“Go away with you!” he cried.  “I give no bread to lazy beggars!”

“I ask it for my Master, who has traveled many miles and is most faint and weary,” said Saint Peter.  But the Baker frowned and shook his head, then strode into the inner shop, banging the door after him.

The Baker’s wife and six daughters were standing at one side when these things happened, and they heard all that took place.  They were generous and kind-hearted bodies, and tears stood in their eyes at the Baker’s rough words.  As soon as he had gone out they wrapped up the loaf and gave it stealthily to Saint Peter saying,—­

“Take the loaf for your Master, good man, and may he be refreshed by it.”

Saint Peter thanked and blessed them and took the loaf to Christ.  And for their charity the Lord set these good women in the sky as the Seven Stars,—­you may see them to this day shining in love upon the sleeping world.  But the wicked Baker he changed into a Cuckoo; and as long as he sings his dreary song, “Coo-coo!  Coo-coo!” in the spring, so long the Seven Stars are visible in the heaven, so folk say.

THE OWL AND THE MOON

When the moon is round and full, if you look very carefully at the golden disk you can see in shadowy outline the profile of a beautiful lady.  She is leaning forward as if looking down upon our earth, and there is a little smile upon her sweet lips.  This fair dame is Putri Balan, the Princess of the Moon, and she smiles because she remembers how once upon a time she cheated old Mr. Owl, her tiresome lover.

Putri Balan, so they tell you in Malay, was always very, very beautiful, as we see her now.  Like all the Malay women, Putri Balan loved to chew the spicy betel-nut which turns one’s lips a bright scarlet.  It is better, so they say, than any kind of candy, and it is considered much nicer and more respectable than chewing-gum.  So Putri Balan was not unladylike, although she chewed her betel-nut all night long.

Now, ever since the day when Mr. Owl carelessly let the naughty little Wren escape from prison, the shamed and sorry old fellow had never dared to show his face abroad in daylight.  Gradually his eyes grew blurred and blinky, till now he could not see anything by day, even if he were to try.

So it happens that there are many delightful things about which old Mr. Owl does not know,—­things which take place while the beautiful sun is shining.  But also there are marvelous sights, unknown to early-sleeping birds, which he enjoys all by himself.  For at night his queer eyes are wonderfully strong and bright.  All day long he sits in his hollow tree, but when the other feathered folk are drowsing upon their roosts, or are snugly rolled up in their little nests, with their heads tucked under their downy wings, old Mr. Owl puts on his round spectacles and goes a-prowling up and down the world through the woods and meadows (like Haroun-al-Rashid in the streets of Bagdad), spying all sorts of queer doings.