worms were spinning. A long thread
was coming from the mouth of each, and each little worm was winding this
thread around its body.

Si-ling and the emperor stood still and watched the worms. "How
wonderful!" said Si-ling.

The next morning Hoangti and the empress walked under the trees again.
They found some worms still winding thread. Others had already spun
their cocoons and were fast asleep. In a few days all of the worms had
spun cocoons.

"This is indeed a wonderful, wonderful thing!" said Si-ling. "Why, each
worm has a thread on its body long enough to make a house for itself!"

Si-ling thought of this day after day. One morning as she and the
emperor walked under the trees, she said, "I believe I could find a way
to weave those long threads into cloth."

"But how could you unwind the threads?" asked the emperor.

[Illustration: Hoangti and Si-ling walking among the trees]

"I'll find a way," Si-ling said. And she did; but she had to try many,
many times.

She put the cocoons in a hot place, and the little sleepers soon died.
Then the cocoons were thrown into boiling water to make the threads
soft. After that the long threads could be easily unwound.

Now Si-ling had to think of something else; she had to find a way to
weave the threads into cloth. After many trials, she made a loom--the
first that was ever made. She taught others to weave, and soon hundreds
of people were making cloth from the threads of the silkworm.

The people ever afterward called Si-ling "The Goddess of the Silkworm."
And whenever the emperor walked with her in the garden, they liked to
watch the silkworms spinning threads for the good of their people.

THE FLAX

I

It was spring. The flax was in full bloom, and it had dainty little blue
flowers that nodded in the breeze.

"People say that I look very well," said the flax. "They say that I am
fine and long and that I shall make a beautiful piece of linen. How
happy I am! No one in the world can be happier."

"Oh, yes," said the fence post, "you may grow and be happy, and you may
sing, but you do not know the world as I do. Why, I have knots in me."
And it creaked;

"Snip, snap, snurre,
Basse, lurre,
The song is ended."

"No, it is not ended," said the flax. "The sun will shine, and the rain
will fall, and I shall grow and grow. No, no, the song is not ended."

One day some men came with sharp reap hooks. They took the flax by the
head and cut it off at