The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children by Jane Andrews (reading diary .TXT) 📕

This fine, great vessel sailed out of New York harbor a week ago to carry all these people to Greytown, on their way to California; and here she is now at Coraltown instead of Greytown, and the poor people, nearly a hundred miles away from land, are waiting through the weary hours, while they see the ocean swallowing up their vessel, breaking it, and tearing it to pieces, and they do not know how soon they may find themselves drifting in the sea. But, although they may be a hundred miles from land, they are just as near to God as they ever were; and he is even at this moment taking most loving care of them.

On the more sheltered parts of the deck are men and women, holding on by ropes and bulwarks: they are all looking one way out over the water. What are they watching for? See, it comes now in sight,—only a black speck in the golden path of the sunlight! No, it is a boat sent out two hours ago to search for some island where the people might find refuge when the ship should go to pieces. Do you wonder that the men and women are watching eagerly? Look! it has reached the outer ledge of rock. The men spring out of it, waving their hats, and shouting “Success;” and the men on board answer with a loud hurrah, while the women cannot keep back their tears. What land have they discovered? You could hardly call it land. It is only a larger ledge of coral, built up just out of reach of the waves, its crevices filled in firmly with broken bits of rock and drifts of sand; but it seems to-day, to these shipwrecked people, more beautiful than the loveliest woods and meadows do to you and me.

It would be too long a story if I should tell you how the people were moved from the wreck to this little harbor of refuge, lowered over the vessel’s side with ropes, taken first to a raft which had been made of broken parts of the vessel, and the next day in little boats to the rocky island; but you can make a picture in your mind of the boats full of people, and the sailors rowing through the breakers, and the great sea-birds coming to meet their strange visitors, peering curiously at them, as if they wondered what new kind of creatures were these, without wings or beaks. And you must see in the very first boat little May Warner, three years and a half old, with her sunny hair all wet with spray, and her blue eyes wide open to see all the wonders about her. For May doesn’t know what danger is: even while on the wreck, she clapped her little hands in delight to see the great curling crests of the waves; and now she is singing her merry songs to the sea-birds, and laughing in their funny faces, and fairly shouting with joy, as, at landing, she rides to the shore perched high on the shoulder of sailor Jack, while he wades knee-deep through the water.

So we have come to a second settlement of Coraltown: first the polyps; then the men, women, and children. Do you see how the good Father teaches all his creatures to help each other? Here the tiny polyps have built an island for people who are so much larger and stronger than themselves, and the seeming destruction of their upper walls was only a better preparation for the reception of these distinguished visitors. The birds, too, are helping them to food, for every little cave and shelf in the rock is full of eggs. And now should you like to see how little May Warner helps them in even a better way?

Did you ever fall asleep on the floor, and, waking, find yourself aching and stiff because it was so hard? Then you know, in part, what hard beds rocks make. And in a hot, sunny day, haven’t you often been glad to keep under the trees, or even to stay in the house for shade? Then you can understand a little how hot it must have been on Roncador Island, where there were no trees nor houses. And haven’t you sometimes, when you were very hot and tired and hungry, and had, perhaps, also been kept waiting a long hour for somebody who didn’t come,—haven’t you felt a little cross and fretful and impatient, so that nothing seemed pleasant to you, and you seemed pleasant to nobody? Now, shouldn’t you think there was great danger that these people on the island, in the hot sun, tired, hungry, and waiting, waiting, day and night, for some vessel to come and take them to their homes again, and not feeling at all sure that any such vessel would ever come,—shouldn’t you think there was danger of their becoming cross and fretful and impatient? And if one begins to say, “Oh, how tired I am, and how hard the rocks are, and how little dinner I have had, and how hot the sun is, and what shall we ever do waiting here so long, and how shall we ever get home again!” don’t you see that all would begin to be discouraged? And sometimes on this island it did happen just so: first one would be discouraged, and then another; and as soon as you begin to feel in this way, you know at once every thing grows even worse than it was before,—the sun feels hotter, the rocks harder, the water tastes more disagreeably, and the crab’s claws less palatable. But in the midst of all the trouble, May would come tripping over the rocks,—a little sunburnt girl now, with tattered clothes and bare feet,—and she would bring a pretty pink conch-shell or the lovely rose-colored sea-mosses, and tell her funny little story of where she found them. The discontented people would gather around her: she would give a sailor kiss to one, and a French kiss to another, and, best of all, a Yankee kiss, with both arms round his neck, to her own dear father; and then, somehow or other, the discontent and trouble would be gone, for a little while at least,—just as a cloud sometimes seems to melt away in the sunshine; and so May Warner earned the name of “Little Sunshine.”

