if he could overcome the
impossibilities--trampling down the wheat and bringing so much salt.
Alas, alas! what could he do but see the poor wheat die of thirst and
his poor wife and children die of hunger?
Suddenly he determined to ask the sun to help him. And the sun said he
would. That was a very little thing for such a great body to do. So
he heated the air over the ocean till it became so thirsty that it
drank plenty of water, choosing only the sweet fresh water and leaving
all the salt in the ocean. Then the warm air rose, because the heat
had expanded it and made it lighter, and the other air rushed down the
mountains all over that side of the continent to take its place. Then
the warm air went landward in an upper current and carried its load of
water in great piles and mountains of clouds; it lifted them over the
great ranges of mountains and rained down its thousands of tons of
sweet water a thousand miles from the sea, so gently that not a stalk
of wheat was trampled down, nor was a single root made acrid by any
taste of brine.
Besides the precious drink the sun brought the most delicate food for
the wheat. There was carbonic acid, that makes soda water so
delicious, besides oxygen, that is so stimulating, nitrogen, ammonia,
and half a dozen other things that are so nutritious to growing plants.
Thus the wheat grew up in beauty, headed out abundantly, and matured
perfectly. Then the farmer stopped weeping for laughter, and in his
joy he remembered to thank, not the sun, nor the wind, but the great
One who made them both.
THE SUN'S GREAT HORSES
There was once a man who had thousands of acres of mighty forests in
the distant mountains. They were valueless there, but would be
exceedingly valuable in the great cities hundreds of miles away, if he
could only find any power to transport them thither. So he looked for
a team that could haul whole counties of forests so many miles. He saw
that the sun drew the greatest loads, and he asked it to help him. And
the sun said that was what he was made for; he existed only to help
man. He said that he had made those great forests to grow for a
thousand years so as to be ready for man when he needed them, and that
he was now ready to help move them where they were wanted.
So he told the man who owned the forest that there was a great power,
which men called gravitation, that seemed to reside in the center of
the earth and every other world, but
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