THE STORY OF A STONE, 



197 



things, and opened and shut Its umbrella pretty 

 much as the jelly-fishes do now on a sunny day off 

 Nahant Beach when the tide is coming in. It had a 

 great many little feelers that hung down all around 

 like so many little snakes ; so it was named Me- 

 dusa, after a queer woman who lived a long while 

 ago, when all sorts of stories were true. She 

 wore snakes instead of hair, and used to turn peo- 

 ple into stone images if they dared to make faces 

 at her. So this little Medusa floated around, and 

 opened and shut her umbrella for a good while, — 

 a month or two, perhaps, we don't know how long. 

 Then one morning, down among the sea-weeds, she 

 laid a whole lot of tiny eggs, transparent as crab- 

 apple jelly, and smaller than the dew-drop on the 

 end of a pine leaf That was the last thing she 

 did ; so she died, and our story henceforth concerns 

 only one of those little eggs. 



One day the sun shone down into the water,^ 

 the same sun that shines over the Oconto saw-mills 

 now, — and touched these eggs with life ; and a lit- 

 tle fellow whom we will call Favosltes, because that 

 was his name, woke up inside of the ^^^, and came 

 out into the world. He was only a little piece of 

 floating jelly, shaped like a cartridge pointed at 

 both ends, or like a grain of barley, although very 

 much smaller. He had a great number of little 

 paddles on his sides. These kept flapping all the 

 time, so that he was constantly in motion. And 

 at night all these little paddles shone with a rich 

 green light, to show him the way through the 

 water. It would have done you good to see them 

 some night when all the little fellows had their 



