Story Hour Readers — Book Three

								

bank of the stream, for hours, and dream.
One morning as Flora ran along the grassy path that led to the cave, she
saw a little fish in the stream. Its scales flashed out all the colors
of the rainbow.
"I am going to keep the fish for a pet," said the girl to herself. "I
will call him Rainbow."
So she caught the pretty fish and put him into the basin in the cave.
The next day Flora went to the forest for wood. She carried some crumbs
of bread which she had saved from her breakfast.
On the way home she stopped at the cave. The fish was waiting for her.
He came to the edge of the basin, and she fed the crumbs to him.
How delighted the girl was! She had been so lonely, and now she had a
playfellow!
Every morning, instead of eating the bread which her sister gave to her,
Flora would save it and feed the crumbs to her pet. The fish would leap
to catch them.
"Here are some crumbs, Rainbow," she would say. "This is all to-day, but
I shall come again to-morrow."
Then she would sing a little song.
Flora began to grow thin, and her sisters wondered what could be the
matter.
One day the oldest sister followed her to the cave and saw her feed the
crumbs of bread to the fish.
While Flora was away in the forest, the oldest sister caught the fish,
carried him home and baked him for supper.
The bones were buried under the kitchen fire.
The next morning, Flora went to the cave as usual, but no fish was
there. She sang her little song, and still he did not come.
"Rainbow cannot be dead," she said, "for I do not see him in the water."
Then Flora hastened home. She threw herself upon her bed and was soon
fast asleep.
The following morning, a rooster flew up to Flora's window and crowed,


"Cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo!
The bones of Rainbow wait for you,
Under the kitchen fire, too."
Flora arose at once and went downstairs. There, under the kitchen fire,
she found the bones of her pet. She wept as she gathered the bones and
placed them in a box.
She went to the forest and buried the box near the cave.
Then Flora sat down on a mossy bank near the cave and sang this song:


"Rainbow, Rainbow, hear my cry,

   My great wish do not deny.

   If you can't come back to me,

   Pray, O pray, become a tree!"
As the last words of the song echoed through the cave, there sprang up
beside the girl a wonderful Fairy Tree.
Its trunk was of ivory. Its leaves were of silver fringed with pearls.
Its flowers were gold, and its fruit gems from which sparkled the bright
colors of the rainbow.
One day the summer breeze carried a leaf from the Fairy Tree across the
sea to another island. It fell at the feet of the king.
He picked up the wonderful leaf, saying, "I shall never rest until I
find the tree from which this leaf came."
The king set sail with his attendants. He soon landed on the island
where the seven sisters lived.
As the king and his men were marching through the forest, they found the