very much like a real one. They had asked all their friends and the money
they received was to go to a children’s ward in a hospital. Every one of
their friends came and soon the circus began. First of all there was a
long parade while some of the children beat drums and others played tunes
on combs covered with tissue paper.
Two little girls rode ponies and on the heads of the ponies sat two
monkeys made of cloth! They had bead eyes!
A boy did a lot of fine tricks on a rocking horse, and there were all the
usual circus tricks, although perhaps not some of the more difficult ones.
After a little while a boy came out on the platform and said,
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Cats and Dogs, we have now to
offer a fine performance—a side show. We have shown you the regular acts
of the circus and we trust that you are pleased.” Here followed a great
deal of clapping and shouting.
“And,” the boy continued, “we are now to have the great privilege of
seeing the Frog-Child, the Snake-Lady, the Toad-Man, the Turtle-Babies.
Step this way, Ladies, Gentlemen, Boys, Girls, Cats and Dogs. Come right
inside the tent at your left and there you will see these things. There
is no extra charge for admission.”
All the children at once began to troop to their left through the side
tent.
“What could it mean?” they asked each other. What surprises they were
getting!
When they were inside the tent how they did laugh! One of the children
was in just such a green suit as Mr. Frog would wear and really looked
quite a good deal like a grandson of Grandpa Frog. He was hopping about
singing in a queer croaking voice,
“Galloo, Galloo, Goog-a-room, Goog-a-room.”
Another child who looked like a snake, because she wore an imitation
snakeskin, said, “Come and see the Snake-Lady. I eat things whole.” And
as she said this she swallowed a tiny crumb.
“I am the Toad-Man, come and see me,” grunted the Toad—or rather the
child who was dressed like one.
“We are the Turtle Babies. We snap, we play, we draw in our heads under
our shells!” And sure enough they were doing all these tricks.
Their costumes were really quite wonderful, although they had been made
mostly out of paper.
All the children who were looking on were quite delighted and said,
“We think you are marvelous!” And all the children dressed like animals
made bows and said thank you in voices that sounded a great deal like the
voices of snakes, toads, frogs and turtles.
AUGUST 6: The Bank Swallow
“Won’t you tell me what your name means?” asked Effie Elf of Mr. Bank
Swallow. “Really, you have such a curious name and I’ve always been
anxious to find out what it means.”
“My name is Bank Swallow because I and my family build our nests in holes
in banks. By banks I mean the banks out of doors and not the banks where
one saves one’s money.
“We are very friendly with one another, and we have big towns and
villages and cities of nests of Bank Swallows.
“We’re the very smallest of the Swallow family, I believe. And we can
always be known by our neck bands which we wear on our gray throats. Our
neck bands are much darker and show very clearly.
“We dress in simple brown and gray, though our throats are white.
“We have tunnels and long entrances to our homes, and at the end of our
tunnels we build the nest. Yes, we’re rather unusual, I believe.”
“Very unusual,” said Effie Elf. “Fancy nesting in a hole in a bank rather
than in a tree. That is quite odd, quite different from most of the
birds.
“So your name has nothing to do with banks where they have money?” she
asked.
“Nothing at all,” said the Bank Swallow. “We haven’t any need of money.
Of course if we needed it we’d probably save some for the bad days and
spend the rest on good insects to eat and other delicacies. But we don’t
have to pay for what we eat, so we don’t need any money.
“Besides, we’d be ashamed to open bank accounts for the banks are used to
so much money that they’d laugh at us.”
“Oh, nonsense!” said Effie Elf, “the good ones wouldn’t do that, for no
one who amounts to anything makes fun of any one else not having so much.
“People who don’t amount to much put on airs.”
“Then I’ll always be able to tell,” said the Bank Swallow.
AUGUST 7: The Cuckoo-Clock
Julius was very sleepy and he could hardly keep his eyes open. The whole
trouble was that he hated to do things on time. He did not like to go to
bed at the hour he was supposed to and he never, never wanted to get up
in the morning when his mother said, “Time to get up, Julius.”
And now he was sleepy, now in the middle of the afternoon. It was raining
hard outside and in the big library where he was sitting a large open
fire was burning merrily. Near the fireplace was a cuckoo-clock and
Julius always loved to watch the little cuckoo come out and tell any one
who happened to be listening just what time it was.
