nd little Gerda wept,
and the Crows wept. Thus passed the first miles; and then the Crow said
good-by, and this was the worst good-by of all. He flew into a tree, and
beat his black wings as long as he could see the carriage, that shone
from afar like the clear sunlight.

THE NIGHTINGALE

From 'Riverside Literature Series': 1891, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

I--THE REAL NIGHTINGALE

In China, you must know, the Emperor is a Chinaman, and all whom he has
about him are Chinamen too. It happened a good many years ago, but
that's just why it's worth while to hear the story before it is
forgotten.

The Emperor's palace was the most splendid in the world. It was made
wholly of fine porcelain, very costly, but so brittle and so hard to
handle that one had to take care how one touched it. In the garden were
to be seen the most wonderful flowers, and to the prettiest of them
silver bells were tied, which tinkled, so that nobody should pass by
without noticing the flowers.

Yes, everything in the Emperor's garden was nicely set out, and it
reached so far that the gardener himself did not know where the end
was. If a man went on and on, he came into a glorious forest with high
trees and deep lakes. The wood went straight down to the sea, which was
blue and deep; great ships could sail to and fro beneath the branches of
the trees; and in the trees lived a Nightingale, which sang so finely
that even the poor Fisherman, who had many other things to do, stopped
still and listened, when he had gone out at night to throw out his nets,
and heard the Nightingale.

"How beautiful that is!" he said; but he had to attend to his work, and
so he forgot the bird. But the next night, when the bird sang again, and
the Fisherman heard it, he said as before, "How beautiful that is!"

From all the countries of the world travelers came to the city of the
Emperor, and admired it, and the palace, and the garden; but when they
heard the Nightingale, they all said, "That is the best of all!"

And the travelers told of it when they came home; and the learned men
wrote many books about the town, the palace, and the garden. But they
did not forget the Nightingale; that was spoken of most of all; and all
those who were poets wrote great poems about the Nightingale in the wood
by the deep lake.

The books went all over the world, and a few of them once came to the
Emperor. He sat in his golden chair, and read, and read; every moment he
n