GLADNESS

POLLYANNA Says:

Just Be Glad, for

Be it meals or measles,
Or a poverty purse,
There's nothing so bad,

That it couldn't be worse.

-ELEANOR H. PORTER.

THE SICK HIPPOPOTAMUS

A sore-hipped hippopotamus, quite

flustered,

Objected to a poultice made of custard:
"Can't you doctor up my hip
With something else than flip?"
So they plastered on his hippopotamus-

tard.

-ANDREW F. WEST

(Dean, Princeton University.)

THE MONSTER OF GEVAUDAN; or, THE CHILDREN OF VILLARET

(A true story.)

ALONG time ago in a part of France called

Gevaudan a monster had his lair. He began to be known because he killed so many sheep and calves. Then one day when it was almost dark, two men saw him rush out from the woods and pull down a heifer. pull down a heifer.

When they shouted to scare him off, he raised his gleaming eyes and white tusks from the heifer's throat and snarled, and they ran away as fast as their legs could carry them. They told their friends that the monster was as big as the heifer he killed and that smoke came out of his mouth and fire from his eyes. After that everyone ran without stopping to look, even when they thought he

was near.

Then he grew bolder. A woman, who with her little girl started to cross the hills from one village to another at sunset, was found dead the next morning and no one ever saw the little girl again. The ground where the woman lay was trodden down by great claws. Two more women and an old man who walked with a stick and four children, were found torn and dead, some in one

place, some in another, and a great fear fell upon everyone. They said a devil was in the monster, for the people who lived in those parts did not know how to read and no one had taught them that the only devils who can harm anyone are the bad spirits that get into the heart.

The tiny village of Villaret, where some children that I shall tell you about lived, was just across some low-wooded hills from that part of the country where the monster was doing all this killing and, of course, everybody in the village had heard about him.

The children took care of the cows and, as soon as the sun was up, drove them every day on to the hills nearly three miles away. John was the eldest of the children and he was thirteen, the next was Jeanne, two years younger. Then came Andrew, who was just seven, and then little Simon, who was not much use in taking care of cattle, but they liked to have him go along; the cows went slowly and when Simon grew tired John and Jeanne took turns in carrying him a little way.

It was the early Spring. The grass was fresh and green, the flowers were open and the skylarks sang all around. While the cattle grazed, John made a new pipe out of a piece of willow and played on it shrilly sweet little tunes of

merry music. Jeanne made a cage of woven grass to keep a cricket in to hear him chirp by the hearth when the fire was lit at night. Andrew plaited a long wreath out of flowers and leaves for the baby. When they grew hungry they sat down in the shade of a big oak tree where there was a little spring of cold water, and began to eat their bread and cheese.

Then the monster, who had watched them for a long time, crept out of the woods and stole up behind them, crouching low to the ground and treading softly. The first thing that they knew, he sprang into their midst, grabbed the baby in his jaws and started for the woods. Andrew just hid his face in his sister's dress. Jeanne gave one scream and put her hands before her eyes. John sprang to his feet and stared for a minute with both his mouth and eyes wide open. Near by lay his goad, a stout oak stick tipped with iron to drive the cows, and, running after the monster, he picked it up, crying: "Devil, or no devil, he don't get Simon. Come on, Jeanne." Jeanne picked up her goad and ran too, and Andrew trailed along behind as fast as his short, fat legs would let him. Jeanne tripped over her goad and fell down and cut her face on a sharp stone, but she was up in a moment and prodded the

monster in the back; and for every prod she gave at least three screams. But John made no sound. He gritted his teeth hard, his lips curled back in a sort of grin like a dog's when he wants to bite, and he pounded away at the monster's neck and shoulders, and every time he struck he gave a sort of hard pant as he did when he was trying to split a tough stick with his hatchet to make faggots.

Meanwhile the monster kept on dragging little Simon, one of whose legs trailed on the ground, toward the woods, and he was almost there when fat Andrew caught up. He saw Simon's foot beyond the beast's tail. He grabbed it tight with both hands and hung on like a good fellow, pulling and bawling as hard as he could. Now, the monster found all these goings on very strange. He had grown used to seeing two-legged things run, and the very short kind and the kind that had things hanging about their legs ran the fastest. To have short, two-legged things scream and run after him instead of screaming and running away from him, was new and he did not quite like it. So he opened his jaws and let go, and Andrew was pulling so hard at Simon's foot that he fell over backwards, and Simon landed in a heap on top of him. Jeanne turned to grab up Simon in her arms, and the mon