TWILIGHT LAND

little or nothing in the way of money that I can give ©
you, and so you will have to be content with what I can

afford. See, here is a little pebble, and its like is not to
be found in the seven kingdoms, for whoever holds it in
his mouth can hear while he does so all that the birds and
the beasts say to one another. Take it—it is yours, and,
if you use it wisely, it may bring you a fortune.”

The servant would rather have had the money in hand
than the magic pebble, but, as nothing better was to be
had, he took the little stone, and, bidding his master good-
bye, trudged out into the world to seek his fortune. Well,
he jogged on and on, paying his way with the few pennies
he had saved in his seven years of service, but for all of
his travelling nothing of good happened to him until, one
morning, he came to a lonely place where there stood a
gallows, and there he sat him down to rest, and it is just
in such an unlikely place as this that a man’s best chance
of fortune comes to him sometimes.

As the servant sat there, there came two ravens flying,
and lit upon the cross-bedin overhead. There they began
talking to one another, and the servant popped the pebble
i his mouth to hear what they might say.

“ Yonder is a traveller in the world,” said the first raven.

“ Yes,” said the second, “ and if he only knew how to set
about it, his fortune ts as good as made.”

“ How ts that so?” said the first raven.

“Why, thus,” said the second. “ If he only knew enough
to follow yonder road over the hill, he would come by-and-by
to a stone cross where two roads mect, and there he would
find aman sitting. If he would ask it of him, that man
would lead him to the garden where the fruit of happiness
grows.”

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