now there was
anywhere to go. Nobody did any traveling in those days and as a result
there were no maps or travel books to set you thinking you must pack up
your traps to-morrow and start for some place you never had seen. But
by and by the compass was invented, larger and better ships came to be
built, and men got the idea the world was round instead of flat (as
they had at one time supposed), a discovery that comforted vastly the
timid souls who had always been afraid of falling off the edge of it.
Therefore, when it was at last proved that should you sail far, far
away your ship, instead of dropping off into space, would circle the
great ball we live on and come home again, some of those who were
brave, adventurous, and had money enough set out on voyages to see what
there was to be seen in other lands than those they had been brought up
in. Frenchmen thought it would be a grand thing to discover new
countries for France; Englishmen wanted new territory for England. So
it was all over the world. Thus this one and that one began to travel."

"Just as Columbus came to America, Ma," put in Tim.

"Exactly, dear," nodded his mother. "Now you can imagine what a hero
such a traveler became; how people admired his daring; and how half of
them wished they were going with him and the other half rejoiced that
they weren't. And when he came back there was great excitement to hear
where he had been and what he had seen! Every word he spoke was passed
from mouth to mouth, each person who repeated it adding to the story
until it grew like a snowball. And as was inevitable the more raptly
the populace listened the more marvelous became the stories."

"Like Jack Murphy when he gets home from the circus," put in Tim.

"Yes, very much like Jack Murphy, I am afraid; only sometimes these
travelers really believed the tales they told. Sometimes the stories
had been passed on to them by the natives of the strange countries they
visited, and how could they know that all which was told them was not
true? Such a tale was the legend of the Tartary lamb."

"Tell it to us, Mother," urged Mary.

"Well, it actually isn't much of a story, my dear. You see, when the
travelers from England, France, and other western countries went to the
East for the first time, they saw cotton growing, or if they did not
really see it, they heard there was such a thing. Now cotton was
entirely new to the voyagers and it seemed unbelievable that such a
plant co