If anybody had picked up driftwood enough to make a fire, and could get an old battered kettle and some water to make a soup of shell fish, “Little Sunshine” must be invited to dinner, for half the enjoyment would be wanting without her.

If a great black cloud came up threatening a shower, the roughest man on the island forgot his own discomfort, in making a tent to keep “Little Sunshine” safe from the rain. And so, in a thousand ways, she cheered the weary days, making everybody happier for having her there.

Do you think there are any children who would have made the people less happy by being there? who would have complained and fretted, and been selfish and disagreeable?

Ten days go by, so slowly that they seem more like weeks or months than like days. The people have suffered from the rain, from heat, from want of food. They are very weak now; some of them can hardly stand. Can you imagine how they feel, when, in the early morning, two great gun-boats come in sight, making straight for their island as fast as the strong steam-engines will take them? Can you think how tenderly and carefully they are taken on board, fed with broth and wine, and nursed back into health and strength? And do not forget the little treasures that go in May’s pocket,—the bits of coral, the tinted sea-shells, and ruby-colored mosses; and nested among them all, and chief in her regard, a little five-fingered star, spiny and dry, but still showing a crimson coat, and dots which mark the places of five eyes, and a little scarlet water-strainer, now of no further use to the owner. Do you remember our old friend the star-fish? Well, this is his great-great-great-great- great-grandchild. In a week or two more, the rescued people have all reached California, and gone their separate ways, never to meet again. But all carry in their hearts the memory of “Little Sunshine,” who lightened their troubles, and cheered their darkest days.

WHAT THE FROST GIANTS DID TO NANNIE’S RUN

Do you believe in giants? No, do you say? Well, listen to my story, which is a really true one, and then answer my question.

Many hundreds of years ago, certain people who lived in the North, and were therefore called Northmen, had a strange idea of the form and situation of the earth: they thought it was a flat, circular piece of land, surrounded by a great ocean; and that this ocean was again surrounded by a wall of snow-covered mountains, where lived the race of Frost Giants.

I have seen a pretty picture of this world of theirs, with a lovely rainbow bridge arching up over the sea to the earth, and a great coiled serpent, holding his tail in his mouth, lying in mid-ocean like a ring around the land. Perhaps you will some day read about it all, but at present we have only to do with the Frost Giants; for I want to tell you, that, although no one now thinks of believing about the serpent or the flat earth or the rainbow bridge, yet the Frost Giants still live, and their home is really among the mountains.

You may call them by what name you like, and we may all know certainly that they are not what the old Northmen believed them to be, but are God’s workmen, a part of Nature’s family, employed to work in the great garden of the world; but, whenever we look at their work, we cannot fail to admit that to do it needed a giant’s strength, and so they deserve their title.

Have you sometimes seen great boulder stones, as big as a small house, that stand alone by themselves in some field, or on some seashore, where no other rocks are near? Well, the Frost Giants carried these boulders about, and dropped them down miles away from their homes, as you might take a pocketful of pebbles, and drop them along the road as you walk. Sometimes they roll great rocks down the mountain-sides, playing a desperate game of ball with each other. Sometimes they are sent to make a bridge over Niagara Falls, or to build a dam across a mountain torrent in an hour’s time. Now and then they have to rake off a steep mountain-side as you might a garden-bed; and sometimes to bury a whole village so quickly that the poor inhabitants do not know what strange hand brought such sudden destruction upon them. Their deeds often seem to be cruel, and we cannot understand their meaning; but we shall some time know that the loving Father who sent them orders nothing for our hurt, but has always a loving purpose, though it may be hidden.

While I thus introduce to you the Frost Giants, let me also present their tiny brethren and sisters, the Frost Fairies, who always accompany them on their expeditions; and, however terrible is the deed that has to be done, these little people adorn it with the most lovely handiwork,— tiny flowers and crystals and veils of delicate lace-work, fringes and spangles and star-work and carving; so that nothing is so hard and ugly and bare that they cannot beautify it.

Now that you are introduced, you will perhaps like to join a Frost party that started out to work, one day