[Illustration]

                    “WHAT DO THEY SAY IN BABY-LAND?”
                        “WHY, THE ODDEST THINGS;
                        MIGHT AS WELL
                        TRY TO TELL
                    WHAT A BIRDIE SINGS!”

[Illustration]

                               BABY-LAND.

                    “HOW MANY MILES TO BABY-LAND?”
                        “ANY ONE CAN TELL;
                        UP ONE FLIGHT,
                        TO YOUR RIGHT:
                    PLEASE TO RING THE BELL.”

                    “WHAT DO THEY DO IN BABY-LAND?”
                        “DREAM AND WAKE AND PLAY;
                        LAUGH AND CROW,
                        SHOUT AND GROW:
                    HAPPY TIMES HAVE THEY!”

[Illustration]




                       OUR LITTLE TOT’S OWN BOOK
                                   OF
 _Pretty Pictures, Charming Stories, and Pleasing Rhymes and Jingles_.


                               NEW YORK:
                            HURST & COMPANY,
                              PUBLISHERS.




                            Copyright, 1912
                                  —BY—
                            HURST & COMPANY




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


_There was once a very happy little girl who spent her childhood on an
old green farm. She had a little sister, and these two children never
knew what it was to possess toys from the stores, but played, played,
played from dawn till dark, just in the play-places they found on that
green farmstead. I so often have to tell my children “how mama used to
play”—for I was that very happy little girl—that I think other “little
women” of these days will enjoy knowing about those dear old simple
play-times._


                       I.—THE LITTLE STUMP-HOUSE.

One of my pet playhouses was an old stump, out in the pasture. Such a
dear, old stump as it was, and so large I could not put my arms more
than half way round it!

Some of its roots were partly bare of earth for quite a little distance
from the stump, and between these roots were great green velvety moss
cushions.

On the side, above the largest moss cushion, was a little shelf where a
bit of the stump had fallen away. On this little shelf I used to place a
little old brass candlestick. I used to play that that part of the stump
was my parlor.

Above the next moss cushion were a number of shelves where I laid pieces
of dark-blue broken china I had found and washed clean in the brook.
That was my dining-room.

There were two or three little bedrooms where the puffy moss beds were
as soft as down. My rag dolly had many a nap on those little green beds,
all warmly covered up with big sweet-smelling ferns.

Then there was the kitchen! Hardly any moss grew there. I brought little
white pebbles from the brook, and made a pretty, white floor. Into the
side of the stump above this shining floor, I drove a large nail. On
this nail hung the little tin pan and iron spoon with which I used to
mix up my mud pies.

My sister had a stump much like mine, and such fine times as the owners
of those two little stump-houses used to have together, only little
children know anything about.

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: THE STUMP PLAY-HOUSE.]




[Illustration]

                         THE STOLEN LITTLE ONE.
                             A TRUE STORY.


[Illustration]

Two little girls went shopping with their mamma. While she was at the
end of the store, Julie, the youngest, ran to the door. Her mother was
too busy to notice her, but Julie’s sister Mattie was watching her. She
saw a tall woman pass the door, and snatch up little Julie. Without a
word to her mother, Mattie ran after them.

Away they went down the street. The woman would soon have outrun Mattie,
but her screams attracted the attention of a policeman. He followed too.
They came up with the woman as she was darting into a cellar. Mattie
told the policeman that the bad woman had stolen her sister Julie. He
soon took both children home. Their mother was overjoyed to see them,
and praised Mattie for being such a brave little girl. She never let
Julie go out of her sight again, when she took her out on the street.

                                                            PINK HUNTER.




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                        II.-THE OLD APPLE-TREE.

There was an old apple-tree in the orchard that was the oldest tree in
the town. It overtopped the house, and the trunk was very big and brown
and rough; but O, the millions of fine green leaves, as soft and smooth
as silk, that it held up in the summer air!

In the spring it was gay with pink and white blossoms, and then for days
the tree would be all alive with the great, black-belted bees. A little
later those sweet blossoms would fall off in a rosy rain, and Myra and I
would stand under the old apple-tree and try to catch the little,
fluttering things in our apron! And then, later still, came little
apples, very sour at first, but slowly sweetening until it seemed to me
that those juicy, golden-green apples tasted the best of any fruit in
all the world! My apron-pockets were always bursting with them!

There was a famous horse up in the old tree. It could only be reached by
means of a ladder placed against the old tree’s stout trunk! A strange
horse, you would call him, but O, the famous rides that I have had on
that horse’s broad, brown back! The name of the horse was “General.”

Up among the leaves where the sunshine played hide-and-seek was one dear
bough that was just broad enough and just crooked enough to form a nice
seat. Another bough bent round just in the very place to form a most
comfortable back to that seat. A pair of stirrups made of rope, some
rope reins tied to the trunk of the tree, and there was my horse, “all
saddled and all bridled!”

I put my feet into the stirrups, shake my bridle-reins and cry, “Get up,
General!”

The bough would sway a little, and I and the birds would be off
together, swinging and singing, up in a fair green world where there was
no one to disturb nest or little rider! The birds would sing to me, and
I would sing to them, and which of those little singers was the
happiest, I do not know!

But I do know that my little heart was full of glee and joy to the brim!

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: RIDING “GENERAL.”]




[Illustration]

                      SHE WISHED TO BE A PRINCESS.
                            _A True Story._


Little Mary had had a volume of Hans Andersen’s Fairy Stories given her
at Christmas. The story she liked best was “The Princess and the Pea,”
for, like all little girls, little Mary had a natural desire to be a
Princess.

When she went to bed at night with her doll little Mary would think to
herself, “Oh, how beautiful to be a real princess of such very fine
blood as to feel a little bit of a pea under twenty mattresses!”

One morning a comforting idea came to little Mary. “Who knows,” she said
to herself, “with all my very many great grandfathers and grandmothers,
but p’raps I am related to some King or Queen way back?”

Thereupon, she went to her mother’s pantry and took a bean from the
jar—as large a one as she could find—and, going to her room, put it
carefully under the hair mattress. That night she went to bed happy,
with joyful hopes.

In the morning little Mary’s elder sister found her with her head buried
in her pillow crying. “Oh,” little Mary sobbed, “I did think I might
have just a little speck of royal blood in my veins, but I couldn’t feel
even that big bean under just one mattress!”

Nothing would comfort little Mary until her mama explained to her that
even princesses were not happy unless they had good hearts; and _she_
could have, if she tried, just as good and royal a heart as any Princess
under the sun.

                                                 _Anne Fiske Davenport._




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                         III.—THE LITTLE POND.

Out in the pasture, was a little pond. This little pond was quite deep
in the time of the spring and autumn rains. At such seasons Myra and I
would take our little raft made of boards, and by means of some stout
sticks would push the raft around on that little pond for hours. The
wind would raise little waves, and these waves would splash up against
the sides of our little raft with a delicious sort of noise.

We used to dress a smooth stick of wood in doll’s clothes. We used to
call this wooden dolly by the name of Mrs. Pippy. We would take Mrs.
Pippy on board our ship as passenger. Somehow, Mrs. Pippy always
contrived to fall overboard. And then, such screaming, such frantic
pushing of that raft as there would he, before that calmly-floating Mrs.
Pippy was rescued!

Just beyond the further edge of the pond was a little swampy place where
great clumps of sweet-flag used to grow. Sweet-flag is a water-plant
whose leaves are very long and slender and their stem-ends, where they
wrap about each other, are good to eat. In summer this little sweet-flag
swamp was perfectly dry. But when the rains had come and the little pond
was full, this little sweet-flag swamp was covered with water.

Right between the pond and the swamp lay a big timber, stretching away
like a narrow bridge, with the pond-water lapping it on one side and the
swamp-water lapping it on the other. Such exciting times as we used to
have running across that little bridge after sweet-flag!

“Run! run!” we would cry to each other; and then, away we would go,
running like the wind, yet very carefully, for the least misstep was
sure to plump us into the water!

When the water in the swamp had nearly dried up, a bed of the very
nicest kind of mud was left. Taking off our shoes and stockings, we
would dance in that sticky mud until we were tired. Then we would hop
over the timber and wash our small toes clean in the pond.

                                                      _Percia V. White._




                            _Clever Tommy._


[Illustration]

“You like clever cats, Arthur,” said Laura; “and I am sure this is one.
See how funnily he is drinking the milk with his paw. Did you know this
cat, mamma?”

“Yes, my dear, I was staying at the house when his mistress found him
out. We used to wonder sometimes why there was so little milk for tea,
and my friend would say ‘They must drink it in the kitchen, for the neck
of the milk jug is so narrow, Tom could not get his great head in.’

“But Tom was too clever to be troubled at the narrow neck of the milk or
cream jug, and one day when his mistress was coming towards the parlor
through the garden, she saw Tom on the table from the window, dipping
his paw into the jug like a spoon and carrying the milk to his mouth.
Did he not jump down quickly, and hide himself when she walked in, for
he well knew he was doing wrong.”

“And was he punished, mamma?”

“No, Laura, although his mistress scolded him well, and Tom quite
understood, for cats who are kindly treated are afraid of angry words.”

“Did you ever see Tom drink the milk in this way?”

“Yes, for his mistress was proud of his cleverness, and she would place
the jug on the floor for him. When she did that, Tom knew he might drink
it, and he would take up the milk in his paw so cleverly that it was
soon gone.”




[Illustration]

                                FLOWERS.


                 How stilly, yet how sweetly,
                   The little while they bloom,
                 They teach us quiet trustfulness,
                 Allure our hearts from selfishness,
                   And smile away our gloom:
                 So do they prove that heavenly love
                   Doth every path illume!

                 How stilly, yet how sadly,
                   When summer fleeteth by,
                 And their sweet work of life is done,
                 They fall and wither, one by one,
                   And undistinguish’d lie:
                 So warning all that Pride must fall,
                   And fairest forms must die!

                 How stilly, yet how surely,
                   They all will come again,
                 In life and glory multiplied,
                 To bless the ground wherein they died,
                   And long have darkly lain:—
                 So we may know, e’en here below,
                   Death has no lasting reign!




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                         IV.—THE LITTLE BROOK.

