ll have food."

Jupiter was moved, both by the mother's sorrow and by the prayers of the
people on earth; and he said that Proserpine might return to her home if
she had tasted no food while in Pluto's kingdom.

So the happy mother hastened down into Hades. But alas! that very day
Proserpine had eaten six pomegranate seeds; and for every one of those
seeds she was doomed each year to spend a month underground.

For six months of the year Ceres is happy with her daughter. At
Proserpine's coming, flowers bloom and birds sing and the earth
everywhere smiles its welcome to its young queen.

Some people say that Proserpine really is the springtime, and that while
she is with us all the earth seems fair and beautiful. But when the time
comes for Proserpine to rejoin King Pluto in his dark home underground,
Ceres hides herself and grieves through all the weary months until her
daughter's return.

Then the earth, too, is somber and sad. The leaves fall to the ground,
as though the trees were weeping for the loss of the fair, young queen;
and the flowers hide underground, until the eager step of the maiden,
returning to earth, awakens all nature from its winter sleep.

256

Because of his beautiful idealism and the
artistic nature of his work, Hawthorne
(1804-1864) is one of America's most loved
story-tellers. His stories are never idle
tales, for each one reveals secret motives and
impulses that determine human action. This
characteristic makes his works wholesome and
inspiring for both children and adults. Four
volumes of his short stories, intended
primarily for children, are classics for the
upper grades. _Grandfather's Chair_ is a group
of stories about life in New England in early
times. _True Stories from History and
Biography_ makes the child acquainted with such
historical characters as Franklin and Newton.
_A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys_ and
_Tanglewood Tales_ are Hawthorne's versions of
old Greek myths.

In his two volumes of Greek myths, Hawthorne
does not hold to the plot or style of the
original stories; but here, as in all his work,
he shows how incidents in life determine human
character. The following quotation from the
Preface to _A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys_
explains in Hawthorne's own w