gician, still thinking to make
something of the timorsome little bird which was his pet, now changed
her into a pigeon-hawk.

"Immediately she cast affrighted glances at the big gray owl that lived
in a hollow tree farther back toward the edge of the forest, and who
came out on a dead branch at night-fall, and hooted until the hill-side
rang again with the unearthly screeches, and all the smaller birds
tucked their heads under their wings, and put their claws over their
ears to shut out the sound.

"'I will persevere,' said the tender-hearted magician; 'I may make
something of her yet;' and straightway the pigeon-hawk became an owl,
with a voice equal to any of the owls' in all that forest.

"But now, instead of making the most of her opportunity, and _being_ a
real, vigorous owl, she backed into the old hollow tree, her great
staring eyes round with terror, as she tremblingly listened to the
terrific screams of a monstrous eagle whose eyrie was on the
mountain-side facing the sunrise.

"'You shall be a sparrow again!' angrily cried the magician. 'You have
only the life and heart and spirit of a sparrow after all. What is the
use of my trying to make anything else of you? Had you asserted and kept
your position as an owl, I would soon have made you an eagle, and you
could have proudly soared above all the birds of the air. I have done my
best to help you along, but you have not made one effort in your own
behalf.'

"It is the same with a boy or a girl," continued Master Noble. "If
pupils have only the heart and the will and the intellect of a sparrow,
they will remain sparrows in spite of all their teachers may do to help
them on and to encourage them. _Study_ and _will_ are the magicians that
help them to maintain their promotion, and the public examination is the
great magician that assigns them their advanced positions.

"The world over, sparrow-hearted people are getting into eagles' nests,
but keen-eyed public opinion is the great magician who says, 'Go back to
the thicket and to the grass-plot again! You have only the heart and the
brain of a sparrow; there is no use in trying to make eagles of you.'"

That is why to this day the names of those birds are the symbols of the
different grades in the Oak Bridge schools, and Master Noble has never
once been obliged to say, "_Go back and be a sparrow again._"

[Illustration: THE STORM-PETREL.]

THE STORM-PETREL.

Ages ago this little web-footed fello