We had a merry playmate in a little brook that ran down through the
sunny meadows! It slipped and slid over little mossy pebbles and called
to us, “Follow, follow, follow!” in the sweetest little voice in the
world!

Sometimes, I would kneel down on the little low bank, and bend my head
down close, and ask, “Where are you going, little brook?”

It would splash a cool drop of spray in my face, and run on calling,
“Follow, follow, follow!” just as before.

Wild strawberries grew red and sweet down in the tall grass, and great
purple violets, and tall buttercups nid-nodding in the wind.

Very often Myra and I would take off our shoes and stockings, and wade.
The roguish little brook would tickle my small toes, and try and trip me
up on one of its little mossy stones. Once I did slip and sat right down
in the water with a great splash! And the little brook took all the
starch out of my clothes, and ran off with it in a twinkling.

Now and then, I would fasten a bent pin to a string and tie the string
to the end of a stick and fish for the tiny minnows and tadpoles. But,
somehow, I never caught one of the little darting things. I used to
believe the brook whispered them to keep away from that little shining
hook.

Sometimes, I would take a big white chip and load it with pebbles or
violets and send it down stream. The sly little brook would slip my boat
over one of its tiny waterfalls just as quick as it could! If my little
boat was loaded with pebbles, down would go my heavy cargo to the
bottom! But if it were loaded with violets, then a fleet of fairy purple
canoes would float on and on, and away out of sight.

A great green frog with big, staring eyes watched from the side of the
brook. Now and then, he would say, “Ker-chug!” in a deep voice. I used
to ask him in good faith, what “ker-chug!” meant. But he did not tell,
and to this day I have not found out what “ker-chug” means.

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: “WILD STRAWBERRIES GREW RED AND SWEET DOWN IN THE TALL
GRASS.”]




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                          V.—THE MEADOW-ROCKS.

Another place where I played was out on the meadow-rocks. Right down in
a level spot in the meadow were three great rocks. Each one of these
rocks was as large as a dining-room table. Right through this little
flat place ran the brook I have told you about, bubbling round our three
great rocks.

0, what splendid playhouses those rocks were! We each owned one. The
third was owned by that wooden doll, Mrs. Pippy. In order to get to
either one of the houses you had to cross a little bridge that spanned a
tiny river. Also there were dear little steps up the sides of the rocks
which it was such a pleasure to go up and down.

On the top of the rocks, which were almost as flat as the top of a
table, were little closely-clinging patches of moss that we called our
rugs. There were queer-shaped hollows in the tops of these rocks. In one
little moss-lined hollow I used to cradle my baby-doll. Another hollow
was my kitchen sink. I used to fill up my sink with bits of broken
dishes, turn on some water from the brook, and then such a scrubbing as
my dishes got!

At the rocks, kneeling down on the planks that formed our bridges, we
used to wash our dollies’ clothes. Then we would spread them on the
grass to dry. Didn’t we use to keep our babies clean and sweet!

Afterwards, pinning our short skirts up about us, we would wash the
floors of our little rock houses until they shone. When everything was
spick-and-span, we would unpin our skirts, pull down our sleeves, rub
our rosy cheeks with a mullein leaf to make them rosier, and with a big
burdock leaf tied on with a couple of strings for a bonnet we would go
calling on our lazy neighbor, Mrs. Pippy, and give her a serious
“talking-to.”

Or, perhaps, we would call on each other and talk about the terrible
illnesses our poor children were suffering from. Or, perhaps, we would
go to market. The market consisted of a long row of raspberry bushes
along the meadow fence.

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: WASHING-DAY AT THE ROCK-HOUSES.]




[Illustration]


                 But when to-morrow, down the lane,
                 I walk among the flowers again,
                   Between the tall red hollyhocks,
                 Here I shall find you as before,
                 Asleep within your fastened door,—
                   My lazy four-o’clocks!
                                     MARGARET JOHNSON.




[Illustration]

                           _THE SNOW WITCH._


There was skating on the ponds where the snow had been cleared; there
were icicles on the trees, nice blue, clear skies in the daytime, cold,
bright, wintry moonlight at night.

Lovely weather for Christmas holidays! But to one little five-year-old
man, nothing had seemed lovely this Christmas, though he was spending it
with his Father and Mother and his big sisters at Grandpapa’s beautiful
old country house, where everybody did all that could be done to make
Grandpapa’s guests happy. For poor little Roger was pining for his elder
brother, Lawson, whom he had not seen for more than four months. Lawson
was eight, and had been at school since Michaelmas, and there he had
caught a fever which had made it not safe for him to join the rest of
the family till the middle of January. But he was coming to-morrow.

Why, then, did Roger still look sad and gloomy?

“Stupid little boy!” said Mabel. “I’m sure we’ve tried to amuse him.
Why, Mamma let him sit up an hour later than usual last night, to hear
all those funny old fairy tales and legends Uncle Bob was telling.”

“Yes, and weren’t they fun?” answered Pansy. “I did shiver at the witch
ones, though, didn’t you?”

Poor little Roger! Pansy’s shivering was nothing to his! They had all
walked home from the vicarage, tempted by the clear, frosty moonlight
and the hard, dry ground; and trotting along, a little behind the
others, a strange thing had happened to the boy. Fancy—in the field by
the Primrose Lane, through the gateway, right in a bright band of
moonlight, _he had seen a witch_. Just such a witch as Uncle Bob had
described—with shadowy garments, and outstretched arms, and a
queer-shaped head, on all of which the icicles were sparkling, just as
Uncle Bob had said. For it was a winter-witch he had told the story
about, whose dwelling was up in the frozen northern seas—“the Snow
Witch” they called her.

[Illustration]

Cold as it was, Roger was in a bath of heat, his heart beating wildly,
his legs shaking, when he overtook his sisters. And the night that
followed was full of terrible dreams and starts and misery, even though
nurse and baby were next door, and he could see the night-light through
the chinks. If it had not been that Lawson was coming—Lawson who never
laughed at him or called him “stupid little goose,” Lawson who listened
to all his griefs—Roger could not have borne it. For, strange to say,
the little fellow told no one of his trouble; he felt as if he could
_only_ tell Lawson.

No wonder he looked pale and sad and spiritless; there was still another
dreadful night to get through before Lawson came.

But things sometimes turn out better than our fears. Late that
afternoon, when nursery tea was over and bedtime not far off, there came
the sound of wheels and then a joyful hubbub. Lawson had come! Uncle Bob
had been passing near the school where he was, and had gone a little out
of his way to pick him up. Every one was delighted—oh, of them all,
_none_ so thankful as Roger.

“Though I wont tell him to-night,” decided the unselfish little fellow,
“not to spoil his first night. I sha’n’t mind when I know he’s in his
cot beside me.” And even when Lawson lovingly asked him if anything was
the matter, he kept to his resolution.

But he woke in the middle of the night from a terrible dream; Lawson
woke too, and then—out it all came.

“I thought she was coming in at the window,” Roger ended. “If—if you
look out—it’s moonlight—I think _p’r’aps_ you’ll see where she stands.
But no, no! Don’t, _don’t_! She might see you.”

So Lawson agreed to wait till to-morrow.

“I have an idea,” said Lawson. “Roger, darling, go to sleep. _I’m_ here,
and you can say your prayers again if you like.”

Lawson was up very early next morning. And as soon as breakfast was over
he told Roger to come out with him. Down the Primrose Lane they went, in
spite of Roger’s trembling.

“Now, shut your eyes,” said Lawson, when they got to the gate. He opened
it, and led his brother through.

“Look, now!” he said, with a merry laugh. And what do you think Roger
saw?

[Illustration]

An old scarecrow, forgotten since last year. There she stood, the “Snow
Witch,” an apron and ragged shawl, two sticks for arms, a bit of
Grandpapa’s hat, to crown all—that was the witch!

“Shake hands with her, Roger,” said Lawson. And shake hands they both
did, till the old scarecrow tumbled to pieces, never more to frighten
either birds or little boys. “Dear Lawson,” said Roger, lovingly, as he
held up his little face for a kiss. And happy, indeed, were the rest of
the Christmas holidays.

May they never love each other less, these two; may they be true
brothers in manhood as they have been in their childish days!

                                                        _L. Molesworth._




                        _THE THREE BLIND MICE._
                     _THE STORY TOLD BY A BROWNIE._


Well, first of all, I must tell you that I am a Brownie, and although I
am ever and ever so old, I look as young to-day as I did when I was but
one year old. Well, it was about seven hundred years ago, and I used to
be a great deal with some other Brownies, cousins of mine, visiting at
the same farm-houses as they did, and helping them with their work. And
it was in this way that I got to know the Three Blind Mice,—Purrin,
Furrin, and Tod.

Pretty, pleasant little fellows they were; and they were not blind
then,—far from it. They lived up in the loft of Dame Marjoram’s room,
over at Fiveoaks Farm.

Such merry supper-parties as never were, I think, before or since, we
used to have then. We would think nothing of finishing a round of apple
and a walnut-shell full of honey between us, in one evening, to say
nothing of scraps of cheese-rind and the crumbs we stole from the birds.
Purrin had a most melodious voice, and could sing a good song, while Tod
was never at a loss for an amusing story. As to Furrin, he was almost as
quaint as our Mr. Puck, and, though perhaps it is not for _me_ to say
so, when those in high places do encourage him, not one-tenth as
mischievous.

When Angelina, the old stable cat, had kittens, he would get into all
sorts of out-of-the-way places, and imitate their squeaky little voices,
so that she was always on the fidget, thinking she must have mislaid one
somewhere, and never able to find it. For you see, as she could not
count, she never knew whether they were all beside her or no. Often he
would coax a whole hazel-nut out of Rudge, the Squirrel, who lived on
the Hanger, just above, and whom every one believed to be a miser. And
then his Toasting-fork Dance was so sprightly and graceful, it did your
heart good to see it. Ah, me! those days are gone, and Furrin is gone
too; and the Moon, when she looks through that chink in the barn roof,
no longer sees us feasting and making merry on the great beam.

