MOTHER HULDA'S FEATHER BED.


How many children know what the boys and girls of far-off Norway
sometimes think when they see the dainty, feathery snowflakes flying
softly and silently through the air? I don't think there are many of
you who do know, so I will tell you the story.

If we were there when they have the first snowstorm of the season we
could hear them shouting gleefully to each other: "See! oh, see!
Mother Hulda is shaking her feather bed."

There is a story about this Mother Hulda and her feather bed that is
told to the little ones there. She lives, it is said, far, far above
this busy world, with the clouds for her home, the sun for a lamp and
fire.

She is always very busy, and especially so at the beginning of the
winter, for then she has to unpack her great feather bed, and after
that is done she spends all of her time shaking it. Indeed she shakes
it so much that she wears many holes in it, through which the feathers
fly in all directions. The wind catches them up and carries them
gently to the earth, where they cover the bare limbs of the trees,
making them beautiful, and where they spread lightly on the ground and
protect the roots of the flowers from the cold winter winds.

Mother Hulda does not tire of shaking her bed until the warmer spring
winds begin to blow; then she packs it away until she sees Jack Frost
traveling again over the world below, and finds traces of the
mischievous fellow even in her lofty home.--_Selected_.