now since those little feet
touched the floor); but the bed is not as tiresome as usual, nor the
washing as hard, for both hearts are full of sunshine.

Afternoon comes,--little feet are heard climbing up the stair,
and Ingrid's name is called. The door opens, and two flushed and
breathless messengers stand on the threshold. "We've brung you a
birfday present," they cry; "it's a book, and we made it all our own
se'ves, and all the chilluns helped and made somefin' to put in it.
Miss Mary's down stairs mindin' the babies, and she sends you her
love. Good-by! Happy birfday!"

"Happy birthday" indeed! Golden, precious, love-crowned birthday! Was
ever such a book, so full of sweet messages and tender thoughts!

Ingrid knows how baby Tim must have labored to sew that red circle,
how John Jacob toiled over that weaving-mat, and Elsa carefully folded
the drove of little pigs. Everybody thought of her, and all the
"chilluns" helped, and how dear is the tangible outcome of the
thoughts and the helping!

* * * * *

Far back in the childhood of the world, the long-haired savage,"
woaded, winter-clad in skins," went roaming for his food wherever he
might find it. He dug roots from the ground, he searched for berries
and fruits, he hid behind rocks to leap upon his living prey, yet
often went hungry to his lair at night, if the root-crop were short,
or the wild beast wary.

But if the day had been a fortunate one, if his own stomach were
filled and his body sheltered, little cared he whether long-haired
savage number two were hungry and cold. "Every one for himself," would
he say, as he rolled himself in his skins, "and the cave-bear, or any
other handy beast, take the hindmost." The simplicity of his mental
state, his complete freedom from responsibility, assure us that
his digestion of the raw flesh and the tough roots must have been
perfection, and the sleep in those furred skins a dreamless one.

What impending visitation of a common enemy, what sudden descent of a
fierce horde of strange, wild, long-forgotten creatures, first moved
him to ally himself with barbarians number two and three for their
mutual protection? And when long years of alliance in warfare, and
mutual distrust at all other times, had slipped away, and when savages
were turning into herdsmen and farmers and toolmakers, to what
leader among men did a system of exchange of commodities for mutual
convenience suggest itself