The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1915-08-02
Bedtime Stories
For Little Folks
THE MOSS ROSES CLOAK.


whose top had long ago been broken
off by storms.
For years it lay in the rain and sun,
blacnened Dy age, with the tender
green vine creeping over it till its
broken sides were mass of bloom.
This wild rose was not strong plant.
The least cool wind made it tremble,
and as it was the first of its kind it
did so wish it would be strong enough
to live when the winter came.
Just under the side of the fallen
trunk was the home of a tiny sprite.
Here in a messy hole it lived happily
all summer long. On moonlight
nights it would ride on the wind till
morning, then sleep all during the
heat of the day in its bed of soft, damp
moss, where the song of the wood
crickets lulled it to sleep.
NOW IucIc was oniy OnC lining III
the world of which the sprite was
afraid and that was of her bad cousin,
Jack Frose, who lived hundreds and
hundreds of miles away in a cove of
ice. Jack seldom came around till
late in the fall, and by that time the
little sprite had gone to her home in
the south.
But late one spring, after the roses
were in bloom and the little sprite
snugly fixed in her home for summer,
there came a sudden change in the
weather. The week had been very
warm, but one evening, after a rain,
the chill wind blew down from the
north suddenly and the flowers that
had been nodding in the sweet air be-
gan to droop. Clouds drifted over the
moon; a damp, cold breeze crept up
from the meadows, and every bud
shrunk back into it's cup of leaves.
The timid little wild rose did not
know what to do. The sprite was
asleep in her messy home and did not
know that her tricky cousin, Jack
Frost, had stolen down Unexpectedly
and was playing a mean turn on all
of the flowers. The rose knew that
if Jack slipped into the tiny cave of
moss he would be apt to harm the
sprite, for she could not stand cold
at all. SO when she saw his weazen
form dancing toward her she drew her
gentle branches about the mouth of
the little messy cave.
Jack hustled up with his coat COW
cred with snow and his beard rafting
with icicles.
81 don't see my cousins home" he
snorted to the rose. do you know
just where she lives?'
THE little sprite is asleep in her
warm bed" whispered the rose. "And
| do not wish to disturb her"
Get out. 1 guess it won't harm her
much to wake and take a run on my
sled with me-" replied Jack. II re
member she lived right about here
but somehow don't seem able to find
the place today
Now the sprite heard the voices ant
peeped out between the leaves of the
rose vine which had the entrance tt
her home completely. She saw Jacl
stumbling around, but he could no
find the way in. The gentle little
kline kept its place bravely. 1t grew
very cold as Jack darted about thu
young buds closing up tightly, the
leaves commenced to wither and curl
but still she hung before the way int
tn esprite's home.
At last Jack got tired trying, ant
just as the sun rose he flew away
Then the light grew more bright, thu
SUN Ndl ucu up Tic cdl III, thC oil dSdll
awssweet with the scent of bloomin,
flowers, and in the sole air the open
ing buds nodded as the bees cam,
sweeping by.
When the sprite came to the ros'
vine she touched it lovingly.
Dear little vine," she said, "yol
saved me last night from my bal
cousin. You shivered with the COX
and l was asleep in my bed OF moss
You are tender and delicate, but t.
my beautiful coverings of moss, 81
that in future you will live.on dow
the ages, the most beautiful of al
the overs that bless the earth
So that is the way the rose got it
messy cloak, which it kept for hun
dreds of years as a memory of it
kindness to the little sprite.