"I wish that you would go some other way. "I do not like to hear your trickle, trickle." "But I wish," said the water, "that you would give me more room. I-I " His voice got thinner and thinner. Jack Frost was making the Ice thicker and thicker all the time. One day the skaters came. They all said: "What lovely Ice!" And the Ice grew more vain. In the evening the snowflakes came. They said to themselves: "How we shall be admired in the morning!" In the morning the Ice was very angry. For the snowflakes covered him up. "Who sent you?" the Ice asked the snowflakes. "Nobody," answered they. "The clouds were too heavy to carry us. "So some of us came down. "You should be glad to see us. "The wind and the skies all love us." THE JANUARY THAW 123 "If they love you let them take you away," said the Ice, angrily. Then the water began to quarrel with them both. Were there ever three such silly people as Ice, Water, and Snow. I wish that I could say no! At last the wind changed to the south. And the thaw came. The Ice grew thinner and thinner. Then the water poured over it. The snow heaps fell in. They all rolled about together. They cried: "What have we been doing? "Friends, dear friends, we are all of us brothers together." And they hugged each other closely. No one could say: "This was Ice. "Or this was Snow. "Or this was never anything but Water." And so it is to this day. -Adapted from MRS. GATTY. FIVE PEAS IN A POD watered forever earthquake Once there were five peas growing in a pod. The peas were green. The vine was green. The leaves were green. So the five peas thought that all the world was green. The warm sun shone on the vine. The summer rain watered it. Both the pod and the peas grew bigger and bigger. "Are we to lie here forever?" said one. "I am tired of it," said another. "I am afraid that we shall become hard," said the third. 66 "I want to see what there is outside,” said a fourth. The fifth cried because he could not get out. At last the vine turned yellow. The peas turned yellow. FIVE PEAS IN A POD "All the world is turning yellow," said the peas with one voice. Then there came an earthquake. The pod burst open with a crack. All five peas rolled into the yellow sunshine. 125 caught pea-shooter sprouted famously A boy caught all the five peas. He put the biggest one in his pea-shooter. "Catch me if you can," said the big pea. "I shall fly straight into the sun," said the next one. "I shall travel farthest," said the third pea. "Let me alone," said the fourth. "What is to be, will be," said the fifth pea. He landed in an empty flower-pot. This flower-pot was in the window of a sick girl's room. The pea sprouted. It grew into a beautiful vine. |