And this is how they became blind:

[Illustration]

They were very fond of Gilliflower, Dame Marjoram’s little daughter, and
after the nurse had put her to bed, Furrin, Purrin, and Tod used to
creep up into her room, and read her some of the funny little tales from
Mouse-land till she went to sleep. She would lie there with her eyes
shut, and perhaps imagined that it was her own thoughts that made her
fancy all about the fairy tales that came into her head; but really it
was the mice who read them to her, but in such a low voice that
Gilliflower never thought of opening her eyes to see if any one was
there. I must tell you that the print in Mouse-land is very, very small
and hard to read. This did not matter so much during the long Summer
evenings, when there was plenty of light to see to read by; but when the
Winter came on, and the mice had only the firelight to read by, then
reading the small print began to tell its tale. You know how bad it is
for the eyesight to read any print by firelight, and it must be very
much worse when the print is very small; and so Furrin would say to
Purrin, “My eyes are getting quite dim, so now you must read;” and
before Purrin had read a page he would say the same thing to Tod, and
then Tod would try; but after a time their eyes became so dim they
couldn’t see at all, and so they had to invent stories to tell little
Gilliflower; so the poor little mice went quite blind, trying to amuse
their little girl friend.

I took what care of them I could; but their blindness was very sad for
them. No longer had Purrin the heart to sing or Furrin to dance and
jest. Only they would sit close together, each holding one of Tod’s
hands, and listening to his stories, for he kept his spirits best, and
did all he could to cheer the others. All the marketing fell to me then,
and it gave me plenty to do; for, poor souls, the only amusement left
them was a dainty morsel, now and then.

And, by and by, they became so tired of sitting still, when Tod had
exhausted all his stock of stories, that they got reckless, and would go
blundering about the house after Dame Marjoram, whom they knew by the
rustle of her silken skirt, and the tapping of her high-heeled shoes.
They all ran after her, forgetting, that although they could not see
her, still she could see them, and trying to follow her into her
store-room, where the almonds, and raisins, and sugar, and candied-peel
were kept.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

I told them she would get angry, and that harm would come of it; but I
think their unhappiness and dulness made them quite foolhardy, for they
still went on, getting under her feet, and well-nigh tripping her up;
clambering into the lard-pot before her very eyes; in short, doing a
thousand irritating and injudicious things day by day, until her
patience was quite worn out. And at last, when they scrambled on to the
dinner-table, thinking it to be the store-room shelf, and sat all in a
row, quietly eating out of Miss Gilliflower’s plate, Dame Marjoram, who
had the carving-knife in her hand, thought it high time for them to have
a lesson in manners. So, thinking the knife was turned blunt side
downwards, she rapped them smartly across their three tails. What was
her horror and their dismay, to find them cut off quite cleanly. The
little tails lay still on the table, and the three little mice,
well-nigh crazed with terror and pain, groped their way off the table
and out of the room.

I was returning from the cheese-room, and met them crossing the great
hall.

Of course, I took in at a glance all that had occurred, and I must say
that I felt but little surprise, though much sorrow. I guided them to
our old haunt in the loft-roof and then sat down to prepare a Memorial
for Dame Marjoram, giving a full account of all that they had suffered
for the sake of her family.

[Illustration]

This I placed on the top of the key-basket; and while she was reading
it, with my usual tact I silently brought in Purrin, Furrin, and Tod,
and pushed them forward in front of her.

The tears stood in her eyes as she finished reading my scroll, and from
that time forth nothing was too good for the Three Blind Mice. The good
wife even tried to make new tails for them.

But they did not live long to enjoy their new happiness. The loss of
their sight, followed by the shock of having their tails cut off, was
too much for them. They never quite recovered, but died, all on the same
day, within the same hour, just a month afterward.

Their three little graves were made beneath the shadows of a lavender
bush in the garden.

Sometimes I go there to scatter a flower or two, and to shed a tear to
the memory of Purrin, Furrin, and Tod.

                                                        _Helen J. Wood._

[Illustration]




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                             VI—THE LILACS.

There was a great clump of lilac bushes out by the garden wall. These
lilacs grew close together and made a thick hedge nearly around a little
plot of ground, where the grass grew so thick and velvety that it was
like a great green rug, and they bent their tall heads over this little
green plot, and so formed a lovely summer-house.

Here we used to sew for our dolls, and here we used to give tea-parties.
Raspberry shortcake was one of the dainties we used to have. This is the
way we made it: Take a nice clean raspberry leaf, heap it with
raspberries, and put another leaf on top. Eat at once.

In this lovely summer-house I used to keep school. I had a row of bricks
for scholars. Each brick had its own name. Two or three of the bricks
were nice and red and new. I named those new bricks after my dearest
little school-friends.

The rest of the bricks were either broken or blackened a little. Those
bricks were my naughty, idle scholars. I used to stand them up in a row
to learn their lessons. The first thing I knew those bad bricks would
all tumble down in a heap. Numbers of little lilac-switches grew about
my schoolhouse, and I fear I was a severe teacher.

When the lilacs were in bloom, that dear little summer-house was a very
gay little place. The great, purple plumes would nod in every little
wind that blew. The air was full of sweetness. Butterflies made the
trees bright with their slowly-waving wings. There was a drowsy hum of
many bees. Sometimes we would catch hold of one of the slender trunks of
the lilac trees, and give it a smart shake. Away would flash a bright
cloud of butterflies, and a swarm of angry, buzzing bees!

Pleasant Sabbath afternoons, we used to take our Sunday-school books out
under the lilacs to read. And as we read about good deeds and unselfish
lives, our own choir of birds would sing sweet hymns. Then we would look
up and smile, and say, “They have good singing at the lilac church,
don’t they?”

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: I HAD A ROW OF BRICKS FOR SCHOLARS.]




                            EIGHT YEARS OLD.
                          THE SINGING-LESSON.


         A slender, liquid note,
         Long-drawn and silver-sweet.
       Obediently the little maid
       Tries, timid still, and half afraid,
         The lesson to repeat.

                         A breezy turn or two,
                         A blithe and bold refrain,
                       A ripple up and down the scale,
                       And still the learner does not fail
                         To echo soft the strain.

         A burst of melody
         Wild, rapturous, and long.
       A thousand airy runs and trills
       Like drops from overflowing rills,—
         The vanquished pupil’s song

                         Breaks into laughter sweet.
                         And does her master chide?
                       Nay; little Ethel’s music-room
                       Is mid the sunny garden’s bloom,
                         Her roof the branches wide.

                 With parted lips she stands
                 Among the flowers alone.
               Her teacher—hark! again he sings!
               A stir—a flash of startled wings—
                 The little bird has flown!
                                               MARGARET JOHNSON.




[Illustration: “One,| Two,| Buckle| My Shoe.” By Margaret Johnson]


               Smile on me, Baby, my sweet,
               As I kneel humbly here at your feet.
               My Prince, with no crown for your head,
               But your own sunny tresses instead.
               And your lips and your eyes gravely sweet,
               Smile down on me here at your feet,
                             Little one.




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                          VII.—THE SAND-BANK.

That sand-bank in the pasture was one of the nicest of our playhouses.
There was neither dust nor dirt in it—nothing but clean, fine sand, with
now and then a pebble. It was not high, so there was no danger of a
great mass of sand falling down on us two children.

The sand-bank was not very far from the little brook. Myra and I would
carry pailful after pailful of water from the brook to it, until we had
moistened a large quantity of sand. Sometimes we would cover our little
bare feet with the cool, wet sand, packing it just as close as we could.
Then gently, O, so gently, we would pull our feet out from under the
sand. The little “five-toed caves” as we used to call them, would show
just as plain as could be, where our little feet had been! We used to
catch little toads and put them into those little damp caves, but they
would soon hop out.

We used to make the nicest pies and cakes and cookies out of that lovely
wet sand. We used to wish our sand-dainties were fit to eat!

Oftentimes, when we were tired of cooking, we would go to work and lay
out a wonderful garden with tiny flower-beds and winding paths, out of
that wet sand. Some of those flower-beds were star-shaped, some were
round as a wheel, and some were square. We used to gather handfuls of
wild-flowers and stick them down in, until every tiny bed blossomed into
pink and blue and white and gold!

We used to make sand-preserves out there. The time and the patience that
we used up in filling narrow-necked bottles with sand! After a bottle
was well-filled and shaken down, we would catch up that bottle and run
down to the brook. We would wash the outside of that bottle until it
shone like cut-glass, and then we would pack it away in a hollow stump
that we called our preserve-closet.

We used to play a game that we called “Hop-scotch” out in the old
sand-bank. In this game, you mark the sand off into rather large
squares. Then hopping along on one foot, you try with your toe to push a
pebble from one square into another.

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: THE SAND-BANK GARDEN.]




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                         VIII.—THE OLD PASTURE.

I used to play a great deal out in the old pasture. It had a clump of
cradle-knolls in it. A cradle-knoll is a little mound of moss.

On these mossy little cradle-knolls, checkerberry leaves and berries
used to grow. How delicious those spicy young checkerberry leaves
tasted! And we hunted those red plums as a cat hunts a mouse!

The pasture had two or three well-beaten paths in it, that the cows had
made by their sober steady tramping back and forth from the barnyard
lane to the growth of little trees and bushes and tender grass at the
back. At sunset-time, two little barefooted girls would “spat” along
those cool smooth winding paths after those cows.

As long as we kept in the paths our little feet were all right. But
sometimes a clump of bright wild-flowers tempted us, and then two sorry
little girls with thistle-prickles in their feet would come limping
back. But out where the tender grasses grew there were no thistles, and
such fun as hide-and-seek used to be among the bushes!

Sometimes we could not find the cows very readily; and then we would
climb up on a smutty stump and call, “co’ boss! co’ boss!” until the
woods rang.

In the spring, we would go a-maying out in the old pasture, and O, such
great handfuls of the sweet mayflower as we used to bring home! Later
on, we would gather great bunches of sweet-smelling herbs that grew wild
out there, and carry them home to hang up in the shed-chamber and dry.

If one of my schoolmates had been unkind to me, I would go out into the
old pasture, and there I would plan out for myself a lovely future
wherein I should be _very_ rich and _very_ good to the poor. And my
unkind schoolmate would be one of the humble receivers of my gifts, and
so it would come about that before I got through building air-castles I
would actually feel sorry for the poor schoolmate who had ill-used me.
And then home I would go, singing and skipping!

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: “CO’ BOSS!! CO’ BOSS!”]




