"No, he was just a plain shepherd, and he sat down in a field near the
one Argus was in, to watch his sheep. While he sat there, he played such
sweet music that Argus said, 'Bring your sheep into my field and we will
watch together.'
"That was just what Mercury had planned. So he was not very long in
getting his sheep into the field with Argus. There the two lay in the
shade of the trees and told stories, and Mercury played and watched the
green eyes of Argus, while Argus watched the prisoner.
"One night Mercury played so softly, so sweetly, that for one minute
every one of the hundred green eyes of Argus closed, the watchman
nodded, and in that minute Mercury struck him on the neck and cut off
his head. Then the prisoner was free. Juno took the green eyes of Argus
and put them on her pet bird, the peacock."
"Oh, Jack, I don't believe a word of it."
"I don't, either," said Jack, "but these stories are both more than two
thousand years old, and I shouldn't wonder if some one did believe them
a long time ago."
THE GIFT OF THE OLIVE TREE
_Greek_
"Has everything a name, father?" asked a wide-awake boy one day.
"Everything I know of has a name," answered the father.
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