wo maidens, who would take
me to their own home. But where was I to meet them? For hundreds of
years I have lived in the depths of the forest, where nothing but wild
beasts ever came, and it was only when the lion threw me into the sky
that I was able to fall to earth near this river. Where there is a
river, sooner or later people will come; so, hanging myself on a tree, I
watched and waited. For a moment I lost heart when I fell once more into
the hands of my old master the wild cat, but my hopes rose again as I
saw he was making for the river bank opposite where you were standing.
That was my chance, and I took it. And now, ladies, I have only to say
that, if ever I can do anything to help you, go to the top of that high
mountain and knock three times at the iron door at the north side, and I
will come to you.'

So, with a low bow, he vanished from before them, leaving the maidens
weeping at having lost in one moment both the ball and the prince.

[Adapted from North American Indian Legends.]

Which was the Foolishest?

In a little village that stood on a wide plain, where you could see
the sun from the moment he rose to the moment he set, there lived two
couples side by side. The men, who worked under the same master, were
quite good friends, but the wives were always quarrelling, and the
subject they quarrelled most about was--which of the two had the
stupidest husband.

Unlike most women--who think that anything that belongs to them must be
better than what belongs to anyone else--each thought her husband the
more foolish of the two.

'You should just see what he does!' one said to her neighbour. 'He puts
on the baby's frock upside down, and, one day, I found him trying to
feed her with boiling soup, and her mouth was scalded for days after.
Then he picks up stones in the road and sows them instead of potatoes,
and one day he wanted to go into the garden from the top window, because
he declared it was a shorter way than through the door.'

'That is bad enough, of course,' answered the other; 'but it is really
NOTHING to what I have to endure every day from MY husband. If, when
I am busy, I ask him to go and feed the poultry, he is certain to give
them some poisonous stuff instead of their proper food, and when I visit
the yard next I find them all dead. Once he even took my best bonnet,
when I had gone away to my sick mother, and when I came back I found he
had given it to the hen to lay her eggs