                         Little Mother Hubbard.


[Music]

 1. Lit-tle Mo-ther Hub-bard sat
 In the park at play, With her gown and point-ed hat All of so-ber
 gray. And she looked so wondrous wise That I scarce be-lieved my eyes;
 And she looked so wondrous wise That I scarce believed my eyes.

 2. Pug no long-er frisked a-bout,
 For he felt the loss Of his sup-per and his cake, So was tired and
 cross. And this self-ish lit-tle pug Wished himself up-on his rug;
 And this self-ish lit-tle pug Wished himself up-on his rug.

 3. Mo-ther Hub-bard hur-ried home,
 Say-ing, “Mer-cy me! Pug shall have some frost-ed cake And a cup of
 tea.” But the cake was eat-en up And the nurse had lost his cup;
 But the cake was eat-en up, And the nurse had lost his cup.




[Illustration: PILLOW·LAND]


                                    GOOD-NIGHT.

                                  Suck-a-Thumb,
                                  Bed-time’s come.

                      Dressed in white,
                      Shut eyes tight.

                          “Nighty, night!”




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                           IX.—THE ELM-TREE.

Out in one of the meadows was a big elm-tree. It was very tall, and in
summer it looked like a monster bunch of green plumes.

It stood on the bank of our little brook. Right where the old elm stood,
the bank was quite high, six feet almost. The boughs on the old tree
grew very low. I would catch hold of one of those low-hanging boughs.
Then, I would give a little run and jump. Away out over the bank and
over the brook I would swing!

Oftentimes I would take my patchwork out under the old elm. But soon the
patchwork would be on the ground, forgotten, and an idle little girl
would be lying flat on the grass, with her hands clasped under her head,
looking up into the clear blue sky!

I used to make believe that the white clouds were my ships, coming into
harbor under full sail. And I used to make up fine names for my ships,
and O, such splendid cargoes as they would be loaded with, all for
me—their rich young owner—the idle dreamer in the grass!

O, it was such fun to lie there in the midst of funny daisies with their
high white collars, and buttercups with their yellow caps! The roguish
little winds would make them bend over and tickle the rosy face of the
little girl whom the birds and the brook had almost hushed off to sleep.
There would be a soft little touch on my forehead, and then another on
my chin, and yet others on my cheeks. Then I would open my eyes and
laugh at those funny little white and gold heads, soberly wagging up and
down. But once I was rather frightened out under the old elm. I had been
lying flat on my back for an hour or two, when I was called. I half
raised myself up and answered. My hand was on the ground just where I
had been lying. I felt something squirming around my thumb. It was a
tiny brown snake! Of course, it was as harmless as a fly, but didn’t I
spring to my feet!

When I had to recite a little piece in school or at a church concert, I
always used to rehearse that little piece out under the old elm, over
and over again.

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: SWINGING ON THE ELM-TREE BOUGH.]




                         _Puggie in Disgrace._


        Child-ren, just look at this queer little Pug,
        His small wrin-kled nose, his little black mug!
        I fear he’s been naugh-ty at les-sons to-day,
        And, like naugh-ty child-ren, he’s pun-ished this way.

        He sits on the stool of re-pent-ance, you see;
        Poor Pug-gie is gen-tle and meek as can be;
        But when at his les-sons he just took a nap,
        And that is the rea-son he wears the Fool’s cap.

        His neck has an or-na-ment, not like his head,
        But a beau-ti-ful lock-et and rib-bon in-stead;
        So you see that to some one the dog-gie is dear,
        Al-though they all tease him I very much fear.

        From Ho-race, the eld-est, to lit-tle Miss May,
        All in-sist that Poor Pug-gie should join in their play;
        Some-times they pet him, and some-times they tease,
        But he bears it all pa-tient-ly, eager to please.

        He rolls his big eyes, or just heaves a sigh,
        And thinks they’ll make up for it all by and by.
        For Pug-gie is greed-y, and bears a great deal
        For the sake of some cakes or a good heart-y meal.

        But though he _is_ greed-y, his faults are but few,
        He is lov-ing and hon-est, de-vo-ted and true.
        If our two-foot-ed friends were as faith-ful as he
        Ve-ry for-tu-nate peo-ple I think we should be.

[Illustration]




                             _TIC-TAC-TOO._


Tic-tac-too was a little boy; he was exactly three years old, and the
youngest in the family; so, of course, he was the king. His real name
was Alec; but he was always known in the household, and among his wide
circle of friends generally, as Tic-tac-too. There was a little story to
account for this, and it is that story which I am now going to tell.

[Illustration]

There are very few children who do not know the funny old nursery rhyme
of “Tic-tac-too;” it is an old-fashioned rhyme, and in great vogue
amongst nurses. Of course Alec enjoyed it, and liked to have his toes
pulled, and the queer words said to him. But that is not the story; for
it is one thing to like a nursery rhyme very much, and another to be
called by the name of that rhyme, and nothing else.

Now, please, listen to the story.

There was no nicer house to live in than Daisy Farm: it was
old-fashioned and roomy; there were heaps of small bedrooms with low
ceilings, and heaps of long passages, and unexpected turnings, and dear
little cosey corners; and there was a large nursery made out of two or
three of the small rooms thrown together, and this nursery had casement
windows, and from the windows the daisies, which gave their name to the
farm, could be seen. They came up in thousands upon thousands, and no
power of man and scythe combined could keep them down. The
mowing-machine only suppressed them for a day or two; up they started
anew in their snowy dresses, with their modest pink frills and bright
yellow edges.

Mr. Rogers, who owned Daisy Farm, objected to the flowers; but his
children delighted in them, and picked them in baskets-full, and made
daisy-chains to their hearts’ content. There were several children who
lived in this pleasant farmhouse, for Tic-tac-too had many brothers and
sisters. The old-fashioned nursery was all that a modern nursery should
be; it had deep cupboards for toys, and each child had his or her wide
shelf to keep special treasures on; and the window-ledges were cosey
places to curl up in on wet days, when the rain beat outside, and the
wind sighed, and even the daisies looked as if they did not like to be
washed so much.

[Illustration]

Some of the children at Daisy Farm were old enough to have governesses
and masters, to have a schoolroom for themselves, and, in short, to have
very little to say to the nursery; but still there were four nursery
little ones; and one day mother electrified the children by telling them
that another little boy was coming to pay them a visit.

“He is coming to-morrow,” said mother; “he is a year younger than Alec
here, but his mother has asked us to take care of him. You must all be
kind to the little baby stranger, children, and try your very best to
make him feel at home. Poor little man, I trust he will be happy with
us.”

[Illustration]

Mother sighed as she spoke; and when she did this, Rosie, the eldest
nursery child, looked up at her quickly. Rosie had dark gray eyes, and a
very sympathetic face; she was the kind of child who felt everybody’s
troubles, and nurse said she did this far more than was good for her.

The moment her mother left the room, Rosie ran up to her nurse, and
spoke eagerly—

“Why did mother sigh when she said a new little boy was coming here,
nursie?”

“Oh, my love, how can I tell? People sigh most likely from habit, and
from no reason whatever. There’s nothing to fret anybody in a sigh, Miss
Rosie.”

“But mother doesn’t sigh from habit,” answered Rosie; “I expect there’s
going to be something sad about the new little boy, and I wonder what it
is. Harry, shall we collect some of our very nicest toys to have ready
for the poor little new boy?”

Harry was six; he had a determined face, and was not so generous as
Rosie.

“I’ll not give away my skin-horse,” he said, “so you needn’t think it,
nor my white dog with the joints; there are some broken things down in
that corner that he can have. But I don’t see why a new baby should have
my best toys. Gee-up, Alec! you’re a horse, you know, and I’m going to
race you from one end of the nursery to the other—now trot!”

Fat little curly-headed Alec started off good-humoredly, and Rosie
surveyed her own shelf to see which toys would most distract the
attention of the little stranger.

She was standing on a hassock, and counting her treasures over
carefully, when she was startled by a loud exclamation from nurse.

“Mercy me! If that ain’t the telegraph boy coming up the drive!”

Nurse was old-fashioned enough still to regard telegrams with
apprehension. She often said she could never look at one of those awful
yellow envelopes, without her heart jumping into her mouth; and these
fears she had, to a certain extent, infected the children with.

Harry dropped Alec’s reins, and rushed to the window; Rosie forgot her
toys, and did likewise; Jack and Alec both pressed for a view from
behind.

“Me, me, me, me want to see!” screamed baby Alec from the back.

Nurse lifted him into her arms; as she did so, she murmured under her
breath,—

“God preserve us! I hope that awful boy isn’t bringing us anything bad.”

Rosie heard the words, and felt a sudden sense of chill and anxiety; she
pressed her little hand into nurse’s, and longed more than ever to give
all the nicest toys to the new little boy.

Just then the nursery door was opened, and Kate, the housemaid,
appeared, carrying the yellow envelope daintily between her finger and
thumb.

“There, nurse,” she said, “it’s for you; and I hope, I’m sure, it’s no
ill-luck I’m bringing you.”

“Oh, sake’s alive!” said nurse. “Children, dears, let me sit down. That
awful boy to bring it to me! Well, the will of the Lord must be done;
whatever’s inside this ugly thing? Miss Rosie, my dear, could you hunt
round somewhere for my spectacles?”

It always took a long time to find nurse’s spectacles; and Rosie, after
a frantic search, in which she was joined by all the other nursery
children, discovered them at last at the bottom of Alec’s cot. She
rushed with them to the old woman, who put them on her nose, and began
deliberately to read the contents of her telegram.

The children stood round her as she did so. They were all breathless and
excited; and Rosie looked absolutely white from anxiety.

“Well, my dears,” said nurse at last, when she had spelt through the
words, “it ain’t exactly a trouble; far from me to say that; but all the
same, it’s mighty contrary, and a new child coming here, and all.”

“What is it, nurse?” said Harry. “_Do_ tell us what it’s all about.”

“It’s my daughter, dears,” said nurse; “she’ll be in London to-morrow,
on her way back to America.”

“Oh, nurse!” said Rosie, “not your daughter Ann?”

