dings of spring.

"When the maple buds shoot and the wild flowers come, every child in the
land shall know my voice.

"I shall teach how much better it is to sing than to slay.

"Chief, listen, chief,
Be more gentle; be more loving.
Chief, teach it, chief,
Be not fierce, oh, be not cruel;
Love each other!
Love each other!"

THE RED-HEADED WOODPECKER.

There was an old woman who lived on a hill. You never heard of any one
smaller or neater than she was. She always wore a black dress and a
large white apron with big bows behind.

On her head was the queerest little red bonnet that you ever saw.

It is a sad thing to tell, but this woman had grown very selfish as the
years went by.

People said this was because she lived alone and thought of nobody but
herself.

One morning as she was baking cakes, a tired, hungry man came to her
door.

"My good woman," said he, "will you give me one of your cakes? I am very
hungry. I have no money to pay for it, but whatever you first wish for
you shall have."

The old woman looked at her cakes and thought that they were too large
to give away. She broke off a small bit of dough and put it into the
oven to bake.

When it was done she thought this one was too nice and brown for a
beggar.

She baked a smaller one and then a smaller one, but each one was as nice
and brown as the first.

At last she took a piece of dough only as big as the head of a pin; yet
even this, when it was baked, looked as fine and large as the others.

So the old woman put all the cakes on the shelf and offered the stranger
a dry crust of bread.

The poor man only looked at her and before she could wink her eye he was
gone.

She had done wrong and of course she was unhappy.

"Oh, I wish I were a bird!" said she, "I would fly to him with the
largest cake on the shelf."

As she spoke she felt herself growing smaller and smaller until the wind
whisked her up the chimney.

She was no longer an old woman but a bird as she had wished to be. She
still wore her black dress and red bonnet. She still seemed to have the
large white apron with the big bows behind.

Because from that day she pecked her food from the hard wood of a tree,
people named this bird the red-headed wood-pecker.

THE STORY OF THE PUDDING STONE.

Once upon a time a family of giants lived upon the high mountains in the
West.

One day the mother giant was called away from home.