e in the land of the Singing
Mouse--then it might do. I think the pens there are not of wood
and iron, stiff things of torture to reader and writer. I have a
notion--though I have not examined the pens there--that they are
made from plumes of an angel's wing; and that if they chose they
could talk, and say things which would make you and me ashamed
and afraid. Pens such as these we do not have.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: The Burden of A Song]

[Illustration]

THE BURDEN OF A SONG

The Singing Mouse came out. Quaintly and sweetly and with
wondrous clearness it began an old, old song I first heard long
ago. And as it sang, back with red electric thrill came the fine
blood of youth, and beat in pulse with the song:

"When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green,
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen.

"Then hey! for boot and saddle, lad,
And round the world away!
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day!"

And young blood began its course anew. Booted and spurred, into
the saddle again! Face toward the West! And off for round the
world away!

"There are green fields in Thrace," sighs the gladiator as he
dies. And here were green fields in the land before us. Only,
these were the inimitable and illimitable fields of Nature.
Sheets and waves and billows and tumbles of green; oceans
unswum, continents untracked, of thousandfold green. Then, on
beyond, the gray, the gray-brown, the purple-gray of the higher
plains; nearer than that, a broad slash of great golden yellow,
a band of the sturdy prairie sunflowers; and nearer than that,
swimming on the surface of the mysterious wave which constantly
passes but is never past on the prairies, bright red roses, and
strong larkspur, and at the bottom of this ever-shifting sea,
jewels in God's best blue enamel. You can not find this enamel
in the windows. One must send for it to the land of the unswum
sea.

A little higher and stronger piped the compelling melody. Why,
here are the mountains! God bless them! Nay, brother, God has
blessed them; blessed them with unbounded calm, with boundless
strength, with unspeakable peace. You can take your troubles to
the mountains. If you are Pueblo, Aztec, you can select some big
mountain and pray to it, as its top shows the red sentience of
the on-coming day. You can take your troubles to the sea; but
the sea has troubles of its own, and