"No," he then said.

"What have you been hunting so long?"

He looked confused, turned away his head, and muttered, "Nothing." This made me sure he had been hunting something, and I felt a little curiosity to know what it was. But although I asked him again, and offered to help him hunt it, he would tell me nothing. He had a restless and rather unhappy look, quite different from the bright, cheerful eyes and pleasant countenance of Otto.

His father, he said, worked in a mill below the town, and got good wages; so he was allowed half the pay for tending the cattle during the summer. "What will you do with the money?" I asked.

“O, I'll soon spend it," he said. "I could spend a hundred times that much, if I had it."

it."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed. "No doubt it's all the better that you have n't

He did not seem to like this remark, and was afterwards disinclined to talk; so I left him and went over to Otto, who was as busy and cheerful as

ever.

Otto," said I, "do you know what Hans is hunting, all over the pasture? Has he lost anything?"

"No," Otto answered; "he has not lost anything, and I don't believe he will find anything, either. Because, even if it's all true, they say you never come across it when you look for it, but it just shows itself all at once, when you're not expecting."

"What is it, then?" I asked.

Otto looked at me a moment, and seemed to hesitate. He appeared also to be a little surprised; but probably he reflected that I was a stranger, and could not be expected to know everything; for he finally asked, "Don't you know, sir, what the shepherd found, somewhere about here, a great many hundred years ago?"

"No," I answered.

"Not the key-flower?"

Then I did know what he meant, and understood the whole matter in a moment. But I wanted to know what Otto had heard of the story, and therefore said to him, "I wish you would tell me all about it.”

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"Well," he began, some say it was true, and some that it was n't. At any rate, it was a long, long while ago, and there's no telling how much to believe. My grandmother told me; but then she did n't know the man : she only heard about him from her grandmother. He was a shepherd, and used to tend his sheep on the mountain, or may be it was cows, I'm not sure, in some place where there were a great many kobolds and fairies. And so it went on, from year to year. He was a poor man, but very cheerful, and always singing and making merry; but sometimes he would wish to have a little more money, so that he need not be obliged to go up to the pastures in the cold, foggy weather. That was n't much wonder, sir, for it's cold enough up here, some days.

"It was in summer, and the flowers were all in blossom, and he was walking along after his sheep, when all at once he saw a wonderful sky-blue flower, of a kind he had never seen before in all his life. Some people say it was sky-blue, and some that it was golden-yellow: I don't know which is right. Well, however it was, there was the wonderful flower, as large as your hand, growing in the grass. The shepherd stooped down and broke the stem; but just as he was lifting up the flower to examine it, he saw that there was a door in the side of the mountain. Now he had been over the ground a hundred times before, and had never seen anything of the kind. Yet it was a real door, and it was open, and there was a passage into the earth. He looked into it for a long time, and at last plucked up heart and in he went. After forty or fifty steps, he found himself in a large hall, full of chests of gold and diamonds. There was an old kobold, with a white beard, sitting in a chair beside a large table in the middle of the hall. The shepherd was at first frightened, but the kobold looked at him with a friendly face, and said, 'Take what you want, and don't forget the best!'

"So the shepherd laid the flower on the table, and went to work and filled his pockets with the gold and diamonds. When he had as much as he could carry, the kobold said again, ‘Don't forget the best!' 'That I won't,' the shepherd thought to himself, and took more gold and the biggest diamonds he could find, and filled his hat, so that he could scarcely stagger under the load. He was leaving the hall, when the kobold cried out, 'Don't forget the best!' But he could n't carry any more, and went on, never minding. When he reached the door in the mountain-side, he heard the voice again, for the last time, 'Don't forget the best!'

"The next minute he was out on the pasture. When he looked around, the door had disappeared: his pockets and hat grew light all at once, and instead of gold and diamonds he found nothing but dry leaves and pebbles. He was as poor as ever, and all because he had forgotten the best. Now, sir, do you know what the best was? Why, it was the flower, which he had left on the table in the kobold's hall. That was the key-flower. When you find it and pull it, the door is opened to all the treasures under ground. If the shepherd had kept it, the gold and diamonds would have stayed so; and, besides, the door would have been always open to him, and he could then help himself whenever he wanted. '

Otto had told the story very correctly, just as I had heard it told by some of the people before. "Did you ever look for the key-flower?" I asked him. He grew a little red in the face, then laughed, and answered: “O, that was the first summer I tended the cattle, and I soon got tired of it. But I guess the flower don't grow any more, now."

"How long has Hans been looking for it?"

"He looks every day," said Otto, "when he gets tired of doing nothing. But I should n't wonder if he was thinking about it all the time, or he 'd look after his cattle better than he does."

As I walked down the mountain that afternoon I thought a great deal about these two herd-boys and the story of the key-flower. Up to this time

the story had only seemed to me to be a curious and beautiful fairy-tale; but now I began to think it might mean something more. Here was Hans, neglecting his cows, and making himself restless and unhappy, in the hope of some day finding the key-flower; while Otto, who remembered that it can't be found by hunting for it, was attentive to his task, always earning a little, and always contented.

Therefore, the next time I walked up to the pastures, I went straight to Hans. Have you found the key-flower yet?" I asked.

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There was a curious expression upon his face. He appeared to be partly ashamed of what he must now and then have suspected to be a folly, and partly anxious to know if I could tell him where the flower grew.

