Now Si-ling had to think of something else; she had to find a way to
weave the threads into cloth. After many trials, she made a loom--the
first that was ever made. She taught others to weave, and soon hundreds
of people were making cloth from the threads of the silkworm.

The people ever afterward called Si-ling "The Goddess of the Silkworm."
And whenever the emperor walked with her in the garden, they liked to
watch the silkworms spinning threads for the good of their people.




THE FLAX

I


It was spring. The flax was in full bloom, and it had dainty little blue
flowers that nodded in the breeze.

"People say that I look very well," said the flax. "They say that I am
fine and long and that I shall make a beautiful piece of linen. How
happy I am! No one in the world can be happier."

"Oh, yes," said the fence post, "you may grow and be happy, and you may
sing, but you do not know the world as I do. Why, I have knots in me."
And it creaked;

"Snip, snap, snurre,