[Illustration]

“The same, my love; she that has eight children, and four of them with
carrotty hair. She wants me to go up to London, to see her to-morrow;
that’s the news the telegraph boy has brought, Miss Rosie. My daughter
Ann says, ‘Mother, meet me to-morrow at aunt’s, at two o’clock.’ Well,
well, it’s mighty contrary; and that new child coming, and all!”

“But you’ll have to go, nurse. It would be dreadful for your daughter
Ann not to see you again.”

“Yes, dear, that’s all very fine; but what’s to become of all you
children? How is this blessed baby to get on without his old Nan?”

“Oh, nurse, you _must_ go! It would be so cruel if you didn’t,”
exclaimed Rosie.

Nurse sat thinking hard for a minute or two; then saying she would go
and consult her mistress, she left the room.

The upshot of all this was, that at an early hour the following morning
nurse started for London, and a girl, of the name of Patience, from the
village, came up to take her place in the nursery.

Mrs. Rogers was particularly busy during these days. She had some
friends staying with her, and in addition to this her eldest daughter,
Ethel, was ill, and took up a good deal of her mother’s time; in
consequence of these things the nursery children were left entirely to
the tender mercies of Patience.

Not that that mattered much, for they were independent children, and
always found their own amusements. The first day of nurse’s absence,
too, was fine, and they spent the greater part of it in the open air;
but the second day was wet—a hopelessly wet day—a dull day with a
drizzling fog, and no prospect whatever of clearing up.

The morning’s post brought a letter from nurse to ask for further leave
of absence; and this, in itself, would have depressed the spirits of the
nursery children, for they were looking forward to a gay supper with
her, and a long talk about her daughter Ann, and all her London
adventures.

[Illustration]

But this was not the real trouble which pressed so heavily on Rosie’s
motherly heart; the real anxiety which made her little face look so
careworn was caused by the new baby, the little boy of two years old,
who had arrived late the night before, and now sat with a shadow on his
face, absolutely refusing to make friends with any one.

He must have been a petted little boy at home, for he was beautifully
dressed, and his curly hair was nicely cared for, and his fair face had
a delicate peach bloom about it; but if he was petted, he was also,
perhaps, spoilt, for he certainly would not make advances to any of his
new comrades, nor exert himself to be agreeable, nor to overcome the
strangeness which was filling his baby mind. Had nurse been at home, she
would have known how to manage; she would have coaxed smiles from little
Fred, and taken him up in her arms, and “mothered” him a good bit.
Babies of two require a great lot of “mothering,” and it is surprising
what desolation fills their little souls when it is denied them.

Fred cried while Patience was dressing him; he got almost into a passion
when she washed his face, and he sulked over his breakfast. Patience was
not at all the sort of girl to manage a child like Fred; she was rough
in every sense of the word; and when rough petting failed, she tried the
effect of rough scolding.

“Come, baby, come, you _must_ eat your bread and milk. No nonsense now,
open your mouth and gobble it down. Come, come, I’ll slap you if you
don’t.”

But baby Fred, though sorrowful, was not a coward; he pushed the bowl of
bread and milk away, upset its contents over the clean tablecloth, and
raised two sorrowful big eyes to the new nurse’s face.

“Naughty dirl, do away,” he said; “Fred don’t ’ove ’oo. Fred won’t eat
bekfus’.”

[Illustration]

“Oh, Miss Rosie, what a handful he is!” said Patience.

“Let me try him!” said Rosie; “I’ll make him eat something. Come Freddy
darling, you love Rosie, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” said Fred.

“Well, you’ll eat some breakfast; come now.”

“I won’t eat none bekfus’—do away.”

Rosie turned round and looked in a despairing way at her own three
brothers.

“If only nurse were at home!” she said.

“Master Fred,” said Patience, “if you won’t eat, you must get down from
the breakfast-table. I have got to clear up, you know.”

She popped the little boy on the floor. He looked round in a bewildered
fashion.

“Let’s have a very exciting kind of play, and perhaps he’ll join in,”
said Rosie, in a whisper. “Let’s play at kittens—that’s the loveliest of
all our games.”

“Kittens” was by no means a quiet pastime. It consisted, indeed, in wild
romps on all-fours, each child assuming for the time the character of a
kitten, and jumping after balls of paper, which they caught in their
mouths.

“It’s the happiest of all our games, and perhaps he’ll like it,” said
Rosie.

“Patie,” said Alec, going up to the new nurse, “does ’oo know
_Tic-tac-too_?”

“Of course I do, master Baby—a silly game that.”

“I ’ike it,” said little Alec.

He tripped across the nursery to the younger baby, and sat down by his
side.

“Take off ’oo shoe,” he said.

Fred was very tired of being cross and miserable. He could not say he
was too little to Alec, for Alec was scarcely bigger than himself.
Besides he understood about taking off his shoe. It was a performance he
particularly liked. He looked at Baby Alec, and obeyed him.

“Take off ’oo other shoe,” said Alec.

Fred did so.

“Pull off ’oo ’tocks,” ordered the eldest baby.

Fred absolutely chuckled as he tugged away at his white socks, and
revealed his pink toes.

“Now, come to Patie.”

Fred scrambled to his feet, and holding Alec’s hand, trotted down the
long nursery.

“Patie,” said Alec, “take F’ed on ’our lap, and play _Tic-tac-too_ for
him?”

[Illustration]

Patience was busy sewing; she raised her eyes. Two smiling little
baby-boys were standing by her knee. Could this child, whose blue eyes
were full of sunshine, be the miserable little Fred?

“Well, master Alec,” she said, kissing the older baby, “you’re a perfect
little darling. Well, I never! to think of you finding out a way to
please that poor child.”

“Tic-tac-too!” said Fred, in a loud and vigorous voice. He was fast
getting over his shyness, and Alec’s game suited him to perfection.

But the little stranger did _not_ like the game of kittens. He marched
in a fat, solid sort of way across the nursery, and sat down in a
corner, with his back to the company. Here he really looked a most
dismal little figure. The view of his back was heart-rending; his curly
head drooped slightly, forlornness was written all over his little
person.

“What a little muff he is!” said Harry; “I’m glad I didn’t give my skin
horse to him.”

“Oh, don’t,” said Rosie, “can’t you see he’s unhappy? I must go and
speak to him. Fred,” she said, going up to the child, “come and play
with Alec and me.”

[Illustration]

“No,” said Fred, “I’se too little to p’ay.”

“But we’ll have such an easy play, Fred. _Do_ come; I wish you would.”

“I’se too little,” answered Fred, shaking his head again.

At that moment Rosie and her two elder brothers were called out of the
room to their morning lessons. Rosie’s heart ached as she went away.

“Something must be done,” she said to herself. “That new little boy-baby
will get quite ill if we can’t think of something to please him soon.”

She did not know that a very unexpected little deliverer was at hand.
The two babies were now alone in the nursery, and Patience, having
finished her tidying up, sat down to her sewing.

Patience lifted him on her lap, popped him down with a bounce, kissed
him, and began,—

                  “Tic, tac, too,
                  The little horse has lost his shoe,
                  Here a nail, and there a nail,
                  Here a nail, and there a nail,
                                  Tic, tac, too!”

When the other children returned to the nursery, they heard peals of
merry baby laughter; and this was the fashion in which a little boy won
his name.




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                         X.—THE PASTURE FENCE.

We used to play a great deal about the pasture fence. It was a high rail
fence and we used to take a little pole in both hands as a balancing
pole, and run along on the top. Carefully we balanced ourselves as we
ran! But finally we would tip first one way and then the other, and
then, with a little laughing scream, off we’d topple!

Sometimes we would put a board through the fence and have a fine time at
“seesaw.” Up one of us would go, high in the air, and down would go the
other with a thud!

We used to play that the pasture fence was a huge cupboard. Each rail
was a shelf. Many of those rail-shelves were loaded down with bits of
broken dishes, shining pebbles, bits of green moss that we called
“pincushions,” and white clam-shells full of strawberries, or
raspberries, or little dark juicy choke-cherries. The contents of the
clam-shells were for the birds. If we found a clam-shell lying on the
ground, we believed with all our little hearts that a little winged
creature had been fed from our cupboard.

Sometimes we would carry on a thriving millinery store out at the
pasture fence. We would make queer little bonnets out of birch-bark.
Then we would sew wildflowers on the bonnets and lay them on the rails
of the fence for sale. Such a number of those funny little bonnets as
would be on exhibition on our rail-counters!

One of the big upright posts of our rail fence was hollow a little way
down. One day we found on the ground a nest full of birdlings; one of
them was dead, and a little green snake had almost reached the nest. The
mother-bird was flying about crying pitifully. I snatched the nest away
and carried it O, so carefully to the pasture fence and put it down in
the hollow of the fence-post. Then we went a bit away and waited. Pretty
soon there was a little rush of wings; and soon the mother-bird settled
down in that hollow post just as cunning as could be. And that dear
little family staid in that hollow post until the baby-birds grew up and
flew away.

                                                      _Percia V. White._




                       LULU’S FIRST THANKSGIVING.


Lulu was six years old last spring. She came to make a visit at her
grandfather’s, and stayed until after Thanksgiving.

[Illustration]

Lulu had lived away down in Cuba ever since she was a year old. Her
cousins had written to her what a good time they had on Thanksgiving
Day; so she was very anxious to be at her grandfather’s at that time.
They do not have a Thanksgiving Day down in Cuba. That is how Lulu did
not have one until she was six years old.

She could hardly wait for the day to come. Such a grand time as they did
have! Lulu did not know she had so many cousins until they came to spend
the day at her grandfather’s. It did not take them long to get
acquainted. Before time for dinner they felt as if they had always known
each other.

[Illustration]

The dinner was the grand event of the day. Lulu had never seen so long a
table except at a hotel, nor some of the vegetables and kinds of pie.

Lulu had never tasted turkey before. Her grandmother would not have one
cooked until then, so she could say that she had eaten her first piece
of turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

After dinner they played all kinds of games. All the uncles and aunts
and grown-up cousins played blind-man’s-buff with them.




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                      XI.—OUR RAINY-DAY PLAYHOUSE.

We had a number of rainy-day playhouses. When it did not rain very hard,
Myra and I would scamper out to our little playhouse made of boards, and
listen to the patter of the drops.

