|Little Ned's brother Tom called him a cry-baby, because his eyes were
always full of tears. His mother said that Ned had little buckets just
back of his eyes that were always in a hurry to tip over if he hurt his
toe or his finger, or did not have everything to suit him.
[Ill 0157]
"Now, Ned," she said, "cry real hard. I want to get the bowl full to-day
if I can, so that I may buy the little fish to-morrow morning when I go
to market."
Ann came into the room with a big white bowl. When he cried he must put tears into that bowl.
But Ned could not cry any more. The tears would not come. Ann said she
would have to wait until the next time Ned cried. So she put the bowl
on a table near by, that it might ready for the tears as soon as they
started again.
[Illustration: 0158]
But not a drop of salt water out of Ned's little tear-buckets ever fell
into the bowl.
As soon as it was put it under his eyes Ned always stopped crying. The
little fish was never bought. Ann said he could not live in the bowl
without any salt water to swim in.
But Ned was cured of crying. Tom could not call him a cry-baby any more.
When Ned heard of other little boys who cried very often, he always told
their mothers about his sister Ann's big white bowl, and the funny way
he had been cured of being a cry-baby.
--FLORENCE H. BIRNEY.
[Illustration: 0159]