y began way back when the Earth was young. There were stories about
the Earth itself, how it hung in space and turned, making day and night.
When the strange, great animals that by-and-by appeared on the Earth and
have since gone from it first came into the stories, and then, later,
the floods and glaciers, and at last the first man,--any child might
have listened with delight and wonder. Ivra had listened so ever since
she was a tiny girl, old enough to understand at all. And with man, and
the wonderful happenings that came along with him, Ivra had begged for
the stories day and night, and never could have enough of them. For then
in a great procession came the stories of cities and nations, of great
men and women, of explorations and adventures. They led in turn to
stories of languages and writing, of painting and geometry, of music and
of life. The names of these things may not promise good stories to you,
but that is only because you do not know them as stories. If you could
listen to Helma telling them, by the fire, or out in the starlight, deep
in the wood, or swinging in a tree-top,--then no other stories you might
ever hear would satisfy you quite. So perhaps it is as well you do not
know now just where Helma's little house is standing deep in the wood
under the snow.

Ivra always said that the nicest thing about the stories was the
interruptions. Helma never minded them, and she answered all the
questions Ivra asked. She answered them by making things that Ivra could
see with her own eyes, by drawing pictures on the ground or in the
ashes, building with earth or snow, playing with wind and water, and in
a hundred other ways. Sometimes the answer to a question would take up
the playtime of a whole day.

But now Eric was to hear his first story, World Story or any other kind.
Can you imagine how it would feel if to-day you were to hear the first
story of your life?

"All ready?" asked Helma.

The silence in the room said plainer than words that all was ready for
the World Story. This time it was a story about a man named Saint
Francis, and a story after Eric's own heart.

Almost as fast as the story went the work of Helma's fingers. But Ivra
was neither so swift nor so skilled, and the leggins were dropped many
times from forgetful hands because all her thoughts were gone away
following the story.

Yet somehow the leggins got done, and the jacket and trousers got done,
and even a little round cap, and all