Sometimes when the sweet song pealed out, the old shoemaker would forget and leave his thread half drawn, and while he listened a wonderful smiling light shone in his face. But whenever the little grandson asked him what the bell said to him, the old man only shook his head and pulled the stitch through and sewed on and on, until there was not any more light; and for this reason the little boy began to think that the bell was singing something about work. He thought of it very often when he sat on his grandfather's step listening to the song and watching the people. Sometimes those who had read the learned book spoke together and laughed quite loudly, to show that they were not paying any attention to the bell; and there were others who seemed not to hear it at all. But there were some who listened just as the old grandfather had listened, and many who stopped and bowed their heads and stood quite still for a long, long while. But the strangest was, that no one ever could tell the other what the bell had sung to him. It was really a very deep mystery. Now there was a painter who had such loving eyes that even when he looked on homely, lowly things, he saw wonder that no one else could see. He loved all the sweet mysteries that are in the world, and he loved the bell's song; he wondered about it just as the little boy had done. One evening, I think, he went alone beyond the village and through the wide brown fields; he saw the light in the sky, and the birds going home, and the steeple far off. It was all very still and wonderful, and as he looked away on every side, thinking many holy thoughts, he saw a man and a woman working together in the dim light. They were digging potatoes; there was a wheelbarrow beside them, and a basket. Sometimes they moved about slowly, or stooped with their hands in the brown earth. And while they worked, the sound of the evening bell came faintly to them. When they heard it they rose up. The mother folded her hands on her breast and said the words of a prayer, and thought of her little ones. The father just held his hat in his hand and looked down at their work. And the painter forgot all the wonder of the sky and the wide field as he looked at them, for there was a deeper mystery. And it was plain to him. But the man and the woman stood there listening; they did not know that the bell was singing to them of their very own work, of every loving service and lowly task of the day. The bell sang on and on, and the peace of the song seemed to fill the whole day. Come, let us with the children live. --_Friedrich Froebel_ FRIEDRICH AND HIS CHILD-GARDEN. Friedrich Froebel--"Little Friedrich," they called him long ago. Is it not strange to think that the great men who bring the beautiful deeds to the world were once little children? Do you know how these children grow so great and strong that they can do a loving deed for the whole world at last? They do little loving deeds every day.