"See here, Hans," said I, seating myself upon a rock. "Don't you know that those who hunt for it never find it. Of course you have not found it, and you never will, in this way. But even if you should, you are so anxious for the gold and diamonds that you would be sure to forget the best, just as the shepherd did, and would find nothing but leaves and pebbles in your pockets."

"O, no!" he exclaimed; "that 's just what I would n't do."

"Why, don't you forget your work every day?" I asked. "You are forgetting the best all the time, I mean the best that you have at present. Now I believe there is a key-flower growing on these very mountains; and, what is more, Otto has found it!"

He looked at me in astonishment.

"Don't you see," I continued, "how happy and contented he is all the day long? He does not work as hard at his knitting as you do in hunting for the flower; and although you get half your summer's wages, and he nothing, he will be richer than you in the fall. He will have a small piece of gold, and it won't change into a leaf. Besides, when a boy is contented and happy he has gold and diamonds. Would you rather be rich and miserable, or poor and happy?"

This was a subject upon which Hans had evidently not reflected. He looked puzzled. He was so accustomed to think that money embraced everything else that was desirable, that he could not imagine it possible for a rich man to be miserable. But I told him of some rich men whom I knew, and of others of whom I had heard, and at last bade him think of the prosperous brewer in the town below, who had had so much trouble in his family, and who walked the streets with his head hanging down.

I saw that Hans was not a bad boy: he was simply restless, impatient, and perhaps a little inclined to envy those in better circumstances. This lonely life on the mountains was not good for a boy of his nature, and I knew it would be difficult for him to change his habits of thinking and wishing. But, after a long talk, he promised me he would try, and that was as much as I expected.

Now, you may want to know whether he did try; and I am sorry that I cannot tell you. I left the place soon afterwards, and have never been there since. Let us all hope, however, that he found the real key-flower.

Bayard Taylor.

THANKSGIVING.

I declare," cried little Sam Perkins, as he opened his eyes and threw his arms above the pillow, "this is Thanksgiving morning, and no mistake! I'm sure it has been a great while coming, but it's here at last, and won't we have fine times! Just think of Josey and George and Milly besides Uncle Ben, and he's just as good to play with as a boy all coming to eat Thanksgiving dinner!" And Sam sat up in bed, and was going to give a hurrah; but Jack Frost snapped so savagely at his shoulders that he was glad to lie down and cover himself up again.

"Sam!" said a very mild, soft voice at his door, "it is time to get up, my son! And here are your best clothes all warmed nicely for you," and his mother gently opened the door and came in. A sweet-looking lady she was, and the very best mother in the world. At least, so thought Sam; for conscience gave him an uncomfortable twinge when he remembered going to bed "in the sulks " the evening previous, because she did not think it prudent for him to go skating. Sam felt very sorry for this, as he put on the warm clothes, and in the warmth of his honest, blundering little heart he heartily resolved "never to be cross to mother again."

The cousins came in due time, and before dinner delightful "Uncle Ben" made his appearance. Now this gentleman was rather old, with crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes, and very suspicious wrinkles on his high forehead;

but his voice was just as cheery as if he had never known what care was, instead of having been an itinerant preacher ever since his youth, and oh! his smile, everybody affirmed there was nothing like it. It did not content itself with twisting the corners of his mouth, but had to run up his cheeks, and play riot with his eyes, and finally hide itself in the crow's-feet I told you about. A merry man was Uncle Ben, and one who understood children.

After dinner, when the company was all collected in the great family parlor, and the aunts were talking with Sam's mother about their preserves and pickles, and the uncles telling his father about their crops, the children captured Uncle Ben, and forcibly conducted him into a corner, where he found a big red arm-chair ready for him, with a host of little stools round it, and a whole troop of little tongues clamorous for a story.

"Well! well!" cried Uncle Ben, when all were seated, and as many squeezed into his chair as could possibly stay in it, "what shall the story be? What shall I tell you about? Come, tell me, for I want to begin!"

Each had something different to propose, and the noisy little group (Josey and George and Milly were not more than half of them) were getting pretty warm over it, when Uncle Ben said quietly, "As you don't seem to decide, guess I will tell you about Thanksgiving."

I

"About Thanksgiving!" cried Sam. "Why, uncle, that would n't be any story at all! We know all about Thanksgiving now. I'm sorry they all made such a noise," and Sam, who prided himself on his great faculty of good behavior in company, put his little cousin Susie down with a strong hand, as she was piping out something about "a 'tory about kittens.”

"Still," resumed Uncle Ben, "I guess you could learn something more about Thanksgiving than you know now. I shall tell you how Thanksgiving first came about. You know, Sam, that you learned about the Mayflower, and the landing of the Pilgrims, in your history last summer, and what privations they were obliged to endure. I suppose you thought that meant that they could n't go to church, or dress as well as they did before, or have as many books to read, or something of that sort. But the truth was, they could n't get bread to eat. Their corn did not grow as they expected, and for months they were obliged to live on acorns and other nuts, or on fish, or a little wild meat."

"Why, uncle," interrupted Sam, "did n't they ever have any pie or cake?"

"Not even a slice of bread, my child, until the corn had ripened," said Uncle Ben, "and Indian bread was the best they could have, even then. But after they had been settled in Plymouth about three years, there came a season when there was no rain. The corn dried up, and so did the beans, and they could not get enough to eat even of nuts or fish. And the men became so very weak from not having enough to eat, that they could not hoe and dig in the fields as hard as they should. So what little struggled through the drought was not properly attended to.

"They could not hire any help, for there were none but Indians around