You have heard about the early peoples who found out how to use tools, how to build fires, how to make clothes out of skins of animals, and how to do all the other everyday things that once had to be done for the very first time. Science has found out for us the facts about how all these things were done first. But in the old days, before there was any knowledge of science, people had to explain such matters as best they could, by means of legends, such as that of Prometheus, who, as you have heard, stole fire from heaven. Here is a legend that suggests how water was first tamed and made a servant of man.

In the days of old, when wonderful things happened, there lived in a pleasant dwelling beside a brook in the forest a young girl named Sella, a name which means "a shadow". Although she was very beautiful, so that everyone admired her, she did not like to stay very much of the time with other people. She liked better to gather flowers on the bank of the stream, or to sit in the shade of a great rock listening to the sweet murmur of the flowing water. It was her delight to wander up the stream, tracing to the source in the mountains each of the little brooks that fed the larger one. She knew every little spring that stole forth from under a hanging rock, and every little rill that came trickling down the bare hillside. Often she rowed her little boat out on the lake or on the wide river into which the stream ran.

In the days when Sella lived girls were not taught anything except the things that it was thought belonged to woman's place, such as sewing, the keeping of the house, and the art of making one's self charming and agreeable. For a girl to go out into the world to make her own way as girls do now was an unheard-of thing. Girls must stay at home and leave adventure to the men of the family. Sella was not at all contented with such an arrangement. She looked at her two brothers enviously, thinking, "If I were only a boy, I could follow the river down to the sea and see all the strange peoples and customs in other parts of the world. I should like to see what kind of houses they have, and how they build their stately ships, what kind of flowers grow in their gardens, and what fruits ripen in their orchards. Here men make their living by raising sheep, but there I hear they sprinkle the great plains with corn, which springs up and ripens and is harvested to give bread to all the nations. I long to see all these things, and I would have seen them, long ago, if I were not so unlucky as to be a girl."

One morning in early spring Sella came to her mother in breathless excitement. "See, mother dear," she said, "what I have found on the bank of the stream!" And she showed a pair of white slippers, spangled and embroidered in silver. "See, my name is worked on the edge; and just look, mother, they fit me!"

"To be sure, they are very dainty," said her prudent mother. "But they do not belong to you. Perhaps some careless passer-by dropped them there, or perhaps they were put there as a snare to lead you into harm. I don't like the look of the letters embroidered on them; they don't seem to me to spell your name, but rather to look like magic signs that may work you evil. Nay, daughter, you must not wear them."

So Sella hung the slippers in the porch, so that anyone who had lost them could see them as she passed by. No one claimed them, however. At last, one day in May, Sella did not appear at the noonday meal. They looked for her in all her favorite places and shouted her name through the woods, but all in vain. At night they went out with torches still seeking her. All the next day they searched, climbing high into the mountains. Towards evening of the second day, when they had given up hope, suddenly Sella appeared at her mother's side where she sat alone and sad.

"Oh, mother, forgive me," she cried. "I just tried the slippers on for a moment, and before I could take them off again I found them carrying me along as if my feet had wings. At the bank of the stream there waited for me a lovely creature, with flowing hair and filmy green garments. She took my hand and led me right into the stream, and together we went along in the midst of it. Gayly we leaped the crag and swam the pool and glided between shady meadow banks. The stream broadened and became a river, and still we went onward, past stately towns, and under leaning masts of gallant ships, till at last we reached the sea and passed below its waves. The seaweed grew on tall stems like trees, and I could see the coral, the gleaming fish, and the rosy shells lying on the white sand at the bottom. Herds of sea creatures went by us, dolphins and whales and even sharks, but they turned aside to make room for us."

Bella's mother interrupted her. "This is just a dream, dear Sella, a vain dream."

"No, mother, for here is what my guide gave me to prove my story true." And Sella showed a sea-green scarf, adding, "And she told me to keep the slippers, and that whenever I put them on I could go down to the bottom of the ocean again and see all the lovely things. Oh, mother, it is so beautiful there! But after we had wandered about a long time I grew weary, and longed for my dear mountain home. And so she brought me back; and now I will never leave your side again." And she flung her arms about her mother and kissed her, begging forgiveness once again.

Sella kept her promise. But, sadly enough, she did not have to keep it long, for in less than two years from that May day her mother died. The little mountain home was very sad. But after her first grief passed, Sella was very often absent from the household, and her father and brothers and older sister knew that she was away in the world of waters with her friends the water-nymphs. When she was at home she often sat looking blankly into space, with her thoughts far away. Her brothers tried to persuade her not to go away from them so often, but she only looked at them sorrowfully, and wept, saying never a word in answer to their pleading.

At last there came a day of merriment and good cheer in the quiet home. Bella's sister was to be married. The guests came from hill and valley in all the country round. Sella welcomed them, beautiful and calm as usual, with her clear blue eyes, fair hair, and skin as white as the water-lily. She looked like a water nymph herself, so much of her time had been spent in her beloved water.

Now it happened that that very morning the older of her two brothers had been out upon the hillside and had seen Sella come out from the stream, and had noticed where she put her slippers in a cleft of rock behind a tree. Now, under cover of the merriment of the wedding while all the youths and maidens were dancing, the two brothers stole away to the spot where the slippers lay hidden, took them out, followed the brook down a little way to where its current flowed very rapidly, and dropped them in. The stream seemed to lift welcoming hands to catch them, and they slid rapidly out of sight. Then the brothers returned to the house.

As evening came near, Sella grew tired of the feasting and dancing and noise and longed for the quiet that she could find below the sea. So she ran out to the brook to get her slippers. They were gone! She searched all along the brookside, but could not find them. Frightened, she ran wildly from place to place, and searched in the same spots over and over. Someone had taken them; and it did not take her long to think who the someone was. She ran to the house and charged her brothers with the theft. They frankly told her all that they had done, saying that it was because they loved her so. "We could not bear to have the cold world of waters steal our sister from us. Now you can never go away from us again."

When Sella heard how the stream had seized and carried away her precious slippers, she gave a broken-hearted shriek. "They are gone forever! Oh, how cruel you have been to me!" And she left them and ran away to her room, locked her door, and would not let anyone in to comfort her. All night she wept and mourned, knowing that never again could she visit the sea caves and meadows where she so loved to roam, nor talk with the gentle sea-nymphs. All the next day she wandered alone by the brook, envying its shining waters which danced along on their way to the sea. But by the next day she became more used to her loss, and began to resolve that since it was no use to mourn for what was gone, she would begin a new life whose days should be given to quiet tasks of good in the great world. She knew that she had learned many things about the water that men everywhere would be glad to know. In patient, loving service she would forget her loss.

So the years passed. Sella still loved to haunt the springs and brooks as in her cheerful childhood. She taught men to know the right places in which to dig wells, so as to be sure to find water beneath the earth. She showed them how to build aqueducts by which to bring the water from the mountain streams to towns far away from any water. She showed them how to tame the rushing stream and make its water drive the millwheel. She bade them build cisterns and pools and reservoirs to catch the rain-water in the wet season, so that in the dry months of the year it could be carried in canals into the parched fields to irrigate them. Everywhere Sella's name was loved and honored.

Bryant, our first American poet, who has told this story in lovely verses which you must read some day, speaks of Sella's age and death in the lines which follow.