earthy bed.

His mother stood looking on, with a sad kind of a smile on her
lips and in her eyes, to see the zealous and yet puny efforts
of her little boy. She could not help being sorrowful at
finding him already so impatient to begin his adventures in the
world.

"You see how it is, my dear Theseus," said she. "You must
possess far more strength than now before I can trust you to go
to Athens, and tell King Aegeus that you are his son. But when
you can lift this rock, and show me what is hidden beneath it,
I promise you my permission to depart."

Often and often, after this, did Theseus ask his mother whether
it was yet time for him to go to Athens; and still his mother
pointed to the rock, and told him that, for years to come, he
could not be strong enough to move it. And again and again the
rosy-checked and curly-headed boy would tug and strain at the
huge mass of stone, striving, child as he was, to do what a
giant could hardly have done without taking both of his great
hands to the task. Meanwhile the rock seemed to be sinking
farther and farther into the ground. The moss grew over it
thicker and thicker, until at last it looked almost like a soft
green seat, with only a few gray knobs of granite peeping out.
The overhanging trees, also, shed their brown leaves upon It,
as often as the autumn came; and at its base grew ferns and
wild flowers, some of which crept quite over its surface. To
all appearance, the rock was as firmly fastened as any other
portion of the earth's substance.