THE BELLS

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A JANUARY THAW

Dallas Lore Sharp

It was the twenty-first of January—the dead of winter! The stubborn cold had had the out of doors under lock and key since Thanksgiving Day. We were having a hard winter, and the novelty of the thing was beginning to wear off—to us grown-ups anyhow, and to the birds and wild things which for weeks had found scant picking over the ice and snow. But I was snug enough in my upstairs study, when suddenly the door opened and four bebundled boys stood before me, with an axe, a long-handled shovel, a basket, and, evidently, a big secret.

“Come on, father,” they whispered (as if she hadn’t heard them clomping with their kit through the house!), “it’s mother’s birthday to-morrow, and we’re going after the flowers.”

“Going to chop them down with the axe or dig them up with the shovel?” I asked. “Going to give her a nice bunch of frost-flowers? Better get the ice-saw then, for we’ll need a big block of ice to stick their stems in.”

“Hurry,” they answered, dropping my hip-boots on the floor. “Here are your scuffs.”

I hurried, and soon the five of us, in single file were out on the meadow, the dry snow squeaking under our feet, while the little winds, capering spitefully about us, blew the snow-dust into our faces or catching up the thin drifts sent them whirling like waltzing wraiths of dancers over the meadow’s glittering floor.

I was beginning to warm up a little, but it was a numb, stiff world about us, and bleak and stark, a world all black and white, for there was not even blue overhead. The white underfoot ran off to meet the black of the woods, and the woods in turn stood dark against a sky so heavy with snow that it seemed to shut us into some vast snow cave. A crow flapping over drew a black pencil line across the picture—the one sign of life besides ourselves that we could see. Only small boys are likely to leave their firesides on such a day—only small boys, and those men who can’t grow up. Yet never before, perhaps, had even they gone out on such a tramp with an axe, a shovel, and a basket, to pick flowers!

Suddenly one of the boys dashed off, crying: “Let’s go see if the muskrats have gone to bed yet!” and, trailing after him, we made for a little mound that stood about three feet high out in the meadow, more like a big ant hill or a small, snow-piled haycock, than a lodge of any sort. Only a practiced eye could have seen it, and only a lover of bleak days would have known what might be alive in there.

We crept up softly and surrounded the lodge; then with the axe we struck the frozen, flinty roof several ringing blows. Instantly one-two-three muffled, splashy “plunks” were heard as three little muskrats, frightened out of their naps and half out of their wits, plunged into the open water of their doorways from off their damp, but cosy couch.

It was a mean thing to do—but not very mean as wild animal life goes. And it did warm me up so, in spite of the chilly plunge the little sleepers took! Chilly to them? Not at all and that is why it warmed me. To hear the splash of water down under the two feet of ice and snow that sealed the meadow like a sheet of steel! To hear the sounds of stirring life, and to picture that snug, steaming bed on the top of a tough old tussock, with its open water-doors leading into freedom and plenty below! “Why, it won’t be long before the arbutus is in bloom,” I began to think. I looked at the axe and the shovel and said to myself, “Well, the boys may know what they are doing after all, though three muskrats do not make a spring.”

We had cut back to our path, but had not gone ten paces along it before another boy was off to the left in the direction of a piece of maple swamp.

“He’s going to see if ‘Hairy’ is in his hole,” they informed me, and we all took after him. The “hole” was almost twenty-five feet up in a dead oak stub that had blown off and lodged against a live tree. The meadow had been bleak and wind-swept, but the swamp was naked and dead, filled with ice and touched with a most forbidding emptiness and stillness. I was getting cold again, when the boy ahead tapped lightly on the old stub, and at the empty hole appeared a head—a fierce black and white head, a sharp, long beak, a flashing eye—as “Hairy” came forth to fight for his castle. He was too wise a fighter to tackle all of us, however, so, slipping out, he spread his wings and galloped off with a loud, wild call that set all the swamp to ringing.

It was a thrilling, defiant challenge that set my blood to leaping again. Black and white, he was a part of the picture, but there was a scarlet band at the nape of his neck that, like his call, had fire in it and the warmth of life.

