in the winter evenings Yama would tell my great-grandfather
over and over again how Tsuki, the Moon Maiden, had once danced for him.

He never saw her again; but she kept her promise, and every year, on a
winter night, she came with her sisters and left a pile of cloaks on the
top of Fuji. Every year Yama climbed Fuji to fetch them, but, alas, they
always turned to tear-drops at his touch.

Sometimes, too, pieces of her mantle fell to the ground when she was
dancing with her sisters to the Morning Star, but they hardly ever fell
on the seashore where Yama lived.

Yama never forgot her. Years, long years afterwards, when he was an old,
old man he started to climb Fuji as usual. Another bird told my father,
however, that that year he never reached the top; but that Tsuki, touched
with his devotion to her, had come with her maidens one night as he slept
on the mountain side, and, wrapping him in their feathery mantles, had
carried him, smiling in his sleep, to their home in the moon.

* * * * * *

"That's the story," concluded the Japanese bird in his sad foreign voice,
"and that is why we always think of Tsuki, the Moon Maiden, in snow-time."

"Hoots!" said the Owl grumpily. "It's melancholy enough, but I should
have preferred more blood and thunder."

"Anyway, it has passed the time," said the Robin cheerily. "It has left
off snowing. I'm off to the house for crumbs. Many thanks for your
story. I'll tell _you_ one one of these days that will simply make you
_die_ of laughing."

So the Robin flew off, followed by the twittering Sparrow. The Owl
settled herself to sleep again, and the Japanese birds were left
shivering in the corner to think of their own country.

MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY

"_Such as the gardener is--so is the garden_"

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With cockle shells,
And silver bells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

There was once upon a time a King who ruled over a vast kingdom. In
the kingdom were all sorts of houses, large and small, and the King
himself lived in a huge palace the like of which had never been seen
for grandeur. Yet, throughout the length and breadth of his kingdom
there was not one single garden. Even the palace itself only possessed
a back-yard.

This grieved the King very sorely. He sent proclamations over land and
sky and sea to men from other countries to come and make him a g