Part 11 (1/2)

”All the others see the Christmas Tree, dear Christ-child,” they said; ”but we, who are so domestic and so fond of beautiful things, we are _cleaned up_! We cannot see it, at all.”

The Christ-child was sorry for the little spiders when he heard this, and he said they should see the Christmas Tree.

The day before Christmas, when n.o.body was noticing, he let them all go in, to look as long as ever they liked.

They came creepy, creepy, down the attic stairs, creepy, creepy, up the cellar stairs, creepy, creepy, along the halls,--and into the beautiful room. The fat mother spiders and the old papa spiders were there, and all the little teeny, tiny, curly spiders, the baby ones. And then they looked! Round and round the tree they crawled, and looked and looked and looked. Oh, what a good time they had! They thought it was perfectly beautiful. And when they had looked at everything they could see from the floor, they started up the tree to see more. All over the tree they ran, creepy, crawly, looking at every single thing. Up and down, in and out, over every branch and twig, the little spiders ran, and saw every one of the pretty things right up close.

They stayed till they had seen all there was to see, you may be sure, and then they went away at last, _quite_ happy.

Then, in the still, dark night before Christmas Day, the dear Christ-child came, to bless the tree for the children. But when he looked at it--_what_ do you suppose?--it was covered with cobwebs! Everywhere the little spiders had been they had left a spider-web; and you know they had been everywhere. So the tree was covered from its trunk to its tip with spider-webs, all hanging from the branches and looped round the twigs; it was a strange sight.

What could the Christ-child do? He knew that house-mothers do not like cobwebs; it would never, never do to have a Christmas Tree covered with those. No, indeed.

So the dear Christ-child touched the spider's webs, and turned them all to gold! Wasn't that a lovely tr.i.m.m.i.n.g? They shone and shone, all over the beautiful tree. And that is the way the Christmas Tree came to have golden cobwebs on it.

WHY THE MORNING-GLORY CLIMBS[1]

[Footnote 1: This story was given me by Miss Elisabeth McCracken, who wrote it some years ago in a larger form, and who told it to me in the way she had told it to many children of her acquaintance.]

Once the Morning-Glory was flat on the ground. She grew that way, and she had never climbed at all. Up in the top of a tree near her lived Mrs Jennie Wren and her little baby Wren. The little Wren was lame; he had a broken wing and couldn't fly. He stayed in the nest all day. But the mother Wren told him all about what she saw in the world, when she came flying home at night. She used to tell him about the beautiful Morning-Glory she saw on the ground. She told him about the Morning-Glory every day, until the little Wren was filled with a desire to see her for himself.

”How I wish I could see the Morning-Glory!” he said.

The Morning-Glory heard this, and she longed to let the little Wren see her face. She pulled herself along the ground, a little at a time, until she was at the foot of the tree where the little Wren lived. But she could not get any farther, because she did not know how to climb. At last she wanted to go up so much, that she caught hold of the bark of the tree, and pulled herself up a little. And little by little, before she knew it, she was climbing.

And she climbed right up the tree to the little Wren's nest, and put her sweet face over the edge of the nest, where the little Wren could see.

That was how the Morning-Glory came to climb.

THE STORY OF LITTLE TAVWOTS[1]

[Footnote 1: Adapted from _The Basket Woman_, by Mary Austin.]

This is the story an Indian woman told a little white boy who lived with his father and mother near the Indians' country; and Tavwots is the name of the little rabbit.

But once, long ago, Tavwots was not little,--he was the largest of all four-footed things, and a mighty hunter. He used to hunt every day; as soon as it was day, and light enough to see, he used to get up, and go to his hunting. But every day he saw the track of a great foot on the trail, before him. This troubled him, for his pride was as big as his body.

”Who is this,” he cried, ”that goes before me to the hunting, and makes so great a stride? Does he think to put me to shame?”

”T'-sst!” said his mother, ”there is none greater than thou.”

”Still, there are the footprints in the trail,” said Tavwots.

And the next morning he got up earlier; but still the great footprints and the mighty stride were before him. The next morning he got up still earlier; but there were the mighty foot-tracks and the long, long stride.

”Now I will set me a trap for this impudent fellow,” said Tavwots, for he was very cunning. So he made a snare of his bowstring and set it in the trail overnight.

And when in the morning he went to look, behold, he had caught the sun in his snare! All that part of the earth was beginning to smoke with the heat of it.