“It’s almost time for the cuckoo to come out,” said Julius. “But oh
gracious, how sleepy I am. I know I was late in going to bed last night
but I don’t see why I should be so dreadfully sleepy. I do hope I will
stay awake until the cuckoo says five o’clock. It is so much nicer to
hear him on the hour than at other times, because he only says ‘cuckoo’
once when the hand is at the half hour.”
“Cuckoo,” said the cuckoo bird in the clock. And then he said it four
times more. Each time he made a little bow as he spoke and when he had
said “cuckoo” for the fifth time, Julius was waiting to watch the little
door close.
The cuckoo in the clock always lives behind a little door over the face
of the clock, and when he is not telling the time he is in there.
But this time the door did not close. And the cuckoo stayed out of his
little home bobbing and saying “cuckoo” many times over, until at last it
sounded like “Julius, Julius, Julius.”
“Yes,” said Julius, “you are calling me by my right name. How are you,
Mr. Cuckoo Bird of the clock?”
The little bird was made of wood, to be sure, but he seemed so certain of
himself and so well satisfied that Julius felt he must be alive.
“I am well, I thank you kindly,” said the cuckoo bird. “But I don’t have
to ask you.”
“Why not?” asked Julius.
“Because I know,” said the cuckoo bird. “You are sleepy, and it’s not the
time to sleep. Ha, ha, ha. Whatever would you do if you were a clock, or
if your home was at the top of one?”
“Well, I am not a clock,” said Julius, “and I am jolly glad of it.”
“Tut, tut,” said the cuckoo bird. “You are getting quite cross, Master
Julius. Too little sleep. Well, well, I suppose I must forgive you. But
it’s a shame you couldn’t live in a clock for a time.”
“What do you mean?” asked Julius, who was quite frightened now. He felt
the little cuckoo bird would hop down and pick him right up and put him
in the clock.
“If you could live in a clock and take my place you would have to be on
time. Six o’clock would mean six o’clock and not half-past! Seven-thirty
in the morning would not mean a quarter past eight! Ah no, in the clock
we keep good time. We live on the moment and on the hour and half-hours
we come out to tell people to remember that the time is going by and they
mustn’t waste it for it is so extremely precious.”
“Don’t you believe in people sleeping?” asked Julius.
“To be sure, to be sure,” said the cuckoo, “but I believe they should
sleep at the right time. They should not choose another time for it, such
as the middle of the afternoon, because they sat up too late the night
before.”
Julius was very much ashamed. He felt the cuckoo bird knew that he had
been doing all that and he wished the bird would go back in his little
home and shut the door. He was getting more afraid every second that he
would be taken back there. And oh dear, how he would hate to live in a
clock.
“Just suppose,” said the cuckoo bird, “that I did things at the wrong
time. Suppose I should come out at six o’clock and tell every one it was
eight? You can’t imagine it, can you? And why not? Because I have had the
training of a clock. I have been an assistant in keeping the time and if
I don’t notice that you think more of the time I will put you back of the
clock.” The cuckoo bird banged his little door, and Julius, awaking with
a start, rubbed his sleepy eyes, and said,
“I shall always do things on time from now on for how dreadful it must be
to live back of a clock and have the hours depend so much on you.”
AUGUST 8: Zuzeppa, the Monkey
“Zuzeppa,” said daddy, “was a monkey who had come from Africa and he
was going to give a special performance of his acting. The special
performance was to be given on a day set aside by the keeper. Of course
it couldn’t be advertised all around as a circus could, but the keeper
told all his special children friends who came to the zoo very often and
they told their friends, and it got around so that for the day of the
performance the monkey house was filled with children.
“‘Let me shake hands with the performer,’ the keeper said, and he shook
hands with Zuzeppa. Then they each bowed, and the keeper said, ‘Now
Zuzeppa will show you his circus tricks.’
“So Zuzeppa hung by his tail and turned many somersaults; he swung back
and forth and jumped and twisted and turned. He did the most marvelous
of circus tricks and all the children clapped their hands and the other
monkeys yelled and screamed, ‘Well done, Zuzeppa.’
“No one else knew what the monkeys meant but every one knew they were
excited. They weren’t jealous of Zuzeppa, for they knew he wanted to
learn tricks and be a trick-performing monkey. Besides he had worked hard
enough to have a whole monkey house to himself for all afternoon.
“‘Now,’ said the keeper, ‘Zuzeppa will do his special trick. It has been
done before by monkeys but Zuzeppa never did it before, and he has been
practising it so he could do it beautifully for this performance.’
