May Day (May 1)

I. The Snowdrop [1]

By Hans Christian Andersen (Adapted)

[1] From For the Children's Hour, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey and Clara M. Lewis. Copyright by the Milton Bradley Company.

The snow lay deep, for it was winter-time. The winter winds blew cold, but there was one house where all was snug and warm. And in the house lay a little flower; in its bulb it lay, under the earth and the snow.

One day the rain fell and it trickled through the ice and snow down into the ground. And presently a sunbeam, pointed and slender, pierced down through the earth, and tapped on the bulb.

``Come in,'' said the flower.

``I can't do that,'' said the sunbeam; ``I'm not strong enough to lift the latch. I shall be stronger when springtime comes.''

``When will it be spring?'' asked the flower of every little sunbeam that rapped on its door. But for a long time it was winter. The ground was still covered with snow, and every night there was ice in the water. The flower grew quite tired of waiting.

``How long it is!'' it said. ``I feel quite cramped. I must stretch myself and rise up a little. I must lift the latch, and look out, and say `good-morning' to the spring.''

So the flower pushed and pushed. The walls were softened by the rain and warmed by the little sunbeams, so the flower shot up from under the snow, with a pale green bud on its stalk and some long narrow leaves on either side. It was biting cold.

``You are a little too early,'' said the wind and the weather; but every sunbeam sang: ``Welcome,'' and the flower raised its head from the snow and unfolded itself--pure and white, and decked with green stripes.

It was weather to freeze it to pieces,--such a delicate little flower,--but it was stronger than any one knew. It stood in its white dress in the white snow, bowing its head when the snow- flakes fell, and raising it again to smile at the sunbeams, and every day it grew sweeter.

``Oh!'' shouted the children, as they ran into the garden, ``see the snowdrop! There it stands so pretty, so beautiful,--the first, the only one!''

II. The Three Little Butterfly Brothers

(From The German)[2]

[2] From Deutsches Drittes Lesebuch, by W. H. Weick and C. Grebner. Copyright, 1886, by Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. American Book Company, publishers.

There were once three little butterfly brothers, one white, one red, and one yellow. They played in the sunshine, and danced among the flowers in the garden, and they never grew tired because they were so happy.

One day there came a heavy rain, and it wet their wings. They flew away home, but when they got there they found the door locked and the key gone. So they had to stay out of doors in the rain, and they grew wetter and wetter.

By and by they flew to the red and yellow striped tulip, and said: ``Friend Tulip, will you open your flower-cup and let us in till the storm is over?''

The tulip answered: ``The red and yellow butterflies may enter, because they are like me, but the white one may not come in.''

But the red and yellow butterflies said: ``If our white brother may not find shelter in your flowercup, why, then, we'll stay outside in the rain with him.''

It rained harder and harder, and the poor little butterflies grew wetter and wetter, so they flew to the white lily and said: ``Good Lily, will you open your bud a little so we may creep in out of the rain?''

The lily answered: ``The white butterfly may come in, because he is like me, but the red and yellow ones must stay outside in the storm.''

Then the little white butterfly said: ``If you won't receive my red and yellow brothers, why, then, I'll stay out in the rain with them. We would rather be wet than be parted.''

So the three little butterfiies flew away.

But the sun, who was behind a cloud, heard it all, and he knew what good little brothers the butterflies were, and how they had held together in spite of the wet. So he pushed his face through the clouds, and chased away the rain, and shone brightly on the garden.

He dried the wings of the three little butterflies, and warmed their bodies. They ceased to sorrow, and danced among the flowers till evening, then they flew away home, and found the door wide open.

III. The Water-Drop

By Friedrich Wilhelm Carove'

(Adapted From The Translation By Sarah Austin)

There was once a child who lived in a little hut, and in the hut there was nothing but a little bed and a looking-glass; but as soon as the first sunbeam glided softly through the casement and kissed his sweet eyelids, and the finch and the linnet waked him merrily with their morning songs, he arose and went out into the green meadow.

And he begged flour of the primrose, and sugar of the violet, and butter of the buttercup. He shook dewdrops from the cowslip into the cup of the harebell, spread out a large lime-leaf, set his breakfast upon it, and feasted daintily. And he invited a humming-bee and a gay butterfly to partake of his feast, but his favorite guest was a blue dragon-fly.

The bee murmured a good deal about his riches, and the butterfly told his adventures. Such talk delighted the child, and his breakfast was the sweeter to him, and the sunshine on leaf and flower seemed more bright and cheering.

But when the bee had flown off to beg from flower to flower, and the butterfly had fluttered away to his play-fellows, the dragon-fly still remained, poised on a blade of grass. Her slender and burnished body, more brightly and deeply blue than the deep blue sky, glistened in the sunbeam. Her net-like wings laughed at the flowers because they could not fly, but must stand still and abide the wind and rain.

The dragon-fly sipped a little of the child's clear dewdrops and blue violet honey, and then whispered her winged words. Such stories as the dragon-fly did tell! And as the child sat motionless with his blue eyes shut, and his head rested on his hands, she thought he had fallen asleep; so she poised her double wings and flew into the rustling wood.

But the child had only sunk into a dream of delight and was wishing he were a sunbeam or a moonbeam; and he would have been glad to hear more and more, and forever.

But at last as all was still, he opened his eyes and looked around for his dear guest, but she was flown far away. He could not bear to sit there any longer alone, and he rose and went to the gurgling brook. It gushed and rolled so merrily, and tumbled so wildly along as it hurried to throw itself head-over-heels into the river, just as if the great massy rock out of which it sprang were close behind it, and could only be escaped by a breakneck leap.

Then the child began to talk to the little waves and asked them whence they came. They would not stay to give him an answer, but danced away one over another; till at last, that the sweet child might not be grieved, a water-drop stopped behind a piece of rock.

``A long time ago,'' said the water-drop, ``I lived with my countless sisters in the great Ocean, in peace and unity. We had all sorts of pastimes. Sometimes we mounted up high into the air, and peeped at the stars. Then we sank plump down deep below, and looked how the coral builders work till they are tired, that they may reach the light of day at last.

``But I was conceited, and thought myself much better than my sisters. And so, one day, when the sun rose out of the sea, I clung fast to one of his hot beams and thought how I should reach the stars and become one of them.

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