In Story-land

Excerpt

LITTLE BETA AND THE LAME GIANT.

Near the top of a high, high mountain there lived a great giant. He was a very wonderful giant indeed. From the door of his rocky cave he could look into the distance and see for miles and miles over the surrounding country, even to the point where the land touched the great ocean, yet so clearly that he could observe the smile or the frown on a child's face three miles away. More wonderful still, he could look through the darkest cloud which ever covered the sky and see the sun still shining beyond and above it. And then his hands! Oh how I wish you could have seen his hands! They were so large and strong. Such wonderful hands, too! With them he could lift up a rock as big as this room and set it to one side. Sometimes his fingers could make the sweetest kind of music come from a crude violin which he had fashioned for himself.

Then, too, he knew so much, and he knew it well. I don't believe that ten of the wisest men that our universities ever sent out could have told you such extraordinary things. He knew all about every plant which grew on the mountain, and just where the rich mines of gold and silver were hidden inside the mountain. He could have pointed out to you which pebbles could be polished into emeralds and topazes and sapphires and which were worthless. Had you asked him he could have taken you to the secret spring from which flowed the sparkling stream of healing waters, sought by all the sick folks in the country round. He was such a wonderful giant that it would take me the whole day to tell you of all the things which he could do—but—he was lame and somehow could never get down the mountain to where the ordinary mortal lived. So for ages he had been alone upon his mountain top, seeing all the people below him, loving them with all his heart, and knowing just what would help them, yet never being able to come near to them.

In one of the valleys of the great mountain lived a little maiden called Beta. She was so small that most people thought her a young child and so weak that she could not even carry a bucket of water from the well to the house. Then too, she was a very plain looking little girl, not at all pretty. Her mother used to say to her: "My dear daughter, you are neither rich, nor clever, nor beautiful, therefore you must learn to be useful to others if you would be loved."

The little maiden often wondered how she was to be of any use to the people about her. She would say to herself, "I have no money to give to them; my hands are not skilled enough to do much work for them and my brain is not quick, therefore I can not give them beautiful thoughts which will help them." Still she was a loving-hearted little girl, and love, you know, always finds a way to be helpful.

One day it occurred to her that she could gather some wild flowers and take them to the old woman who lived all alone at the end of the village and who was so deaf that nobody ever tried to talk to her.

With this thought in mind she started out in search of the brightest flowers she could find....