“The keeper took out a little wooden table and put a napkin upon it and
a cloth. Then Zuzeppa spread the cloth over the table, reached down in a
box the keeper had, and took out a knife and a fork and a spoon. He put
all these on the table and then tied the napkin around his neck.
“Next he took a little broken chair which was in his cage and sat upon it.
“The keeper acted as the waiter, and passed things to Zuzeppa. And what
do you suppose Zuzeppa did?”
“What?” asked the children.
“Zuzeppa behaved at the table just as though he were a real person. He
ate with his fork and he cut with his knife. He peeled his banana which
he had for dessert and then he ate it, wiping his mouth with his napkin.
“But when he was all through his meal and had put his hands in a finger
bowl to make them nice and clean, he took a pipe, which the keeper handed
to him, struck a match and lighted the pipe. He only smoked for a second
or two, blowing the smoke out, as he didn’t especially care for it. But
oh, how happy he was when the children laughed and clapped their hands!
And this is a true story!”
AUGUST 9: Mr. Bullfrog
“I am the king of this pond,” said Mr. Bullfrog. “If any one comes here
I don’t like, I swallow him! That is the way to get rid of creatures you
don’t like!
“Just swallow them!
“I’ve heard people talking who were rowing on the pond and who were
gathering pond lilies, and I’ve heard them say how they were interrupted
by other people when they had some important work to do.
“And that the people didn’t care in the least if they were interrupting!
“Goog-a-room, goog-a-room, I can imagine nothing more annoying.
“But I cannot understand why people do not swallow these other people who
come and annoy them and interrupt them.
“Just suppose an insect hops on my nose and says:
“‘Sorry, Mr. Bullfrog, but I do hope I’m not annoying you.’ I don’t pay
any attention to that speech. I know it’s not so. If he cared about not
annoying me he wouldn’t land on my nose.
“But I don’t bother to answer him back, for that would be beneath my
dignity. So I just swallow him!”
AUGUST 10: Allie Baa’s Letter
“Allie Baa,” said daddy, “is a rag doll. Her real name is Alice Gustava
Ariel Star Jewel Bright Carol Carmen Cucumber-Green.
“Mrs. Cucumber-Green is her mother’s make-believe name, or I should say
it was her mother’s make-believe name.
“Her mother is a grown-up lady now, but still she has kept Allie Baa, and
when little girls go to call on her she brings out Allie Baa and Allie at
once makes friends.
“Now, this summer Allie’s mother went to the seashore. She left Allie
in charge of the city apartment. She told Allie to keep watch over the
apartment and to see that all was safe. Allie was the name she was always
called by for short, as you know.
“Now, when Allie’s great-aunt’s birthday came she wanted to send her a
present as she had always done. So she sent some pillows for the porch
where her great-aunt loved to sit.
“On the day of the birthday in the excitement Allie’s great-aunt did not
see the little card which said:
“‘To Dear Great-Aunt Mary, with love and many happy returns from Allie
Baa.’
“But the next day when Allie’s great-aunt was looking over her presents
she found the little card and knew that it belonged with the present of
the pillows which she had opened and which she had thought some one else
had given to her.
“Well, she sat right down and she wrote Allie Baa this letter and sent
it to be given to Allie Baa, care of Allie’s mother, who was at the
seashore, as I have told you.
“This was the letter Allie received, and because she thought it was such
a nice letter she wanted to let Jack and Evelyn and their friends hear
it, too.
“‘My dear Allie Baa,’ the letter commenced.
“‘I find this morning on reading over my birthday cards that
the pillows are from you, so will you please accept my thanks
for your sensible, most useful, pretty gift. When I received my
presents yesterday it was a distinct loss not to find a gift
from you, and I thought perhaps you were too hot to shop or had
some other good reason. But I am glad I thought wrongly and you
did remember me as of old.
“‘I shall think of you as I lie, sit, or “back up” against
these pillows.
“‘I suppose you are in the city this summer, as I have not
heard of any “ocean dips” on your part.
“‘Perhaps salt water might not agree with you. It is well to
be cautious, which means careful, and run no risks! You might
feel a responsibility with guarding the apartment but you have
a calm, brave, quiet nature which will keep you from a nervous
breakdown, I feel sure.
“‘With love and thanks,
“‘Affectionately,
“‘GREAT-AUNT MARY.’
“Wasn’t that a nice letter. Well, Allie’s mother, on a trip up to town
took the letter to Allie, for she couldn’t very well go to the door and
get it from the postman if her mother had sent it on by mail. But oh, she
was so pleased to have a letter from Great-Aunt Mary.