As his woodpecker shout went booming through the hollow halls of the swamp, it woke a blue jay who squalled back from a clump of pines, then wavering out into the open on curious wings—flashing ice-blue and snow-white wings—he dived into the covert of pines again; and faint, as if from beyond the swamp, the cheep of chickadees! Here a little troop of them came to peep into the racket, curious but not excited, discussing the disturbance of the solemn swamp in that desultory, sewing-bee fashion of theirs, as if nipping off threads and squinting through needle-eyes between their running comment.

They, too, were grey and black, grey as the swamp beeches, black as the spotted bark of the birches. And how tiny! But——

And this, also, is what Emerson says he sings,

And as I brought to mind the poet’s lines, I forgot to shiver, and quite warmed up again to the idea of flowers, especially as one of the boys just then brought up a spray of green holly with a burning red berry on it! We were tacking again to get back on our course, and had got into the edge of the swamp among the pines when the boy with the shovel began to study the ground and the trees with a searching eye, moving forward and back as if trying to find the location of something.

“Here it is,” he said, and set in digging through the snow at the foot of a big pine. I knew what he was after. It was gold thread, and here was the only spot, in all the woods about, where we had ever found it—a spot not larger than the top of a dining-room table.

Soon we had a fistful of the delicate plants with their evergreen leaflets and long, golden thread-like roots, that mixed with the red and green of the partridge berry in a finger-bowl makes a cheerful little winter bouquet. And here with the gold thread, about the butt of the pine, was the partridge berry, too, the dainty vines strung with the beads which seemed to burn holes in the snow that had covered and banked the tiny fires.

For this is all that the ice and snow had done. The winter had come with wind enough to blow out every flame in the maple tops, and with snow enough to smother every little fire in the peat bogs of the swamp; but peat fires are hard to put out, and here and everywhere the winter had only banked the fires of summer. Dig down through the snow ashes anywhere and the smouldering fires of life burst into blaze.

But the boy with the axe had gone on ahead. And we were off again after him, stopping to get a great armful of black alder branches that were literally aflame with red berries.

We were climbing a piny knoll when almost at our feet, jumping us nearly out of our skins, and warming the very roots of our hair, was a burrrr—burrrr—burrrr—burrrr—four big partridges—as if four big snow mines had exploded under us, hurling bunches of brown on graceful scaling wings over the dip of the hills!

On we went up over the knoll and down into a low bog where, in the summer, we gather high-bush blueberries, the boy with the axe leading the way and going straight across the ice toward the middle of the bog.

My eye was keen for signs, and soon I saw he was heading for a sweet-pepper bush with a broken branch. My eye took in another bush off a little to the right with a broken branch. The boy with the axe walked up to the broken sweet-pepper bush and drew a line on the ice between it and the bush off on the right, pacing along this line till he got the middle; then he started at right angles from it and paced off a line to a clump of cat-tails sticking up through the ice of the flooded bog. Halfway back on this line he stopped, threw off his coat and began to chop a hole about two feet square in the ice. Removing the block while I looked on, he rolled up his sleeve and reached down the length of his arm through the icy water.

“Give me the shovel,” he said, “it’s down here,” and with a few deep, dexterous cuts soon brought to the surface a beautiful cluster of pitcher plants, the strange, almost uncanny leaves filled with muddy water, but every pitcher of them intact, shaped and veined and tinted by a master potter’s hand.

We wrapped it all carefully in newspapers, and put it in the basket, starting back with our bouquet as cheerful and as full of joy in the season as we could possibly have been in June.

No, I did not say that we love January as much as we love June. January here in New England is a mixture of rheumatism, chillblains, frozen water pipes, mittens, overshoes, blocked trains, and automobile troubles by the hoodsful, whereas any automobile will run in June. I have not room in this essay to tell all that June is; besides, this is a story of January.

What I was saying is that we started home all abloom with our pitcher plants, and gold thread, and partridge berry, and holly, and black alder, all aglow inside with our vigorous tramp, with the grey, grave beauty of the landscape, with the stern joy of meeting and beating the cold, and with the signs of life—of the cosy muskrats in their lodge beneath the ice cap on the meadow; with the hairy woodpecker in his deep, warm hole in the heart of the tree; with the red-warm berries in our basket; with the chirping, the conquering chickadee accompanying us and singing—

And actually as we came over the bleak meadow one of the boys said he thought he heard a song sparrow singing; and I thought the pussywillows by the brook had opened a little since we passed them coming out; and we all declared the weather had changed, and that there were signs of a break-up. But the thermometer stood at fifteen above zero when we got home—one degree colder than when we started! So we concluded that the January thaw must have come off inside of us; and if the colour of the four glowing faces is any sign, that was the correct reading of the weather.

