Look at one more side of my ball, as it turns around.  Jack Frost must have spent all his longest winter nights here, for see what a palace of ice he has built for himself.  Brave men have gone to those lonely places, to come back and tell us about them; and, alas! some heroes have not returned, but have lain down there to perish of cold and hunger.  Doesn’t it look cold, the clear blue ice, almost as blue as the air?  And look at the snow, drifts upon drifts, and the air filled with feathery flakes even now.

We won’t look at this side longer, but we shall come back again to see Agoonack in her little sledge.  Don’t turn over yet to find the story; we shall come to it all in good time.

Now, what do you think of my ball, so white and cold, so soft and green, so quiet and blue, so dreary and rough, as it floats along in the sweet blue air, with the flocks of white clouds about it?

I will tell you one thing more.  The wise men have said that this earth on which we live is nothing more nor less than just such a ball.  Of this we shall know when we are older and wiser; but here is the little brown baby waiting for us.

THE LITTLE BROWN BABY.

Far away in the warm country lives a little brown baby; she has a brown face, little brown hands and fingers, brown body, arms, and legs, and even her little toes are also brown.

And this baby wears no little frock nor apron, no little petticoat, nor even stockings and shoes,—­nothing at all but a string of beads around her neck, as you wear your coral; for the sun shines very warmly there, and she needs no clothes to keep her from the cold.

Her hair is straight and black, hanging softly down each side of her small brown face; nothing at all like Bell’s golden curls, or Marnie’s sunny brown ones.

Would you like to know how she lives among the flowers and the birds?

She rolls in the long soft grass, where the gold-colored snakes are at play; she watches the young monkeys chattering and swinging among the trees, hung by the tail; she chases the splendid green parrots that fly among the trees; and she drinks the sweet milk of the cocoanut from a round cup made of its shell.

When night comes, the mother takes her baby and tosses her up into the little swinging bed in the tree, which her father made for her from the twisting vine that climbs among the branches.  And the wind blows and rocks the little bed; and the mother sits at the foot of the tree singing a mild sweet song, and this brown baby falls asleep.  Then the stars come out and peep through the leaves at her.  The birds, too, are all asleep in the tree; the mother-bird spreading her wings over the young ones in the nest, and the father-bird sitting on a twig close by with his head under his wing.  Even the chattering monkey has curled himself up for the night.