Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [Adapted]




THE GREAT STONE FACE


One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy
sat at the door of their cottage talking together and watching the great
mountains before them, as they changed with the tints of the setting
sun, from gold to crimson, and then to deep purple, till finally the
afterglow was gone, leaving only the bare mountains standing out in gray
relief against the evening sky.

"Mother," said the child, whose name was Ernest, "the Great Stone Face
is smiling at us. I wish it could speak, for it looks so very kind that
I know its voice is pleasant."

And what was the Great Stone Face?

Off in the distance one great mountain rose far up above the others, and
stood like a great giant among its fellows. By some peculiar art the
rocks had been thrown together in such a way as to make the mountain
look almost exactly like a human face. There was the broad arch of the
forehead, a hundred feet in length; the nose, with its long bridge, and
the great lips, which, if they could have spoken, would surely have
rolled thunder from one end of the valley to the other.