SNOWFLAKES. 



Falling- all the night-time, 

 Falling all the day, 

 Silent into silence. 

 From the far-away; 



Stilly host unnumbered, 

 All the night and day 

 Falling, falling, falling. 

 From the far-away,— 



Never came like glory 

 To the fields and trees. 

 Never summer blossoms 

 Thick and white as these. 



To the dear old places 

 Winging night and day. 

 Follow, follow, follow. 

 Fold them soft away; 



Folding, folding, folding, 

 Fold the world away, 

 Souls of flowers drifting 

 Down the winter day. 



—John Vance Cheney. 



A TIMELY WARNING. 



WHILE a British brig was gliding 

 smoothly along before a good 

 breeze in the South Pacific, a 

 flock of small birds about the 

 size, shape, and color of paroquets set- 

 tled down in the rigging and passed an 

 hour or more resting. The second 

 mate was so anxious to find out the 

 species to which the visiting strangers 

 belonged that he tried to entrap a spec- 

 imen, but the birds were too shy 

 to be thus caught and too spry to be 

 seized by the quick hands of the sailors. 

 At the end of about an hour the birds 

 took the brig's course, and disappeared, 

 but towards nightfall they came back 

 and passed the night in the main-top. 

 The next morning the birds flew off 

 again, and when they returned at noon 

 the sailors scattered some food about 

 the decks. By this time the birds had 

 become so tame that they hopped about 

 the decks, picking up the crumbs. That 

 afternoon an astonishing thing hap- 



pened. The flock came flying swiftly 

 toward the brig. Every bird seemed 

 to be piping as if pursued by some little 

 invisible enemy on wings, and they at 

 once huddled down behind the deck- 

 house. The superstitious sailors at 

 once called the captain of the brig, 

 who rubbed his eyes and looked at the 

 barometer. A glance showed that 

 something was wrong with the elements 

 and the brig was put in shape to out- 

 ride a storm. The storm came down 

 about twenty minutes after the birds 

 had reached the vessel. For a few min- 

 utes the sky was like the waterless bot- 

 tom of a lake — a vast arch of yellowish 

 mud — and torrents of rain fell. Why 

 it did not blow very hard, no one knows; 

 but on reaching port, two days later, 

 the captain learned that a great tor- 

 nado had swept across that part of the 

 sea. The birds left the vessel on the 

 morning after the storm and were not 

 seen again. 



