Europa's Fairy Book. Joseph Jacobs

bird directed the brother and sister to procure a carriage finer than the king's, with twenty-four attendants, and to have the service of their palace, cooks, and servants, more numerous and better than the king's. All of which the brother and sister did at once. And when the aunts saw these things they were ready to die of rage.

      At last the king returned from the war, and his subjects told him all the news of the kingdom, and the thing they talked about the least was his wife and children. One day the king looked out of the window and saw the palace opposite furnished in a magnificent manner. "Who lives there?" he asked, but no one could answer him. He looked again and saw the brother and sister, the former with the sun on his forehead, and the latter with the moon on her brow. "Gracious! if I did not know that my wife had given birth to puppies, I should say that those were my children," exclaimed the king. Another day he stood by the window and enjoyed the Dancing Water and the Singing Apple, but the bird was silent.

      After the king had heard all the music, the bird said: "What does your Majesty think of it?" The king was astonished at hearing the Speaking Bird, and answered: "What should I think? It is marvellous."

      "There is something more marvellous," said the bird; "just wait."

      Then the bird told his mistress to call her brother, and said: "There is the king; let us invite him to dinner on Sunday. Shall we not?"

      "Yes, yes," they said. So the king was invited and accepted, and on Sunday the bird had a grand dinner prepared and the king came. When he saw the young people near, he clapped his hands and said: "They must be my children."

      He went over the palace and was astonished at its richness. Then they went to dinner, and while they were eating the king said: "Bird, every one is talking; you alone are silent."

      "Ah! your Majesty, I am ill; but next Sunday I shall be well and able to talk, and will come and dine at your palace with this lady and this gentleman."

      The next Sunday the bird directed his mistress and her brother to put on their finest clothes; so they dressed in royal style and took the bird with them. The king showed them through his palace and treated them with the greatest ceremony; the aunts were nearly dead with fear. When they had seated themselves at the table, the king said: "Come, bird, you promised me you would speak; have you nothing to say?" Then the bird began and related all that had happened from the time the king had listened at the door until his poor wife had been sent to the tread-mill; then the bird added: "These are your children, and your wife was sent to the tread-mill, and is dying."

      When the king heard all this, he hastened to embrace his children, and then went to find his poor wife, who was reduced to skin and bones and was at the point of death. He knelt before her and begged her pardon, and then summoned her sisters and the nurse, and when they were in his presence he said to the bird: "Bird, you who have told me everything, now pronounce their sentence." Then the bird sentenced the nurse to be thrown out of the window, and the sisters to be cast into a cauldron of boiling oil. This was at once done. The king was never tired of embracing his wife. Then the bird departed and the king and his wife and children lived together in peace.

      THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS

      There was once a man who had a son named Jack, who was very simple in mind and backward in his thought. So his father sent him away to school so that he might learn something; and after a year he came back from school.

      "Well, Jack," said his father, "what have you learnt at school?"

      And Jack said, "I know what dogs mean when they bark."

      "That's not much," said his father. "You must go to school again."

      So he sent him to school for another year, and when he came back he asked him what he had learnt.

      "Well, father," said the boy, "when frogs croak I know what they mean."

      "You must learn more than that," said the father, and sent him once more to school.

      And when he returned, after another year, he asked him once more what he had learnt.

      "I know all the birds say when they twitter and chirp, caw and coo, gobble and cluck."

      "Well I must say," said the father, "that does not seem much for three years' schooling. But let us see if you have learnt your lessons properly. What does that bird say just above our heads in the tree there?"