When the Boy’s mother hurried upstairs to see why he was crying so loud, she told him that he must expect to be scratched by mother-cats if he stole their kittens.  “I shall take your pretty Fauntleroy collar off,” she said; “it doesn’t match your disposition.”

The Boy cried bitterly until luncheon time, but when he came to think over the matter, he knew that his mother was right, and Mrs. Chinchilla was right, too; so he treated all mother-cats and their kittens more kindly after that.

A STORY OF THE FOREST

“It is not the gay forms he meets in the fairy-tale which charm the child, hut a spiritual, invisible truth lying far deeper.”—­Froebel.

Far away, in the depths of a great green rustling wood, there lived a Fir-tree.  She was tall and dark and fragrant; so tall that her topmost plumes seemed waving about in the clouds, and her branches were so thick and strong and close set that down below them on the ground it was dark almost as night.

There were many other trees in the forest, as tall and grand as she, and when they bent and bowed to each other, as the wind played in their branches, you could hear a wonderful lovely sound, like the great organ when it plays softly in the church.

Down below, under the trees, the ground was covered with a glossy brown carpet of the sharp, needle-like leaves the fir-trees had let fall, and on this carpet there were pointed brown fir cones lying, looking dry and withered, and yet bearing under their scales many little seeds, hidden away like very precious letters in their dainty envelopes.

Even on bright summer days this wood was cool and dark, and, as you walked about on the soft brown carpet, you could hear the wonderful song the pine needles made as they rubbed against each other; and perhaps far away in the top of some tall tree you could hear the wood-thrush sing out gladly.

All around the great Fir-tree, where her cones had dropped, a family of young firs was growing up,—­very tiny yet, so tiny you might have crushed them as you walked, and not felt them under your foot.

The Fir-tree spread her thick branches over them, and kept off the fierce wind and the bitter cold, and under her shelter they were growing strong.

They were all fine little trees, but one of them, that stood quite apart from the rest, was the finest of all, very straight and well shaped and handsome.  Every day he looked up at the mother-tree, and saw how straight and strong she grew,—­how the wind bent and waved her branches, but did not stir her great trunk; and as he looked, he sent his own rootlets farther down into the dark earth, and held his tiny head up more proudly.

The other trees did not all try to grow strong and tall.  Indeed, one of them said, “Why should I try to grow?  Who can see me here in this dark wood?  What good will it do for me to try?  I can never be as fine and strong as the mother-tree.”