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FIVE OUT OF ONE SHELL.

  

|] HERE were five peas in one shell: they were green, and
e the pod was green, and so they thought all the world was
green ; and that was just as it should be. The shell grew
and the peas grew; they accommodated themselves to circum-
stances, sitting all ina row. The sun shone without, and warmed
the husk, and the rain made it clear and transparent; it was mild
and agreeable in the bright day and in the dark night, just as it
should be, and the peas as they sat there became bigger and
bigger, and more and more thoughtful, for something they
must do.

“ Are we to sit here everlastingly ?” asked one. “I’m afraid
we shall become hard by long sitting. It seems tome there must
be something outside—I have a kind of inkling of it.”

And weeks went by. The peas became yellow, and the pod
also.

“All the world’s turning yellow,” said they; and they had a
right to say it.

Suddenly they felt a tug at the shell. The shell was torn off,
passed through human hands, and glided down into the pocket
of a jacket, in company with other full pods.

‘‘ Now we shall soon be opened!” they said; and that is just
what they were waiting for.

“T should like to know who of us will get farthest!” said the
smallest of the five. ‘Yes, now it will soon show itself.”

“What is to be will be,” said the biggest.

“Crack!” the pod burst, and all the five peas rolled out into
the bright sunshine, There they lay in a child’s hand. A little
boy was clutching them, and said they were fine peas for his
pea-shooter; and he put one in directly and shot it out.

“Now I’m flying out into the wide world, catch me if you
can!” And he was gone.

“TI,” said the second, “I shall fly straight into the sun. That’s
a shell worth looking at, and one that exactly suits me” And
away he went.

“We'll go to sleep wherever we arrive,” said the two next, “but
we shall roll on all the same.” And they certainly rolled and
tumbled down on the ground before they got into the pea-shooter ;
hee they were put in for all that. “We shall go farthest,” said
they. :

“ What is to happen will happen,” said the last, as he was shot
forth out of the pea-shooter; and he flew upa gainst the old board
under the garret window, just into a crack which was filled up
with moss and soft mould ; and the moss closed round him ; there