A SUDDEN SHOWER Barefooted boys scud up the street Doors bang; and mother-voices call From alien homes; and rusty gates Are slammed; and high above it all, And then, abrupt-the rain! the rain!— The highway smokes; sharp echoes ring; The cattle bawl and cow-bells clank; And into town comes galloping The farmer's horse, with steaming flank. The swallow dips beneath the eaves And flirts his plumes and folds his wings; And under the Catawba leaves The caterpillar curls and clings. The bumblebee is pelted down The wet stem of the hollyhock; The cricket leaps the garden-walk. Within, the baby claps his hands And crows with rapture strange and vague; Without, beneath the rose-bush stands A dripping rooster on one leg. -JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. scud rush along.-scurry: hurry.—alien (āl'yĕn): strange.-reverberates (rē-ver'be-rātes): echoes.-abrupt': sudden.-gasp'ing: panting as if for breath.-flank: side.—Catawba (kả-ta'bȧ): a kind of light red grape.— rap'ture joy.-vague (vāg): uncertain, unfixed. HOW THESEUS LIFTED THE STONE Once upon a time there was a princess in a city of Greece who had one son, named Theseus, who was the bravest lad in all the land. The princess smiled only when she looked at him, for she was sad because her husband had forgotten her, and lived far away. She used to go up to the mountain above the city to the temple of Poseidon, and sit there all day looking out across the bay and the shore beyond. When Theseus was fifteen years old, she took him up with her to the temple, and into the thicket of the grove which grew in the temple yard. And she led him to a tall tree, beneath whose shade grew arbutus and purple heather bushes. There she sighed, and said, "Theseus, my son, go into that thicket, and you will find at the foot of the tree a great flat stone; lift it, and bring me what lies underneath." Then Theseus pushed his way in through the thick bushes, and saw that they had not been moved for many a year. Searching among their roots he found a great flat stone, all overgrown with ivy and moss. He tried to lift it, but he could not. He tried till the sweat ran down his brow from heat, and the tears ran from his eyes from shame; but still he could not lift it. At last he came back to his mother, and said, “I have found the stone, but I cannot lift it; nor do I think that any man could in all the city." Then she sighed, and said, "The gods wait long; but they are just at last. Let it be for another year. The day may come when you will be a stronger man than lives in all the city." And when a year had passed, she led Theseus up again to the temple, and bade him lift the stone; but he could not. Then she sighed, and said the same words again, and went down. She came again the next year, but Theseus could not lift the stone then, nor the year after. He longed to ask his mother the meaning of that stone, and what might lie underneath it; but her face was so sad that he had not the heart to ask. So he said to himself, "The day will surely come when I shall lift that stone, though no man in the city can." In order to grow strong Theseus spent all his days in wrestling, and boxing, and taming horses, and hunting the boar and the bull, and chasing goats and deer among the rocks. At last upon all the mountains there was no hunter so swift as Theseus, and he killed a wild sow, which wasted all the land. Then all the people said, "Surely the gods are with the lad." And when his eighteenth year was past, his mother led him up again to the temple, and said, "Theseus, lift the stone this day, or never know who you are." Theseus went into the thicket, and stood over the stone, and tugged at it, and it moved. Then he tugged at it once more, and lifted it, and rolled it over with a shout. When he looked underneath it he saw on the ground a sword of bronze, with a hilt of glittering gold, and by it a pair of golden sandals. He caught these up, and burst through the bushes like a wild boar, and he leaped to his mother, holding them high above his head. But when she saw them she wept long in silence, hiding her fair face in her shawl; and Theseus stood by her, wondering, and wept also, he knew not why. At last she lifted up her head, and laid her finger on her lips, and said, "Hide them in your bosom, Theseus, my son, and come with me where we can look down upon the sea." Then they went outside the wall, and looked down over the bright blue sea; and the mother said: 66 Do you see this land at our feet?" And he said, "Yes, this is the city where I was born and bred." And she said, "It is but a little land, barren and rocky. Do you see that land beyond?" "Yes, that is Attica, where the Athenian people dwell." 66 That is a fair land and large, Theseus, my son; a land of olive oil and honey, the joy of gods and men. For the gods have surrounded it with mountains, whose |