“And she smiled in her rag doll way, and the paint on her face cracked
just a little with joy, for she loved Aunt Mary, who had often let her
sit near her and draw up close as an affectionate, loving doll likes to
do.
“And she told her mother to tell Great-Aunt Mary that she was so happy
with her letter, and that she hoped Great-Aunt Mary would have many, many
happy returns of her birthday, for she was the best Great-Aunt Mary that
ever lived!”
AUGUST 11: Chickadee
“I can’t understand,” said Mrs. Chickadee, “how creatures can live
together and quarrel all the time. It is such waste of perfectly good
time in the first place.
“In the second place it isn’t any fun. Now, singing and chirping and worm
hunting and bread-crumb parties are all lots of fun.
“But quarreling isn’t any fun at all. It makes creatures unhappy and it
makes them very often quite sad. Even if they get the best of a quarrel
they don’t feel all happy and excited as they do after a fine party.
“Now, the Sparrows fight all the time. But no one would ever describe the
Sparrow as a merry, happy little bird.
“There is the Starling. No one would describe him as a happy bird. And
the Starling is a fighter, too.
“We scold in fun, nice chuckling, scolding notes we give, but we are
famous for our good spirits. Chick-a-dee-dee-dee.
“I’m sure most people know what we look like with our little black-capped
heads and the patch of black right under our beaks.
“We have pretty throats, we’re told. The black patches are soft looking
and rather smart, too.
“We wear simple gray suits and have white touches on our wings.
“In the winter time we like to be about, too. And nothing upsets us.
We never grumble over the weather. We can’t understand how people can
grumble over the weather.
“To us it is so foolish. The weather is going to do just what it wants
to, in the first place, and isn’t going to pay attention to any one, nor
is it going to pay any attention to what any one thinks. And yet how few
seem to realize that!”
AUGUST 12: The Little Caterpillars
“Did our mother receive this leaf as a gift?” asked the first little
brown caterpillar.
“Oh no,” said the second little brown caterpillar. “She just liked the
looks of it or thought the taste of it would be good for us and so she
just took it and left it here.”
“Gracious,” said the third little brown caterpillar, “you know
caterpillars can’t wait until they’re asked to have their meals.”
“They can’t wait to be given leaves,” said the fourth little brown
caterpillar.
“They’d never get them if they did,” said the fifth little brown
caterpillar.
“And we must have leaves in our lives,” said the sixth little brown
caterpillar.
“How handsome we will be when we become Blue Swallow-tail Butterflies,”
said the seventh little brown caterpillar.
“I greatly look forward to that day,” said the eighth little brown
caterpillar.
“And then we shall fly about and drink honey,” said the ninth little
brown caterpillar.
“And people will forget that we were caterpillars and will say,
“‘Look at those beautiful butterflies with their blue markings,’” added
the tenth little brown caterpillar.
“We will pretend not to hear them but it will please us,” said the
eleventh little brown caterpillar.
“Of course it will please us,” said the twelfth little brown caterpillar.
“We will eat and grow strong so we will be very beautiful,” said the
thirteenth little brown caterpillar.
“And eat, too, because it is so pleasant to eat,” said the fourteenth
little brown caterpillar as he took an extra large nibble at their leaf
dining-room.
So they ate until they were a little bigger and then they went off, each
one alone, to look for more food and adventures.
AUGUST 13: The Catbird
“Tell me what happened, Mr. Catbird,” said Billie Brownie.
“Well, I was sitting on the fence, this very same fence upon which I’m
now sitting, and some children were playing in the yard near-by.
“While they were playing I made all sorts of queer sounds just like a cat.
“You know how I can take off the various sounds of a cat?”
“I most certainly do that,” said Billie Brownie.
“They didn’t know where the cat could be, and they began to look for the
cat.
“I almost fell off the fence laughing when they started to look for the
cat.
“Then when they were looking by the cellar stairs and under the old tree
yonder I took great chances that they might see that I was not the cat,
and I made the same sounds again.
“They kept saying to each other:
“‘Well, I’m sure I heard a cat that time.’
“I really and truly almost fell off the fence laughing. Then they came
back and went on with their games. They saw me sitting here and I had my
beak tight and looked as though I hadn’t made a sound.”
“I know,” said Billie Brownie.
“Then I sat very still, of course, and one of them said:
“‘Well, all I can see is that gray bird with the black cap.’
“Of course they meant they could see me, and I was the one making all the
sounds like a cat.
