” are as familiar as household words, may have as ready access to the truth as hitherto they have had to the romance of history. In this way many of the poetical gems of such authors as Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Dana, Lowell, Brainard, Sigourney, and others, are newly interpreted for the public, besides going to enrich the collection. Motley, Hawthorne, Sir Walter Scott, Austin, the Mathers,—whoever in fact may have drawn upon this subject for inspiration,—are quoted for its illustration. The popular superstitions of our ancestors, which included a firm belief in Witchcraft, in the Special Providences of God, and in the Manifestations of the Invisible World,—not to speak of Omens, Charms, and the like,—are an unfailing source of interest to our age. Mr. Drake shows us what those beliefs were, and in what way they worked for good or evil, as moral or physical agents, and so moulded the history of the times. Although they possess all the charm of romance, these stories are really the sober record of the startling or marvellous occurrences that they narrate. One cannot rise from a perusal of this most fascinating book without saying, “I now know what kind of men and women the founders of New England really were. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction!” ROBERTS BROTHERS, 3 Somerset Street, Boston, Mass. Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications. A STRANGE CAREER. LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF BY HIS WIDOW. With an Introduction by H. Rider Haggard, and a portrait of Mr. Jebb. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.25. A remarkable romance of modern life.—Daily Chronicle. Exciting to a degree.—Black and White. Full of breathless interest.—Times. Reads like fiction.—Daily Graphic. Pages which will hold their readers fast to the very end.—Graphic. A better told and more marvellous narrative of a real life was never put into the covers of a small octavo volume.—To-Day. As fascinating as any romance.... The book is of the most entrancing interest.—St. James’s Budget. Those who love stories of adventure will find a volume to their taste in the “Life and Adventures of John Gladwyn Jebb,” just published, and to which an introduction is furnished by Rider Haggard. The latter says that rarely, if ever, in this nineteenth century, has a man lived so strange and varied an existence as did Mr. Jebb. From the time that he came to manhood he was a wanderer; and how he survived the many perils of his daily life is certainly a mystery.... The strange and remarkable adventures of which we have an account in this volume were in Guatemala, Brazil, in our own far West with the Indians on the plains, in mining camps in Colorado and California, in Texas, in Cuba and Mexico, where occurred the search for Montezuma’s, or rather Guatemoc’s treasure, to which Mr. Haggard believes that Mr. Jebb held the key, but which through his death is now forever lost. The story is one of thrilling interest from beginning to end, the story of a born adventurer, unselfish, sanguine, romantic, of a man too mystical and poetic in his nature for this prosaic nineteenth century, but who, as a crusader or a knight errant, would have won distinguished success. The volume is a notable addition to the literature of adventure.—Boston Advertiser. Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, by the publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. FOOTNOTES: |
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