It was not a very costly playhouse. It was built in a corner made by the
shed and the orchard fence. One side of our playhouse was the shed.
Another side was the fence; this open side we used to call our
bay-window. A creeping hop vine twined around the rough fence-boards and
made a green lace curtain for our bay-window. The third side was made of
boards. Across this side stretched the wide board seat, which was the
only furniture of our playhouse. The fourth, or front side of the
playhouse consisted mostly of a “double-door,” of which we were very
proud. This double-door was two large green blinds. Did not we feel like
truly little housekeepers when we fastened those two blinds together
with a snap!

When the rain came down in gentle showers we used to go out to the
little playhouse and have a concert. First Myra would step up on to that
wide board seat and recite a little piece. Then I would step up on to
the seat and sing a little song. Perhaps while I was singing a robin in
the orchard would begin to sing, O, so loud and sweet that all the
orchard just rang with that sweet music! We would stop our concert and
listen to the robin. When he had finished, we used to clap our little
hands. And all the time the rain kept up a fairy “tinkle, tinkle,” as if
some one was keeping time for us on a tiny piano.

Spat-t! Spat-t! would come the little drops through a tiny hole in the
roof of our little house. We used to hold our faces up towards that
little leak in the roof. Oftentimes a drop would strike us fairly on the
tip of our small noses! Then how we would laugh!

Sometimes we would take hold of hands and repeat together, over and over
again: “Rain, rain, go away, come again, another day!”

And if we said those words long enough, the rain would go away!

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: THE RAINY-DAY PLAYHOUSE.]




                        “HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.”


                      XII.—THE WHOLE WHITE WORLD.

In winter we played everywhere! The whole white world was a lovely
playground! We had no skates, but we wore very thick-soled boots that
took the place of skates very well. At least we thought so, and that was
all we needed to make us contented. When the little pond was frozen
over, we would take a quick run down its snowy banks and then we would
skim clear across that little pond’s frozen surface just as swift as a
bird would skim through the air.

Sometimes a thick frost would come in the night-time. The next morning a
fine blue haze would be in the air and everything would be clothed in
soft white frost-furs. As the sun rose higher and higher we would watch
to see the trees and bushes grow warm in the sunshine and throw off
their furs. Then we would try and catch those soft furs as they fell.
But if caught they melted quickly away.

If the surface of the snow hardened enough so that we could walk on the
crust without breaking through, our happiness was complete. High hills
were all about us, and it seemed to us as if every shining hill would
say if it could, “Come and slide!”

And O, the happy hours that we have had with our clumsy old sled! Away
we would go, the wind stinging our faces until crimson roses blossomed
in our cheeks, and the shining crust snapping and creaking under our
sled, and the hill flying away behind us!

If a damp clinging snow came, it made lovely snowballs; and it was such
fun to catch hold of the long clothes-lines and shake them and see
little clumps of snow hop like rabbits from the line into the air.

And if instead of warmth, and great damp feathery snowflakes, there came
a bitter wind and an icy sleet that froze as it fell—what then? Never
mind! Sunrise would set the whole world a-sparkle. Every tree and bush
would be gay with splendid ice-jewels! And in the great shining ice
palace, we could run and laugh and shout, watching the ice-jewels loosen
and fall, all day long.

                                                      _Percia V. White._

[Illustration: “AWAY WE WOULD GO!”]




[Illustration]

                           _GRAN’MA GRACIE._


It was Uncle George who called her “Gran’ma” when she was only six, and
by the time she was seven everybody had taken to the name, and she
answered to it as a matter of course.

Why did he call her so? Because she was such a prim, staid, serious,
little old-fashioned body, and consequently her mother laughingly took
to dressing her in an old-fashioned way, so that at last, whether she
was out in the grounds, or round by the stables with Grant, in her
figured pink dress, red sash, long gloves, and sun-bonnet, looking after
her pets, or indoors of an evening, in her yellow brocade, muslin
apron—with pockets, of course, and quaint mob cap tied up with its
ribbon—she always looked serious and grandmotherly.

“It is her nature to,” Uncle George said, quoting from “Let dogs
delight;” and when he laughed at her, Gran’ma used to look at him
wonderingly in the most quaint way, and then put her hand in his, and
ask him to take her for a walk.

Gran’ma lived in a roomy old house with a delightful garden, surrounded
by a very high red-brick wall that was covered in the spring with white
blossoms, and in the autumn with peaches with red cheeks that laughed at
her and imitated hers; purple plums covered with bloom, and other plums
that looked like drops of gold among the green leaves; and these used to
get so ripe and juicy in the hot sun, that they would crack and peer out
at her as if asking to be eaten before they fell down and wasted their
rich honey juice on the ground. Then there were great lumbering looking
pears which worried John, the gardener, because they grew so heavy that
they tore the nails out of the walls, and had to be fastened up
again—old John giving Gran’ma the shreds to hold while he went up the
ladder with his hammer, and a nail in his mouth.

That garden was Gran’ma’s world, it was so big; and on fine mornings she
could be seen seriously wandering about with Dinnywinkle, her little
sister, up this way, down that, under the apple-trees, along the
gooseberry and currant alleys, teaching her and Grant that it was not
proper to go on the beds when there were plenty of paths, and somehow
Dinnywinkle, who was always bubbling over with fun, did as the serious
little thing told her in the most obedient of ways, and helped her to
scold Grant, who was much harder to teach.

[Illustration]

For Grant, whose papa was a setter, and mamma a very lady-like
retriever, always had ideas in his head that there were wild beasts
hiding in the big garden, and as soon as his collar was unfastened, and
he was taken down the grounds for a run, he seemed to run mad. His ears
went up, his tail began to wave, and he dashed about frantically to hunt
for those imaginary wild beasts. He barked till he was hoarse sometimes,
when after a good deal of rushing about he made a discovery, and would
then look up triumphantly at Gran’ma, and point at his find with his
nose, till she came up to see what he had discovered. One time it would
be a snail, at another a dead mouse killed by the cat, and not eaten
because it was a shrew. Upon one occasion, when the children ran up, it
was to find the dog half wild as he barked to them to come and see what
he was holding down under his paw,—this proving to be an unfortunate
frog which uttered a dismal squeal from time to time till Gran’ma set it
at liberty, so that it could make long hops into a bed of ivy, where it
lived happily long afterwards, to sit there on soft wet nights under a
big leaf like an umbrella, and softly whistle the frog song which ends
every now and then in a croak.

Grant was always obedient when he was caught, and then he would walk
steadily along between Gran’ma and Dinny, each holding one of his long
silky ears, with the prisoner making no effort to escape.

But the job was to catch him; and on these occasions Gran’ma used to run
and run fast, while Dinny ran in another direction to cut Grant off.

[Illustration]

And a pretty chase he led them, letting them get close up, and then
giving a joyous bark and leaping sidewise, to dash off in quite a fresh
direction. Here he would perhaps hide, crouching down under one of the
shrubs, ready to pounce out on his pursuers, and then dash away again,
showing his teeth as if he were laughing, and in his frantic delight
waltzing round and round after his tail. Then away he would bound on to
the closely shaven lawn, throw himself down, roll over and over, and set
Dinny laughing and clapping her hands to see him play one of his
favorite tricks, which was to lay his nose down close to the grass,
first on one side and then on the other, pushing it along as if it was a
plough, till he sprang up and stood barking and wagging his tail, as
much as to say, “What do you think of that for a game?” ending by
running helter-skelter after a blackbird which flew away, crying
“Chink—chink—chink.”

That was a famous old wilderness of a place, with great stables and
out-houses, where there was bright golden straw, and delicious
sweet-scented hay, and in one place a large bin with a lid, and
half-full of oats, with which Gran’ma used to fill a little
cross-handled basket.

“Now, Grant,” she cried, as she shut down the lid, after refusing to let
Dinny stand in the bin and pour oats over her head and down her
back—“Now, Grant!”

“Wuph!” said Grant, and he took hold of the basket in his teeth, and
trotted on with it before her round the corner, to stop before the
hutches that stood outside in the sun.

Here, if Dinny was what Gran’ma called “a good girl,” she had a treat.
For this was where the rabbits lived.

Old Brownsmith sent those rabbits, hutch and all, as a present for
Gran’ma, one day when John went to the market garden with his barrow to
fetch what he called some “plarnts;” and when he came back with the
barred hutch, and set the barrow down in the walk, mamma went out with
Gran’ma and Dinny, to look at them, and Grant came up growling, sniffed
all round the hutch before giving a long loud bark, which, being put
into plain English, meant, “Open the door, and I’ll kill all the lot.”

“I don’t know what to say, John,” said mamma, shaking her head. “It is
very kind of Mr. Brownsmith, but I don’t think your master will like the
children to keep them, for fear they should be neglected and die.”

“’Gleckted?” said old John, rubbing one ear. “What! little miss here
’gleck ’em? Not she. You’ll feed them rabbuds reg’lar, miss, wontcher?”

Gran’ma said she would, and the hutch was wheeled round by the stables,
Grant following and looking very much puzzled, for though he never
hunted the cats now, rabbits did seem the right things to kill.

But Gran’ma soon taught him better, and he became the best of friends
with Brown Downie and her two children, Bunny and White Paws.

In fact, one day there was a scene, for Cook rushed into the schoolroom
during lesson time, out of breath with excitement.

“Please’m, I went down the garden, ’m, to get some parsley, and that
horrid dog’s hunting the rabbits, and killing ’em.”

There was a cry from both children, and Gran’ma rushed out and round to
the stables, to find the hutch door unfastened, and the rabbits gone,
while, as she turned back to the house with the tears running down her
cheeks, who should come trotting up but Grant, with his ears cocked, and
Bunny hanging from his jaws as if dead.

Gran’ma uttered a cry; and as Mamma came up with Dinny, the dog set the
little rabbit down, looked up and barked, and Bunny began loping off to
nibble the flowers, not a bit the worse, while Grant ran and turned him
back with his nose, for Gran’ma to catch the little thing up in her
arms.

Grant barked excitedly, and ran down the garden again, the whole party
following, and in five minutes he had caught White Paw.

