e," said she, "if I cannot make the weeds grow into flowers by
watering them and pruning them and lovingly caring for them. In this way
I can help to make the whole forest wholesome, and thus show the
wood-fairies that I am grateful to them for their gift of health to my
second son."

She began by caring for the weeds which stood nearest her own home, and
was rewarded by seeing them slowly change into shapely plants and their
blossoms become strong and beautiful. Then her care extended to the
weeds along the wayside, and in a short time there was not a hurtful
weed to be found in the neighborhood. All had been changed, by a little
patient care, into strong, thrifty shrubs and plants, each blooming
according to its own nature, but all gladdening the sight by their
bright flowers and healthy green leaves.

This changing of weeds into flowers so surprised and delighted the
wood-fairies who had never heard of such a thing, that when her third
boy-baby came, they consulted among themselves and decided to send him
the _best gift_ they had to bestow. Accordingly they sent to the new
baby a _loving-cup_ made of strong, black iron, and with it, three large
earthen jars. One was filled with the sweetest golden nectar ever tasted
by mortal lips, another contained a brown vinegar so sour that half a
teaspoonful of it would make your face wrinkle, while the third jar held
a blackish-looking gall, of such a bitter flavor that one drop of it
would make one shrink from ever wanting to taste it again. With this
strange present they sent word that if the mother loved her boy, whom by
the way she had named Philip, she would mix a cupful of the sweet
nectar, the sour vinegar and the bitter gall, using half as much vinegar
as she did nectar, and half as much gall as vinegar, and give it to the
boy to drink on his birthday, each year, until he was twenty-one years
old.

The mother hesitated. It seemed so hard to make her darling child taste
of the bitter gall when there was plenty of the sweet nectar to last
until he was grown, but she knew that the wood-fairies were wise. Were
they not trying to make the whole earth beautiful? Surely they would not
require so hard a thing of her unless it was for little Philip's
welfare.

Therefore, each succeeding birthday she mixed the fairies' drink and
poured it into the iron cup and gave it to the child. Sometimes he cried
and sometimes he fretted, but she held the cup firmly to his lips until
the