ed princess.

"I shall fly all the time!" she thought to herself. "I will alight
only long enough to tell my subjects to go back to work for me. I am
going to fly all the rest of the time."

So the little red princess dropped lightly to the ground again.

How they crowded about her! But she pushed them all aside a little
scornfully. They looked surprised and tried to lead her toward the
gate of the kingdom again. Then she pushed harder, and stamped her
tiny feet. She tried to spread her wings, but they would not let her.

The little red workers surrounded their princess. They began cutting
off her wings! It was a rule of the kingdom that a princess might fly
only once. She did not know it, of course.

Some princesses were satisfied with trying their wings just once and
then took them off themselves, but she was not that kind of princess.
She wanted wings all the time!

She struggled, and tried to bite her kind little red subjects who
really knew what was best for her. They did not pay any attention to
her, though. They did not hurt her very much, but they did not stop
until every scrap of her gossamer wings was gone.

"Now look at me! Just see what you have done to your princess!" she
tried to say.

"Yes, just look! See what has happened to you!" the others tried to
reply, hopping merrily around her.

It was true. Something wonderful had happened to the little red
princess. She had changed into a little red queen!

So she did not mind in the least losing her wings. In fact, she was
rather glad. She went home to the castle and went right to work
ordering her servants about, and keeping house, and taking care of her
royal family and all the nurses. She very seldom has time to look out
of her castle window, so you may never see her. Her kingdom lies very
near you, though, for the little red queen is the real, true queen of
the ant hill!

HOW THE FLOWERS CAME

Ever so many years ago the world was as bare and gray as the roads.
The Earth King grew very tired of it, and covered the ground with a
carpet of green. We call it grass. For years and years there was
nothing but green, until the Earth King grew as tired of the green as
he had been of the gray. He decided that he must have more colors. So
one day he took his royal retinue and journeyed to a hillside where he
knew there grew the finest grasses in all the kingdom. At the blast of
the King's bugler the grasses assembled, and the King addressed them