Dinny had the carrying of this truant, and with another bark, Grant
dashed in among the gooseberry bushes, where there was a great deal of
rustling, a glimpse of something brown, and then of a white cottony
tail. Then in spite of poor Grant getting his nose pricked with the
thorns, Brown Downie was caught and held by her ears till mamma lifted
her up, and she was carried in triumph back, Grant trotting on before,
and leading the way to the stable-yard and the hutch, turning round
every now and then to bark.

The rabbits did not get out again, and every morning and evening they
were fed as regularly as Gran’ma fed herself.

On reaching the hutch, Grant set the basket down, leaving the handle
rather wet, though he could easily have wiped it with his ears, and then
he sat down in a dreamy way, half closing his eyes and possibly thinking
about wild rabbits on heaths where he could hunt them through furze
bushes, while Gran’ma in the most serious way possible opened the hutch
door.

[Illustration]

There was no difficulty about catching White Paw, for he was ready
enough to thrust his nose into his little mistress’s hand, and be lifted
out by his ears, and held for Dinny to stroke.

“Now let me take him,” she cried.

“No, my dear, you are too young yet,” said Gran’ma; and Dinny had to be
content with smoothing down White Paw’s soft brown fur, as it nestled up
against its mistress’s breast, till it was put back kicking, and
evidently longing to escape from its wooden-barred prison, even if it
was to be hunted by Grant.

Then Bunny had his turn, and was duly lifted out and smoothed; after
which, Brown Downie, who was too heavy to lift, gave the floor of the
hutch a sharp rap with one foot, making Grant lift his ear and utter a
deep sigh.

“No,” he must have thought; “it’s very tempting, but I must not seize
her by the back and give her a shake.”

Then the trough was filled with oats, the door fastened, and the girls
looked on as three noses were twitched and screwed about, and a low
munching sound arose.

Three rabbits and a dog! Enough pets for any girl, my reader; but
Gran’ma had another—Buzz, a round, soft-furred kitten with about as much
fun in it as could be squeezed into so small a body. But Buzz had a
temper, possibly soured by jealousy of Grant, whom he utterly detested.

Buzz’s idea of life was to be always chasing something,—his tail, a
shadow, the corner of the table-cover, or his mistress’s dress. He liked
to climb, too, on to tables, up the legs, into the coal-scuttle, behind
the sideboard, and above all, up the curtains, so as to turn the
looped-up part into a hammock, and sleep there for hours. Anywhere
forbidden to a respectable kitten was Buzz’s favorite spot, and
especially inside the fender, where the blue tiles at the back reflected
the warmth of the fire, and the brown tiles of the hearth were so bright
that he could see other kittens in them, and play with them, dabbing at
them with his velvet paw.

Buzz had been dragged out from that forbidden ground by his hind leg,
and by the loose skin at the back of his neck, and he had been punished
again and again, but still he would go, and strange to say, he took a
fancy to rub himself up against the upright brass dogs from the tip of
his nose to the end of his tail, and then repeat it on the other side.

But Gran’ma’s pet did not trespass without suffering for it. Both his
whiskers were singed off close, and there was a brown, rough,
ill-smelling bit at the end of his tail where, in turning round, he had
swept it amongst the glowing cinders, giving him so much pain that he
uttered a loud “Mee-yow!” and bounded out of the room, looking up at
Gran’ma the while as if he believed that she had served him like that.

[Illustration]

In Gran’ma’s very small old-fashioned way, one of her regular duties was
to get papa’s blue cloth fur-lined slippers, and put them against the
fender to warm every night, ready for him when he came back tired from
London; and no sooner were those slippers set down to toast, than Buzz,
who had been watching attentively, went softly from his cushion where he
had been pretending to be asleep, but watching all the time with one
eye, and carefully packed himself in a slipper, thrusting his nose well
down, drawing his legs right under him, and snoozling up so compactly
that he exactly fitted it, and seemed part of a fur cushion made in the
shape of a shoe.

But Buzz was not allowed to enjoy himself in that fashion for long. No
sooner did Gran’ma catch sight of what he had done than she got up, went
to the fireplace, gravely lifted the slipper, and poured Buzz out on to
the hearth-rug, replaced the slipper where it would warm, and went back,
to find, five minutes later, that the kitten had fitted himself into the
other slipper, with only his back visible, ready to be poured out again.
Then, in a half-sulky, cattish way, Buzz would go and seat himself on
his square cushion, and watch, while, to guard them from any more such
intrusions, Gran’ma picked up the slippers and held them to her breast
until such time as her father came home.

Those were joyous times at the old house, till one day there was a
report spread in the village that little Gran’ma was ill. The doctor’s
carriage was seen every day at the gate, and then twice a day, and there
were sorrow and despair where all had been so happy. Dinny went alone
with Grant to feed the rabbits; and there were no more joyous rushes
round the garden, for the dog would lie down on the doorstep with his
head between his paws, and watch there all day, and listen for the quiet
little footstep that never came. Every day old John, the gardener,
brought up a bunch of flowers for the little child lying fevered and
weak, with nothing that would cool her burning head, and three anxious
faces were constantly gazing for the change that they prayed might come.

For the place seemed no longer the same without those pattering feet.
Cook had been found crying in a chair in the kitchen; and when asked
why, she said it was because Grant had howled in the night, and she knew
now that dear little Gran’ma would never be seen walking so sedately
round the garden again.

It was of no use to tell her that Grant had howled because he was
miserable at not seeing his little mistress: she said she knew better.

“Don’t tell me,” she cried; “look at him.” And she pointed to where the
dog had just gone down to the gate, for a carriage had stopped, and the
dog, after meeting the doctor, walked up behind him to the house, waited
till he came out, and then walked down behind him to the gate, saw him
go, and came back to lie down in his old place on the step, with his
head between his paws.

They said that they could not get Grant to eat, and it was quite true,
for the little hands which fed him were not there; and the house was
very mournful and still, even Dinny having ceased to shout and laugh,
for they told her she must be very quiet, because Gran’ma was so ill.

From that hour Dinny went about the place like a mouse, and her favorite
place was on the step by Grant, who, after a time, took to laying his
head in her lap, and gazing up at her with his great brown eyes.

And they said that Gran’ma knew no one now, but lay talking quickly
about losing the rabbits and about Dinny and Grant; and then there came
a day when she said nothing, but lay very still as if asleep.

[Illustration]

That night as the doctor was going, he said softly that he could do no
more, but that those who loved the little quiet child must pray to God
to spare her to them; and that night, too, while tears were falling
fast, and there seemed to be no hope, Grant, in his loneliness and
misery, did utter a long, low, mournful howl.

But next morning, after a weary night, those who watched saw the bright
glow of returning day lighting up the eastern sky, and the sun had not
long risen before Gran’ma woke as if from a long sleep, looked up in her
mother’s eyes as if she knew her once more, and the great time of peril
was at an end.

All through the worst no hands but her mother’s had touched her; but now
a nurse was brought in to help—a quiet, motherly, North-country woman
who one day stood at the door, and held up her hands in astonishment,
for she had been busy down-stairs for an hour, and now that she had
returned there was a great reception on the bed: Buzz was seated on the
pillow purring; the rabbits all three were playing at the bed being a
warren, and loping in and out from the valance; Grant was seated on a
chair with his head close up to his mistress’s breast; and Dinny was
reading aloud from a picture storybook like this, but the book was
upside down, and she invented all she said.

“Bless the bairn! what does this mean?” cried nurse.

It meant that Dinny had brought up all Gran’ma’s friends, and that the
poor child was rapidly getting well.




[Illustration]

                          The Sunshine Corner


Miss Myrtle read to the children this afternoon an Account sent by her
married cousin, Mrs. Pingry. Mrs. Pingry wrote: “I spell it with a big
A, just for fun, because it is of so small a matter, but it was a
sunshiny matter for it caused some smiling, and it brought out real
kindness from several persons.

“Mr. Pingry goes in on the 8.17 train and attends to his furnace the
last thing, allowing twelve minutes to reach the station. When about
half-way there, yesterday, it occurred to him that he forgot to shut the
drafts. Just then he met Jerry Snow, the man at the Binney place, and
asked him to please call round our way, and ask for Mrs. Pingry, and say
Mr. Pingry had left the drafts open. Jerry said he would after going to
the post-office, but Mr. Pingry, fearing Jerry might forget, called
hastily at the door of Madam Morey, an elderly woman who does plain
sewing, and said he forgot to shut the furnace drafts; if she should see
a boy passing would she ask him to call at our door, and ask for Mrs.
Pingry, and tell her? Madam said she would be on the lookout for a boy,
while doing her baking.

“Now as Mr. Pingry was hurrying on, it came to him that he had not yet
made a sure thing of it, and at that moment he saw the woman who does
chore-work at the Binney’s, coming by a path across the field. He met
her at the fence, and asked if she would go around by our house and say
to Mrs. Pingry that Mr. Pingry had left the drafts all open. She agreed,
and Mr. Pingry ran to his train, a happy man.

“Now Madam Morey felt anxious about the furnace, and stepped often to
the window, and at last spied a small boy with a sled, and finding he
knew where we live, told him Mr. Pingry went away and forgot to shut the
furnace drafts and wished to send back word, and would the boy coast
down that way and tell Mrs. Pingry? The boy promised, and coasted down
the hill.

“Madam Morey still felt uneasy about the furnace, and not being sure the
boy would do the errand kept on the watch for another; and when the
banana-man stopped and made signs at her window ‘would she buy?’ she
wrote a few words on a bit of brown paper and went with him far enough
to point out the house and made signs, ‘would he leave the paper there?’
He made signs ‘yes?’ and passed on.

“Now at about half-past eight, our front doorbell rang and I heard a
call for me. I hurried down, and received the chore-woman’s message and
acted upon it at once.

“Sometime afterwards, as I was in the back-chamber, I heard voices
outside and saw six or eight small boys trying to pull their sleds over
a fence, and wondered how they happened to be coasting in such a place.
Presently I heard a commotion on the other side and went to the front
windows. All the sleds were drawn up near the steps, and the small boys
were stamping around like an army come to take the house. Seeing me they
all shouted something at me. They seemed so terribly in earnest, and
came in such a strange way, that I flew down, sure something dreadful
had happened—perhaps Willy was drowned! and I began to tremble. At sight
of me at the door they all shouted again, but I did not understand. I
caught hold of the biggest boy and pulled him inside, and said to him,
in a low, tremulous voice, ‘Tell me! What is it?’ He answered, in a
bashful way, ‘Mr. Pingry said he left the drafts open.’ ‘Thank you all!’
I said.