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THE SNOW MAN

Hans Christian Andersen

“It is so wonderfully cold that my whole body crackles!” said the Snow Man. “This is a kind of wind that can blow life into one; and how the gleaming one up yonder is staring at me.” That was the sun he meant, which was just about to set. “It shall not make me wink—I shall manage to keep the pieces.”

He had two triangular pieces of tile in his head instead of eyes. His mouth was made of an old rake, and consequently was furnished with teeth.

He had been born amid the joyous shouts of the boys, and welcomed by the sound of sledge bells and the slashing of whips.

The sun went down, and the full moon rose, round, large, clear, and beautiful in the blue air.

“There it comes again from the other side,” said the Snow Man. He intended to say the sun is showing himself again.

“Ah! I have cured him of staring. Now let him hang up there and shine, that I may see myself. If I only knew how I could manage to move from this place, I should like so much to move. If I could, I would slide along yonder on the ice, just as I see the boys slide; but I don’t understand it; I don’t know how to run.”

“Away! away!” barked the old Yard Dog. He was quite hoarse, and could not pronounce the genuine “Bow, wow.” He had got the hoarseness from the time when he was an indoor dog, and lay by the fire. “The sun will teach you to run! I saw that last winter in your predecessor, and before that in his predecessor. Away! away! and away they all go.”

“I don’t understand you, comrade,” said the Snow Man.

“That thing up yonder is to teach me to run?” He meant the moon. “Yes, it comes creeping from the other side.”

“You know nothing at all,” retorted the Yard Dog. “But then you’ve only just been patched up. What you see yonder is the moon, and the one that went before the sun. It will come again to-morrow, and will teach you to run down into the ditch by the wall. We shall soon have a change of weather; I can feel that in my left hind leg, for it pricks and pains me; the weather is going to change.”

“I don’t understand him,” said the Snow Man; “but I have a feeling that he’s talking about something disagreeable. The one who stared so just now, and whom he called the sun, is not my friend. I can feel that.”

“Away! Away!” barked the Yard Dog. “They told me I was a pretty little fellow: then I used to lie in a chair covered with velvet, up in master’s house, and sit in the lap of the mistress of all. They used to kiss my nose, and wipe my paws with an embroidered handkerchief. I was called ‘Ami—dear Ami—sweet Ami——.’ But afterward I grew too big for them, and they gave me away to the housekeeper. So I came to live in the basement story. You can look into that from where you are standing, and you can see into the room where I was master; for I was master at the housekeeper’s. It was certainly a smaller place than upstairs, but I was more comfortable and was not continually taken hold of and pulled about by children as I had been. I received just as much good food as ever, and even better. I had my own cushion, and there was a stove, the finest thing in the world at this season. I went under the stove, and could lie down quite beneath it. Ah! I will sometimes dream of that stove. Away! Away!”

“Does a stove look so beautiful?” asked the Snow Man. “Is it at all like me?”

“It’s just the reverse of you. It’s as black as a crow, and has a long neck and a brazen drum. It eats firewood, so that the fire spurts out of its mouth. One must keep at its side or under it, and there one is very comfortable. You can see it through the window from where you stand.”

And the Snow Man looked and saw a bright, polished thing, with a brazen drum, and the fire gleamed from the lower part of it. The Snow Man felt quite strangely; an odd emotion came over him; he knew not what it meant, and could not account for it, but all people who are not men know the feeling.

“And why did you leave her?” asked the Snow Man, for it seemed to him that the stove must be of the female sex.

“How could you quit such a comfortable place?”

“I was obliged,” replied the Yard Dog. “They turned me out of doors, and chained me up here. I had bitten the youngest young master in the leg, because he kicked away the bone I was gnawing. ‘Bone for bone,’ I thought. They took that very much amiss, and from that time I have been fastened to a chain and have lost my voice. Don’t you hear how hoarse I am? Away! away! I can’t talk any more like other dogs. Away! away! That was the end of the affair.”

But the Snow Man was no longer listening at him. He was looking in at the housekeeper’s basement lodging, into the room where the stove stood on its four legs, just the same size as the Snow Man himself.

