THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SQUIRREL1

(THE FABLE)

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

THE mountain and the squirrel

Had a quarrel,

And the former called the latter "Little prig;

Bun replied,

"You are doubtless very big,

But all sorts of things and weather

Must be taken in together

To make up a year,
And a sphere:

And I think it no disgrace
Το

occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry;
I'll not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel track.

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;

If I cannot carry forests on my back,

Neither can you crack a nut."

1 From Poems, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, copyright, 1904, by Edward W. Emerson.

THE BROOK

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,

Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever.

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 water-break
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 for ever.

THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE 1

HORACE E. SCUDDER

I

THE FIRST WISH

ONCE upon a time there was a Fisherman who lived with his wife in a hut in a ditch, near the sea. The Fisherman used to go out all day long to catch fish. One day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, he felt his line pulled; he drew it in, and at the end was a great Fish. The Fish said to him:

66

Pray let me live; I am not a real Fish. I am an enchanted Prince; put me into the water again and let me go."

"Oh," said the Fisherman, "you need not make so many words about the matter. I wish to have nothing to do with a Fish that can talk. So swim away as fast as you please.'

He put him back into the water; the Fish darted straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him. When the Fisherman went home to his wife in the ditch, he told her of the Fish.

“Did you not ask it for anything?" said the wife. "No," said the Fisherman. "What should I ask for?"

"Ah!" said the wife, "we live meanly here in this poor ditch. Go back and tell the Fish we want a little cottage."

1 Copyright, 1899, by Horace E. Scudder,

The Fisherman did not much like to do this; but he went to the sea, and looked out. The water was yellow and green. He stood on the edge, and cried :

"O man of the sea!
Come, listen to me,
For Alice my wife,

The plague of my life,

Hath sent me to beg a boon of thee."

At that the Fish swam to him, and said :

"Ah!" said the Fisherman, "my wife says that when I had caught you, I ought to have asked you for something, before I let you go again. She does not like to live in the ditch; she wants a little cottage."

"Go home, then," said the Fish. "She is in the cottage already." So the Fisherman went home, and saw his wife at the door of a cottage.

"Come in, come in," said she; "is not this much better than the ditch?" And there were a parlor and a chamber and a kitchen; behind the cottage was a little garden, with all sorts of flowers and fruits, and a yard full of ducks and chickens.

"Ah!" said the Fisherman, "how happily we shall live now."

“At least we can try," answered his wife.

II

THE SECOND WISH

ALL went well for a week or two, and then Dame Alice said:

"Husband, there is not room enough in this cottage; the garden and the yard are both too small. I