worked every day to get a little food, and the rest of the time they spent in helping and teaching people. St. Francis called them his "Little Brothers," not because they were small or young, but because he taught them to think themselves of no importance, and to think, if anybody scolded them or hurt them, that they deserved it and more too.

One of these Little Brothers was named Brother Juniper. He was always thinking of ways to help people. One day, all the Brothers went out to work, and left Brother Juniper to take care of the little hut where they lived, and to get some food for them. When he set about this he began to think of the Brothers who usually did the cooking, and how much time they had to spend every day getting food ready for the others to eat. To be sure, they had but one good meal a day, yet even so the cooking of it took time the Brothers might otherwise have used for prayer, or tending the sick, or some other good work.

As Brother Juniper was thinking of this, a plan popped into his head which made him very glad. He took two big baskets, and went off happily to several farmhouses in the neighbourhood, where the people were fond of the Little Brothers and liked to give them anything they needed. That day they gave Brother Juniper chickens and eggs and meat and salad and all sorts of vegetables, and they lent him some big iron pots. He took the baskets home heavy with food, and he came back and took the pots home. Then he made a big fire, and all the time he was happy and sang to himself, because he thought, "I will work hard to-day, and cook all this food, and then the Brothers won't have to think about cooking for a week or more." He hung the pots over the fire, and put into them all the food he had gathered without so much as taking the feathers off the chickens or the shells off the eggs, or stopping to see whether the vegetables were all just fit to eat or not. Then he filled the pots with water, and before long they began to boil. The fire was furiously hot. Brother Juniper could not get near enough to it to stir the pots. When he found this out, he took a board and tied it fast to himself, and, with that for a shield, he leaped to a pot and stirred it, and then leaped away again to cool himself; then he dashed at another and stirred that, and so on.

By and by, the Brothers came back, and the Brother Guardian with them, and they all sat down to dinner. Brother Juniper poured out some of the stew from his pots and brought it to the table. He was hot and tired, but delighted, and he told the others what he had done, and that they need not do any more cooking for a long time. The Brothers looked at him, and looked at the stew, and looked at each other, but not a mouthful could they eat. Brother Juniper urged them to begin, and when they did not, wondered what could be the matter. He was not left long in doubt, for the Brother Guardian told him that the dinner was not fit for a pig to eat, and scolded him well for wasting so much good food.

Brother Juniper listened and the gladness died out of him. He went and knelt at the Brother Guardian's feet and confessed his fault, and begged to be forgiven for wasting the Brothers' food, and for getting them a dinner they could not eat. Then he went away by himself, and the rest of that day and all the next, he neither ate nor spoke, nor ventured to come near any of the Brothers, because he was so sorry for his wastefulness and stupidity.

But the Brothers and the Brother Guardian thought they would be willing to know as little about cooking as Brother Juniper if they could be like him in some other ways.

THE WIDOW'S CRUSE

Long, long ago, there was a famine in a little town called Sarepta. For months and months there had been no rain, and nothing could grow in the fields, and the streams dried up and the sheep died and many people died, too, because they had no food.

A widow lived in Sarepta, who had one boy, and she was poor. When the famine began she had just one barrel of meal and one cruse of oil, and because she knew she could get no more, she and her son ate as little as they could, but even so, in a few months the meal was far down in the bottom of the barrel, and the cruse of oil felt very light.

At last one morning, when the woman got up, she found there was only enough meal and oil to make one little cake. She looked at it a long time, thinking they must certainly starve to death when that was gone; then she went out to get some wood for the fire, for she said to herself, "I will bake this one cake and we will eat it, but after that we will have to die." I expect she looked white and sad as she went, for it hurts very much to be so hungry that you die of it.

She found a few sticks, and was picking them up, when a tall old man stopped beside her and leaned on his staff. His clothes were made of hairy skins, and he had a long gray beard, and his face and arms and legs were brown and rough as if he had lived out in the sun and the frost. He seemed to have been making a journey, and he asked for a drink of water. The widow was glad it was only water that he wanted, and was hurrying off to get it, when the old man called after her, and asked her to bring him a piece of bread.

She thought of the little bit of meal and oil, and of her hungry boy, and of how hungry she was herself—and now, here was this tired old man asking for food! It was really more than she could bear. She came back toward him and said, "As the Lord liveth, I have not a cake, but only a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and behold I am gathering two sticks that I may go and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die!"

The old man saw how hungry and desperate she looked; it may be that he knew beforehand that she was; nevertheless, he said: "Fear not; but go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after that make for thee and thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth."

The widow did not altogether understand what he said, but somehow she felt stronger and more brave. She went home quickly and baked a little meal cake, and brought it to the old man, and asked him to come to her house and rest. He went back with her, and then she set about baking the rest of the meal and oil. She thought it would only make a very little cake, but the more meal she took out of the barrel, the more there was in it; and the more oil she poured from the cruse, the heavier it was to lift. She could hardly believe it, and yet she saw it was surely so. Then she went, crying with gladness and relief, and knelt beside the old man and thanked him, and begged him to stay with them as long as he could. And he did stay, a good many months, and all the time of the famine there was meal in the barrel and oil in the cruse.

By and by, the widow and her son learned that the old man's name was Elijah, and that he was a Prophet of the Lord God of Israel.

THE LUNCHEON

If we sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, and then sailed as far east on the Mediterranean Sea as we could, we should come to Asia. Then if we travelled into Asia for a little distance, we should come to a small lake. Long ago, this lake was called the Sea of Galilee, and one of the little towns on the shore was named Bethsaida. In this town, almost one thousand, nine hundred years ago, a boy lived and played and went to school. His uncles had boats on the lake, for they were fishermen, and the boy played in the boats, and sometimes his Uncle Andrew let him go