“What a strange crackling within me!” he said. “Shall I ever get in there? It is an innocent wish, and our innocent wishes are certain to be fulfilled. I must go in there and lean against her, even if I have to break through the window.”

“You’ll never get in there,” said the Yard Dog; “and if you approach the stove you’ll melt away—away!”

“I am as good as gone,” replied the Snow Man. “I think I am breaking up.”

The whole day the Snow Man stood looking in through the window. In the twilight hour the room became still more inviting; from the stove came a mild gleam, not like the sun nor like the moon; it was only as the stove can glow when he has something to eat. When the room door opened the flame started out of his mouth; this was a habit the stove had. The flame fell distinctly on the white face of the Snow Man, and gleamed red upon his bosom.

“I can endure it no longer,” said he. “How beautiful it looks when it stretches out its tongue!”

The night was long; but it did not appear long to the Snow Man, who stood there lost in his own charming reflections, crackling with the cold.

In the morning the window-panes of the basement lodging were covered with ice. They bore the most beautiful ice flowers that any snow man could desire; but they concealed the stove, which he pictured to himself as a lovely female. It crackled and whistled in him and around him; it was just the kind of frosty weather a snow man must thoroughly enjoy.

But he did not enjoy it; and, indeed, how could he enjoy himself when he was stove-sick?

“That’s a terrible disease for a Snow Man,” said the Yard Dog. “I have suffered from it myself, but I got over it. Away! away!” he barked; and he added, “the weather is going to change.”

And the weather did change; it began to thaw. The warmth increased, and the Snow Man decreased. He made no complaint—and that’s an infallible sign.

One morning he broke down. And, behold, where he had stood, something like a broomstick remained sticking up out of the ground. It was the pole around which the boys had built him up.

“Ah! now I can understand why he had such an intense longing,” said the Yard Dog. “Why, there’s a shovel for cleaning out the stove-rake in his body, and that’s what moved within him. Now he has got over that, too. Away, away!”

And soon they had got over the winter.

“Away! away!” barked the hoarse Yard Dog. And nobody thought any more of the Snow Man.

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THE HAPPY PRINCE

Oscar Wilde

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt. He was very much admired, indeed.

“He is as beautiful as a weathercock,” remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic taste. “Only not quite so useful,” he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.

“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon.

“The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.”

“I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy,” muttered a disappointed man, as he gazed at the wonderful statue.

“He looks just like an angel,” said the charity children, as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores.

“How do you know?” said Mathematical Master. “You have never seen one.”

“Ah! but we have in our dreams,” answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.

One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.

“Shall I love you?” said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.

“It is a ridiculous attachment,” twittered the other Swallows, “she has no money, and far too many relations”; and, indeed, the river was quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came, they all flew away.

After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady-love. “She has no conversation,” he said, “and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind.” And, certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtsies.

“I admit that she is domestic,” he continued, “but I love traveling, and my wife, consequently, should love traveling, also.”

“Will you come away with me?” he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home.

“You have been trifling with me,” he cried. “I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!” and he flew away.

All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. “Where shall I put up?” he said; “I hope the town has made preparations.”

Then he saw the statue on the tall column. “I will put up there,” he cried; “it is a fine position with plenty of fresh air.” So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.

“I have a golden bedroom,” he said softly to himself, as he looked round, and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under his wing a large drop of water fell on him. “What a curious thing!” he cried, “there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness.”

Then another drop fell.

“What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?” he said. “I must look for a good chimney-pot,” and he determined to fly away.

But before he had opened his wings a third drop fell, and he looked up, and saw—Ah! what did he see?

The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.

“Who are you?” he said.

“I am the Happy Prince.”

“Why are you weeping then?” asked the Swallow; “you have quite drenched me.”

“When I was alive and had a human heart,” answered the statue, “I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy, indeed, I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead, yet I cannot choose but weep.”

“What, is he not solid gold?” said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to make any personal remarks out loud.

“Far away,” continued the statue in a low, musical voice, “far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen’s maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.”

“I am waited for in Egypt,” said the Swallow. “My friends are flying up and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus-flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.”

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty and the mother so sad.”

“I don’t think I like boys,” answered the Swallow. “Last summer, when I was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller’s sons, who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we swallows fly far too well for that, and, besides, I come of a family famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect.”

