BECAME OF NOAH'S ARK AND ALL ITS BEASTS.

"I must tell you a little about the hands that first made us, and to do
so I must take you in fancy to the high Alps in Switzerland. There,
during the long bright summer months, according to the practice of the
country, the flocks and herds are pastured, only descending to the
villages in autumn, when food and fodder grow scant. A temporary
dwelling is erected, in which the Sennerin, the young girl who usually
takes charge of them, lives for the season, and where she follows the
dairy business peculiar to her calling. The long summer days pass so
calmly and pleasantly there, while the cows and their young ones crop
the juicy herbage of these mountain pastures. Meanwhile the shepherd
lads, and those who are not busied in more active labours, often pass
their leisure hours, while guarding their flocks with the help of their
intelligent dogs, in carving cleverly some pretty little toys in the
light wood peculiar to their province. These find a ready sale with the
travellers, who climb these lofty heights to feast their eyes on the
ranges of distant peaks and Alpine passes, that seem almost reaching up
to the sky.

"Sitting on the grass, with their quaint, old-fashioned knives, these
lads carve elegant and graceful trifles, that often eventually find
their way into royal palaces, and are used by many dainty fingers. My
maker, however, was more given to the construction of toys for children;
he preferred fashioning all kinds of animals and reptiles, to making
flower bestudded paper knives or perforated work baskets; and he found a
very good and ready sale for all he had time to manufacture. By his
patient and incessant industry, he had earned a comfortable living for
many years for his blind and aged mother, to whom he was a most dutiful
and tender son. Never a penny of Fritz's money was spent in idle folly,
for neither gay ribbons for his hat nor silver buckles for his shoes
ever wiled away his earned money from its pious purpose. He certainly
was a true but very humble admirer of our Sennerin, who was the only
daughter of a rich farmer of the village; and I had a few opportunities
for noticing that she always prized more the simple Alpine roses, for
which Fritz had climbed many a dangerous spot, than she did the
elaborate carvings or purchased trinkets which were offered to her by
others. I hope long ere this, Fritz, the good son and industrious
villager, is the owner of the goo