ant the seed, and in the summer I myself will come and teach you what
to do with the plant.'"

In the spring the little seeds were put into the ground. Soon the green
leaves came up; then many little blue flowers, as blue as the sky,
lifted up their heads in the warm sunshine of summer. No one on the
earth knew how to spin or to weave, but on the brightest, sunniest day
of the summer, the goddess Holda came down from the mountain to the
little house.

[Illustration: "SHE GAVE ME THE FLOWER"]

"Can you spin flax?" she asked of the wife.

"Indeed, no," said the wife.

"Can you weave linen?"

"Indeed, no."

"Then I will teach you how to spin and to weave," said the good goddess.
"The little blue flower is the flax. It is my own flower, and I love the
sight of it."

So the goddess sat in the home of the hunter and his wife and taught
them how to spin flax and weave linen. When the wife saw the piece of
linen on the grass, growing whiter and whiter the longer the sun shone
upon it, she said to her husband, "Indeed, my hunter, the linen is
fairer than the pearls, and I should rather have the beautiful white
thing that is on the grass in the sunshine than all the diamonds in the
hall of the goddess."

WHY THE JUNIPER HAS BERRIES.

Three cranberries once lived together in a meadow. They were sisters,
but they did not look alike, for one was white, and one was red, and one
was green. Winter came, and the wind blew cold. "I wish we lived nearer
the wigwam," said the white cranberry timidly. "I am afraid that Hoots,
the bear, will come. What should we do?"

"The women in the wigwam are afraid as well as we," the red cranberry
said. "I heard them say they wished the men would come back from the
hunt."

"We might hide in the woods," the green cranberry whispered.

"But the bear will come down the path through the woods," replied the
white cranberry.

"I think our own meadow is the best place," the red cranberry said. "I
shall not go away from the meadow. I shall hide here in the moss."

"I am so white," the white cranberry wailed, "that I know Hoots would
see me. I shall hide in the hominy. That is as white as I."

"I cannot hide in the hominy," said the green cranberry, "but I have a
good friend in the woods. I am going to ask the juniper-tree to hide me.
Will you not go with me?" But the red cranberry thought it best to stay
in the moss, and the white cranberry thought it best to hide in the
hominy, s