But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. “It is very cold here,” he said; “but I will stay with you for one night, and be your messenger.”

“Thank you, little Swallow,” said the Prince. So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince’s sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town.

He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. “How wonderful the stars are,” he said to her, “and how wonderful is the power of love!” “I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball,” she answered. “I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy.”

He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman’s thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy’s forehead with his wings. “How cool I feel,” said the boy, “I must be getting better,” and he sank into a delicious slumber.

Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had done. “It is curious,” he remarked, “but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold.”

“That is because you have done a good action,” said the Prince. And the little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him sleepy.

When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath. “What a remarkable phenomenon,” said the professor of Ornithology as he was passing over the bridge. “A swallow in winter!” And he wrote a long letter about it to the local newspaper. Everyone quoted it; it was full of so many words that they could not understand.

“To-night I go to Egypt,” said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at the prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time on top of the church steeple. Wherever he went, Sparrows chirruped, and said to each other, “What a distinguished stranger!” so he enjoyed himself very much.

When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. “Have you any commissions for Egypt?” he cried. “I am just starting.”

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay with me one night longer?”

“I am waited for in Egypt,” answered the Swallow. “To-morrow my friends will fly up to the Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among the bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon. All night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions came down to the water’s edge to drink. They have eyes like green beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.”

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “far away across the city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theater, but he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.”

“I will wait with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, who really had a good heart. “Shall I take him another ruby?”

“Alas! I have no ruby now,” said the Prince; “my eyes are all that I have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand years ago.

“Pluck out one of them and take it to him. He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood, and finish his play.”

“Dear Prince,” said the Swallow, “I cannot do that.”

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command you.”

So the Swallow plucked out the Prince’s eye, and flew away to the student’s garret. It was easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the room. The young man had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird’s wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying on the withered violets.

“I am beginning to be appreciated,” he cried; “this is from some great admirer. Now I can finish my play,” and he looked quite happy.

The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of a large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold with ropes. “Heave a-hoy!” they shouted, as each chest came up: “I am going to Egypt!” cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.

“I am come to bid you good-bye,” he cried.

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you not stay with me one night longer?”

“It is winter,” answered the Swallow, “and the chill snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun is warm on the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about them. My companions are building a nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves are watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.”

“In the square below,” said the Happy Prince, “there stands a little match-girl. She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring home some money, and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will not beat her.”

“I will stay with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, “but I cannot pluck out your eye. You would be quite blind then.”

“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I command you.”

So he plucked out the Prince’s other eye and darted down with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. “What a lovely bit of glass,” cried the little girl; and she ran home, laughing.

Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. “You are blind now,” he said, “so I will stay with you always.”

“No, little Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you must go away to Egypt.”

“I will stay with you always,” said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince’s feet.

All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile and catch gold-fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great, green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large, flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.

“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.”

So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into the dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a bridge two little boys were lying in one another’s arms to try and keep themselves warm.

“How hungry we are!” they said.

“You must not lie here,” shouted the watchman, and they wandered out into the rain.

Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen.

“I am covered with fine gold!” said the Prince, “you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think that gold can make them happy.”

Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the gold he brought to the poor, and the children’s faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. “We have bread now!” they cried.

Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles, like crystal daggers, hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice.

The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the Prince; he loved him too well. He picked up crumbs outside the baker’s door when the baker was not looking, and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.

But at last he knew he was going to die. He had just strength to fly up to the Prince’s shoulder once more. “Good-bye, dear Prince!” he murmured. “Will you let me kiss your hand?”

“I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,” said the Prince. “You have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips; for I love you.”

“It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said the Swallow. “I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?”

And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet. At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.

Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in company with the Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked up at the statue. “Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!” he said.

“How shabby, indeed!” cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with the Mayor, and they went up to look at it.

“The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer,” said the Mayor; “in fact, he is little better than a beggar!”

“Little better than a beggar,” said the Town Councillors. “And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!” continued the Mayor. “We must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die here.” And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.

So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. “As he is no longer beautiful, he is no longer useful,” said the Art Professor at the University.

Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. “We must have another statue, of course,” he said, “and it shall be a statue of myself.”

“Of myself,” said each of the Town Councillors, and they quarreled.

“What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. “This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away.” So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead swallow was also lying.

“Bring me the two most precious things in the city,” said God to one of His angels; and the angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.

