r it had been destroyed by flood?

Then take our legendary heroes: was ever a better or braver company
brought together--Perseus, Hercules, Siegfried, Roland, Galahad,
Robin Hood, and a dozen others? But stop, I am using too many
question-marks. There is no need to query heroes known and admired the
world over.

As true latter-day story-tellers, both Hawthorne and Kingsley retold
many of these myths and legends, and from their classic pages we have
adapted a number of our tales, and made them somewhat simpler and
shorter in form. By way of apology for this liberty (if some should
so consider it), we humbly offer a paragraph from a preface to the
"Wonder Book" written by its author:

"A great freedom of treatment was necessary but it will be observed
by every one who attempts to render these legends malleable in his
intellectual furnace, that they are marvelously independent of all
temporary modes and circumstances. They remain essentially the same,
after changes that would affect the identity of almost anything else."

Now to those who have not jumped over my head, or to those who, having
done so, may jump back to this foreword, I trust my few remarks will
have given some additional interest in our myths and heroes of lands
far and near.

DANIEL EDWIN WHEELER

MYTHS OF MANY COUNTRIES

MYTHS OF GREECE AND ROME

BAUCIS AND PHILEMON

ADAPTED BY C.E. SMITH

One evening, in times long ago, old Philemon and his wife Baucis sat
at their cottage door watching the sunset. They had eaten their supper
and were enjoying a quiet talk about their garden, and their cow, and
the fruit trees on which the pears and apples were beginning to ripen.
But their talk was very much disturbed by rude shouts and laughter
from the village children, and by the fierce barking of dogs.

"I fear," said Philemon, "that some poor traveler is asking for a bed
in the village, and that these rough people have set the dogs on him."

"Well, I never," answered old Baucis. "I do wish the neighbors would
be kinder to poor wanderers; I feel that some terrible punishment will
happen to this village if the people are so wicked as to make fun of
those who are tired and hungry. As for you and me, so long as we have
a crust of bread, let us always be willing to give half of it to any
poor homeless stranger who may come along."

"Indeed, that we will," said Philemon.

These old folks, you must know, were very poor, and had to wo