“They finished playing after a time and began to dig in the garden,
transplanting the lettuce and hoeing the beans and watering the
vegetables.
“Then I began to make sounds like the different birds and they would turn
to one another and say:
“‘What song is that? Whose voice was that? Do you know what bird that
could have been?’
“And they’d look about and not see any of the other birds, for hardly any
birds were around then, and I sat, looking so quiet and meek.
“And then I heard one of them say:
“‘I still don’t see any other creature but that gray bird.’
“I thought surely then that they knew I was fooling them, but I found out
they didn’t know I could make sounds like a cat and sing like the other
birds and sometimes like a mocking-bird, too.
“But they didn’t know. And they’ve all gone off now. And still they’re
wondering where the cat could have been which they thought they heard,
and where all the birds were they were unable to see.
“Ha, ha, ha, that is the greatest joke—to think I fooled them all.”
“Well, you’re a smart bird, there is no mistake about that,” said Billie
Brownie, “and I can tell you I admire your smartness.”
“I fooled them, I fooled them,” chirped Mr. Catbird. “They didn’t know
the catbird when they saw him, nor did they know him when they heard him
at his little jokes!”
AUGUST 14: The Fairy Queen’s Story
This was the story the Fairy Queen told before her banquet the other
evening.
“An old lady had a little cabin home just off these woods. Her only
companion was a cat. The cat was black but two paws were white, and the
old lady thought they were very wonderful.
“Now and again the old lady had to go into the village to buy food.
Sometimes the cat would follow, wearing a little jingling bell, for the
old lady wanted to be sure that the cat had lots to eat, but that he
would never get a bird.
“That was why she had him wear the collar with the little bell. The bell
warned the birds he was coming, so they could get away. He could be heard
coming along by the sound of the tingling bell.
“But this time, when the old lady went into the village the cat was
sleepy and sat on the porch in the sunshine.
“‘Will you come, pussy?’ she asked. But the pussy blinked his eyes as
though to say, ‘I am sleepy.’ So she went off.
“When she came back she found to her horror that the cottage had been
burned down. Some one had left a match lighted in the woods, and a fire
had started which had spread. But even though the house had burned down
the cat sat in front of where the house should be trying to say, ‘I am
sorry, but at least I am here to welcome you.’ And the old lady hugged
her cat and said:
“‘You are always glad to welcome me, and with you here I do not feel so
badly about the house.’
“But,” said the Fairy Queen, “I used my magic wand, and in three minutes
and four seconds and two quarter-seconds the house was up again—and the
old lady had both her home and her cat.”
“That was a real fairy tale,” the fairies and their friends all said.
“It was indeed,” said the Fairy Queen. “It was about make-believe
characters for a make-believe story, but that makes it a real Fairy Tale,
eh?” And then they all enjoyed the Fairy Queen’s fine banquet.
AUGUST 15: A Hospital Circus
“The circus was in the city,” said daddy, “and every day the circus
people and the animals had performed for thousands and thousands of
children and many, many grown-ups. ‘You know,’ said one of the clowns,
‘that I think it would be a good idea some morning when we haven’t any
performance and no parade and no practice performance, if a good many of
us went to one of the hospital yards and performed for the children who
can’t get out and see us.’ And they did! Every little child was either
in a balcony bed or in a wheeled chair when through the big doors of the
large hospital yard there came a parade—a real circus parade.
“And then the circus band struck up a fine tune and the clowns marched
about and made jokes and giggled—oh, how they did laugh! And the children
all laughed too and clapped their hands. The lady walked the tight-rope
with a parasol over her head, ponies ran around the yard, and there were
some trapezes for those who swung and hung by their knees and their feet.
“The elephants did their act too—and the children fed them peanuts!
“But happier than any child, happier than any of the circus people who
had come to make the sick children happy, was the merry, jolly old clown
who had thought it all up!”
AUGUST 16: The Fire
“Quack, quack, quack, help, help, help,” shrieked and cackled more than
one hundred thousand ducks at the same time.
“Quack, quack, help, help, help,” they kept on cackling.
“There must be some trouble over at the duck farm,” said a man who was a
fireman and who was sitting outside the firehouse in a town some distance
away when he heard this quacking. He told another fireman that there
surely must be some trouble at the duck farm.
“I think,” said the fireman, “I will get out my spy-glass and see what I
can make out.”
For the quacking kept up and still it sounded very queer to the firemen.
“Don’t you suppose,” said the second fireman, “that one of the ducks has
been hurt and the others are quacking in sympathy?”