“You have rightly chosen,” said God, “for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.”

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THE LEGEND OF KING WENCESLAUS

(A Legend of Mercy)

King Wenceslaus sat in his palace. He had been watching from the narrow window of the turret chamber where he was, the sunset as its glory hung for a moment in the western clouds, and then died away over the blue hills. Calm and cold was the brightness. A freezing haze came over the face of the land. The moon brightened towards the southwest and the leafless trees in the castle gardens and the quaint turret and spires of the castle itself threw clear dark shadows on the unspotted snow. Still the king looked out upon the scene before him. The ground sloped down from the castle towards the forest. Here and there on the side of the hill a few bushes grey with moss broke the unvaried sheet of white. And as the king turned his eye in that direction a poor man came up to these bushes and pulled something from them.

“Come hither, page,” called the king. One of the servants of the palace entered in answer to the king’s call. “Come, my good Otto; come stand by me. Do you see yonder poor man on the hillside? Step down to him and learn who he is and where he dwells and what he is doing. Bring me word at once.”

Otto went forth on his errand while the good king watched him go down the hill. Meanwhile, the frost grew more and more intense and an east wind blew from the black mountains. The snow became more crisp and the air more clear. In a few moments the messenger was back.

“Well, who is he?”

“Sire,” said Otto, “it is Rudolph, the swineherd,—he that lives down by the Brunweis. Fire he has none, nor food, and he was gathering a few sticks where he might find them, lest, as he says, all his family perish with the cold. It is a most bitter night, Sire.”

“This should have been better looked to,” said the king. “A grievous fault it is that it has not been done. But it shall be amended now. Go to the ewery, Otto, and fetch some provisions of the best.

“Is your Majesty going forth?” asked Otto in surprise.

“Yes, to the Brunweis, and you shall go with me. When you have everything ready meet me at the wood-stacks by the little chapel. Come, be speedy.”

“I pray you, Sire, do not venture out yourself. Let some of the men-at-arms go forth. It is a freezing wind and the place is a good league hence.” “Nevertheless, I go,” said the king. “Go with me, if you will, Otto; if not, stay. I can carry the food myself.”

“God forbid, Sire, that I should let you go alone. But I pray you be persuaded.”

“Not in this,” said King Wenceslaus. “Meet me then where I said, and not a word to any one besides.”

The noblemen of the court were in the palace hall, where a mighty fire went roaring up the chimney and the shadows played and danced on the steep sides of the dark roof. Gayly they laughed and lightly they talked. And as they threw fresh logs into the great chimney-place one said to another that so bitter a wind had never before been known in the land. But in the midst of that freezing night the king went forth.

The king had put on no extra clothing to shelter himself from the nipping air; for he would feel with the poor that he might feel for them. On his shoulders he bore a heap of logs for the swineherd’s fire. He stepped briskly on while Otto followed with the provisions. He had imitated his master and had gone out in his common garments. On the two trudged together, over the crisp snow, across fields, by lanes where the hedge trees were heavy with their white burden, past the pool, over the stile where the rime clustered thick by the wood, and on out upon the moor where the snow lay yet more unbroken and where the wind seemed to nip one’s very heart.

Still King Wenceslaus went on and still Otto followed. The king thought it but little to go forth into the frost and snow, remembering Him who came into the cold night of this world of ours; he disdained not, a king, to go to the beggar, for had not the King of King’s visited slaves? He grudged not, a king, to carry logs on his shoulders, for had not the Kings of Kings borne heavier burdens for his sake? But at each step Otto’s courage and zeal failed. He tried to hold out with a good heart. For very shame he did not wish to do less than his master. How could he turn back, while the king held on his way? But when they came forth on the white, bleak moor, he cried out with a faint heart:

“My liege, I cannot go on. The wind freezes my very blood. Pray you, let us return.”

“Seems it so much?” asked the king. “Follow me on still. Only tread in my footsteps and you will proceed more easily.”

The servant knew that his master spoke not at random. He carefully looked for the footsteps of the king. He set his own feet in the print of his master’s.

And so great was the fire of love that kindled in the heart of the king that, as the servant trod in his steps, he gained life and heat. Otto felt not the wind; he heeded not the frost; for the master’s footprints glowed as with holy fire and zealously he followed the king on his errand of mercy.

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MIDWINTER

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