“Next, the banana-man, bobbing his head, and making signs, though I
shook my head ‘no.’ Finally up came Bridget with a slip of brown paper
having written on it, but no name signed: ‘Your furnace drafts are
open.’ Such a shout as went up from us!

“Grand company coming, I guess! exclaimed my sister, a short time
afterwards. Sure enough there stood a carriage and span. Jerry Snow, it
seems, forgot our furnace until he went to look at his own. He was then
just about to take Mrs. Binney out for an airing. He mentioned it to her
and she had him drive round with the message.

“By this time we were ready to go off, explode, shout, giggle, at the
approach of any one; and when Madam Morey stepped up on our piazza we
bent ourselves double with laughter, and my sister went down upon the
floor all in a heap, saying, ‘Do—you—suppose—she—comes—for that?’

“Even so. She had worried, thinking the hot pipes might heat the
woodwork, and half-expected to hear the cry of ‘fire!’ and bells
ringing, and could not sit still in her chair, and in the goodness of
her heart she left her work and came all the way over!

“Oh! we had fun with Mr. Pingry that evening. But now, my dear Miss
Myrtle, the funniest part of all was that Mr. Pingry did not forget to
shut the drafts!”

                                               _Miss Fillissy-Follissy._




                            A SLUMBER SONG.


[Music]

 1. Sleep, oh sleep, my lambs a-wea-ry! Shin-ing sun-beams all are o’er;
 ’Tis the time when lit-tle children Sail a-way to slum-ber shore.

 2. Glid-ing, glid-ing to the mu-sic Of a ten-der, tender lulla-by
 Gent-ly drift the lads and lass-es When the stars come out on high.

 3. Soft-ly to the swaying grass-es Fall the gracious drops of dew;
 Yet more soft-ly at the gloaming Close the bairn-ies’ eyes of blue.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

                           THE GROCER’S BOY.


Sammy Swattles wasn’t a bad boy, you understand; he was simply
thoughtless. He thoughtlessly did things which robbed him of peace of
mind for some time after he did them.

When Sammy was ten years old he had to leave school, to go to work for
Mr. Greens, the grocer, in order to help support his mother.

He did a great many things for the grocer, from seven o’clock in the
morning till six at night, but his principal work was to place large
paper bags on the scales and fill them with flour from the barrel.

When the bag weighed twenty-three pounds, Sammy had to seal it up and
take it to the family it was ordered for. The grocer allowed him two
cents for every bag he carried, over and above his wages, which were
$2.50 per week. Some weeks Sammy made over $3.00 which helped his mother
to run their little house quite comfortably.

Now, Sammy, in his thoughtlessness, used to sample quite a good deal of
the grocer’s preserved ginger. Every time he would pass the tin boxes of
ginger, he would thoughtlessly take a piece, and it would disappear in
the recesses of Sammy’s rosy mouth.

One night, after he had locked up all but the front door of the store,
he helped himself to quite a large piece of the ginger, and walked home.

He did not care for any supper that night. He felt as if bed was the
best place for his troubled little stomach.

He hadn’t been in bed two minutes when a little fierce man, with a white
cloth round his black body and a huge grin on his ebony face, bounded
into his room.

With a scream Sammy leaped out of bed and bounded out of the window.
With a yell the Indian was after him. Sammy flew down the road like a
runaway colt, the black man in his rear yelling like thunder and lions.
Sammy never ran so fast in his life, but the little black man gained on
him, and finally caught him!

Sammy pleaded hard to be spared to his mother, but the little man grimly
took him by the collar, and with one leap landed him on the island of
Ceylon, in the Indian Ocean, at a place called Kandy. Then he led Sammy
out into the country, and blew a whistle. In an instant they were
surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of men, women and boys, all as black
as Sammy’s captor. Sammy cried:

“What have I done! what have I done!” and they all cried:

“You have taken the ginger that we have gathered by hard work, without
permission, and you are condemned to live here for the rest of your life
on ginger alone!”

Then Sammy began to cry real hard, for he thought of his poor mother,
off there in Massachusetts, wondering day after day, “What has become of
my Sammy!”

And then to be compelled to eat nothing but ginger all his life! It was
awful! He already hated ginger. He looked so woebegone that they all
cried:

“If you will promise to be good, and think before you do things, we will
let you go! But if you don’t keep your promise we’ll get you again, and
then, look out!”

So Sammy promised, and ran for home. But the black people seemed to
regret having let him off so easily, and they all came trooping after
him!

You should have seen Sammy run! He went over through India, and across
Afghanistan, Persia and Turkey like a streak of lightning! He plunged
into the Mediterranean and swam across to Italy. From Italy he swam to
Spain; and across Spain, from Tarragona to Cape Finisterre, he ran like
the Rapids of the River St. Lawrence, the black people at his heels!

He was almost exhausted as he dove off Cape Finisterre into the broad
Atlantic, and he would have sunk down deep, for fifteen or twenty miles,
if a friendly dolphin hadn’t come along and invited him to ride on its
shiny back!

The black men gave up the chase then, and the dolphin swam over to
Massachusetts Bay, up Boston Harbor, to the Charles River, to the bridge
by Sammy’s home. There the dolphin said good-by, told Sammy to always be
a good boy, and then, with a flip of its tail, it rushed down the
river—and Sammy awoke!

It had all been a dream, of course; but it cured Sammy of
thoughtlesness, and nobody ever had cause again to say that Sammy
Swattles wasn’t all a nice little boy should be. He told his employer
all about it, and his employer said: “Well, be a good boy, and never do
anything without thinking of whether it’s right or wrong to do it.”

                                                   _John Ernest McCann._




                         AN ABSENT-MINDED MAN.


[Illustration]

[Illustration]

                  He lit a candle for young Ted.
                  This absent minded man.
                  —Twas time to send the boy to bed—
                  But something else came in his head,
                      Some problem or some plan.

                                   ◼

                His thoughts were miles and miles away,
                But still the taper there,
                While he was thinking, seemed to say,
                “Bed! Bed! I’ll burn out if I stay!”
                    And scolded with its glare.

                                   ●

                   And so he took Ted’s candle light
                   —Ted grinned, the little elf—
                   And bade, with manner most polite,
                   His son a very sweet good-night,
                       And went to bed himself.

                                   ◻




[Illustration: Good King Grin. KING GRIN PRINCE LAUGH]

                            Good King Grin.


[Illustration: THE JESTER.]

                 There is a King in Nonsense Land
                 Whose castle, neither tall nor grand,
                 Is gaily perched upon a hill
                 Behind the town of Jolliville.
                 A spangled jester lets you in—
                 Whoever calls on good King Grin.

[Illustration: “QUITE BALD.”]

                His height in feet is only four;
                Around his waist is one foot more;
                His mouth is wide; his eyes are twinkles
                Half hidden in a net of wrinkles;
                His beard is red; his hair is thin—
                In fact, quite bald is good King Grin.

[Illustration: PRINCESS GIGGLE.]

                 His family—beneath the sun
                 You never saw a happier one:
                 The good Queen Smile, so fair to see;
                 Prince Laugh, the heir-apparent he;
                 And Princess Giggle’s baby din—
                 Is life and joy to good King Grin.

                 Three ministers of state has he:
                 Prime Minister is Pleasantry;
                 In Foreign Matters, great and small,
                 Good-Nature ministers to all;
                 And Cheerfulness, when bills come in,
                 Is Treasurer to good King Grin.

[Illustration: Ministers of State]

                 His courser is a palfry stout,
                 And when the good king rides about,
                 The very babies crow for joy:
                 From peasant-man and peasant-boy,
                 From landed knight and all his kin,
                 Arise one cry: “Long live King Grin.”

[Illustration: _Ralph Bergengren._]




                         _A Funny Twin Brother_


Last sum-mer when we were in the coun-try hav-ing a hap-py ho-li-day, we
of-ten went in-to the hay-field, and you lit-tle ones may fan-cy the fun
we had. John-ny and Lil-ly rolled in the sweet fresh hay, and were
bu-ried and came up a-gain ma-ny and ma-ny a time; and just when we
thought there was not a bit of chub-by child to be seen, a round red
laugh-ing face would peep out, fol-lowed by a sort of wind-mill of arms
and legs.

It was on a bright sum-mer’s day in that hay-field that we met Tim and
his lit-tle mis-tress. “Who was Tim?” you say. Well, Tim was a don-key,
and such a hap-py pet-ted don-key has sel-dom been seen be-fore.
Liz-zy—the lit-tle girl you see in the pic-ture—was the far-mer’s
daugh-ter, and as she led Tim round her fa-ther’s field, she picked up
the sweet hay and fed him with it.

When Tim and lit-tle Liz-zy came near us, we all went up to pat the
don-key: then the lit-tle girl told us how good and gen-tle her Tim was.
“We are very luc-ky to have such a good don-key,” said she.

“And I think he is luc-ky to have such a good lit-tle mis-tress,” said
I.

“Oh, but he be-longs to us all,” an-swered the child, “and there are six
of us; we all feed and pet him. My father bought him when he was quite
lit-tle. He is five years old now; just the same age as my lit-tle
bro-ther Willy. So he is his Twin Bro-ther you see,” ad-ded Liz-zy
grave-ly.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]


[Illustration]

                    SAM ON THE KITCHEN FUNNEL BLEW,
                      THE DINNER-BELL JANE RANG;
                    THE BELLOWS MADE A NICE GUITAR,
                      MIN PLAYED WHILE ALICE SANG.

                    TOM CAME TO HEAR US, TABBY TOO,
                      WHO BROUGHT HER KITTENS THREE;
                    AND ALSO FLORA WITH HER PUP;
                      WE LET THEM ALL IN—FREE!

[Illustration: _S Birch_]


[Illustration]

                                   TO
                               WEE PEOPLE
                             WHO MAKE HOME
                           HAPPY WITH ARTLESS
                           PRATTLE AND MERRY
                           PLAY, THIS BOOK IS
                                LOVINGLY
                               DEDICATED.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.