little old woman that rides her donkey to town every day? She is my
daughter. She is not old; but she was a cross child. She fretted and
pouted, and scolded and screamed. She frowned till her brow began to
wrinkle. I do not know whether a fairy enchanted her or not, but when she
became angry there was one wrinkle that could not be removed. The next
time she was mad, another wrinkle remained. When she found that the
wrinkles would not come out she became mad at that, and of course, every
time she got into a passion there came other wrinkles. Then, too, her
temper grew worse. Her once beautiful voice began to sound like a cracked
tin horn. The wrinkles soon covered her face; then they grew crosswise;
you see it is all in beggars' presses. She got old; she shrivelled up;
she stooped over. She became so cross that she spends most of her time in
that funny little old house, to keep away from the rest of us. She must
have something to do, and so she gets angry at the stones and breaks them
up. She then carries them to the city and throws them into the river. She
must have something to beat, and so we let her have this poor donkey,
whose skin is thick. She beats him, and thus people are saved from her
ravings. I do not know whether she will ever come to her senses or not. O
Miriam, my daughter!"
At last Tilda dreamed that the funny, wrinkled, cross, little old woman,
got down one day off her donkey, poured the stones out of the bag, and
came and sat down by the beautiful lady. Then the funny little old woman
cried. She put her head in the lap of the beautiful lady, and said, "O
mother, how shall I get these wrinkles away!"
And the beautiful lady kissed her and said, "Ah! my daughter, if you will
but cast out the bitterness from your heart, as you poured the stones
from the bag, I shall not care for the wrinkles?"
The next day Tilda saw the funny little old woman feeding and petting the
donkey. Then she saw her carrying food to a poor widow. And every time
the funny little old woman did a kind act there was one wrinkle less on
her face. And then she went into a hospital, and she was so kind to the
sick that they all loved the funny little old woman. And still the
wrinkles grew fewer, and the form grew straighter, and the face grew
fresher, until all the people in the hospital said, "Our funny little old
woman is really getting younger." And younger and still younger she
became, until the beautiful lady kissed her beautiful Miriam again, and
the music came back into her voice once more. And Tilda Tulip thought in
her dream that Miriam looked like herself, and that the beautiful lady
seemed like her own mother. And then she waked up and found it morning,
for she had dreamed all this long dream in one night.
And when she was about to fly into a passion with her stockings, in
dressing, the thought of the funny little old woman and her face in
beggars' presses kept her from it. When she was dressed she told uncle
Jack all about the dream, and he smiled.
"Suppose you try the plan that the funny little old woman did, and see if
you can't get rid of some of your wrinkles," he said to Tilda.
WIDOW WIGGINS' WONDERFUL CAT.
Widow Wiggins was a wee, wiry, weird woman, with a wonderful cat--a very
wonderful cat, indeed! The neighbors all said it was bewitched. Perhaps
it was; I don't know; but a very wonderful cat it was. It had a strange
way of knowing, when people were talking, whether what they said was
right or wrong. If people said what they ought not to say, wee Widow
Wiggins' wonderful cat would mew. Perhaps the cat had lived so long with
the wee, wiry, weird widow woman, who was one of the best in the world,
that it had gotten her dislike to things that were wrong. But the wee
widow's neighbors were afraid of that cat. When Mrs. Vine, a very vile,
vinegar-tongued, vixenish virago, abused her neighbors to the wee, wiry,
weird, widow woman, the Widow Wiggins' wonderful cat would mew. And so
the vile, vixenish virago wished the cat was dead. And when slender,
slim, slippery Sly Slick, Esq., tried to persuade the widow to swindle
her neighbor, the cat mewed furiously. And so it came that Mr. Slick did
not like the wee widow's wonderful cat. In fact, he said it was a
nuisance. And Tilda Tattle, the tiresome-tongued, town tale-bearer, could
not abide the cat, because it mewed all the time she was tattling.
And so it happened that good Deacon Pettibone, and his wife, who was even
better than the deacon, were about the only visitors the wee, weird Widow
Wiggins had. As the deacon never said any harm of anybody, and as the
deacon's wife never thought any harm, and as the wee widow woman never
felt any harm, the cat would lie stretched out on the hearth all day
while these three good people talked.
But though the deacon was good, and his wife was better, yet the deacon's
oldest son was not the boy he ought to have been. Somehow or other, as it
will happen sometimes, he listened to everybody but his father and his
mother. Bad company led him astray. At first the deacon did not suspect
him; but when he showed signs of having been drinking, the deacon was
very severe. I am afraid there was not enough of kindness in the father's
severity. At any rate, after awhile, Tom was told that if he repeated the
offence he must go from home. Tom had got to be a hard boy. The deacon
felt greatly provoked. But when a boy shows that he is not able to
overcome temptation while he is at home, I am not sure that he will be
any better if he is sent by himself. I don't think that helps it. But Tom
was bad, and so he had no right to complain. He yielded to temptation,
and was sent away, his father telling him that he should never come back
again. Deacon Pettibone thought he was doing right, but I am afraid he
was angry.
Well, when Tom got away he did not get any better. He went down faster.
At last his health broke down. He thought of home as he walked around
hardly able to stand up. But the deacon would not ask him back, nor would
he encourage him even by a kind look to ask to be taken back again. The
deacon's wife tried to persuade him. She cried. But the deacon said he
must not break his word. His wife told him that a rash word ought to be
broken where it did others harm. The deacon's wife grew sick, and the
vile, vinegar-tongued, vixenish virago said that the deacon was an old
brute. The tattling, tiresome-tongued, town tale-bearer talked about a
good many things that she _might_ say, if she wanted to, and she did say
that the deacon and his wife did not get on like angels. But the wee,
wiry, weird Widow Wiggins watched wearily by the bedside of the sick Mrs.
Pettibone. And still Deacon Pettibone refused to break his word, though
he was breaking his wife's heart, and breaking God's command, and ruining
his son.
At last the sick mother, longing for her son, thought of a plan by which
to bring her husband to reason.
"Fetch your cat over the next time you come," she said to the wee, wiry,
widow woman.
And so when the wee, weird Widow Wiggins came again, the wonderful cat
followed her and lay down by the stove. Soon after the deacon came in,
looking very sad but very stern.
"Did you see Tom?" asked his wife.
"No, I didn't," said the deacon, "and I don't want to."
"Mew!" said the cat.
The deacon noticed the cat, and got a little red in the face; but he went
on talking.
"I tell you what, wife, Tom has made his bed and he must lie on it,
that's all!"
"Mew! mew! mew!"
"I can't break my word anyhow; I said he shouldn't come back, and he
shan't; so now there's no use in pining yourself to death over a
scapegrace."
"Mew! mew! mew! m-e-e-o-w!" shrieked the cat, with every bristle on end,
and her claws scratching the floor.
"Mrs. Wiggins, I wish you would keep that miserable cat at home," said
the deacon; and so the wee widow woman took up the wonderful cat and
carried it home.
But the poor deacon couldn't rest. That night he thought he could hear
that cat mewing at him all the time. He remembered that he had not seen
Tom for some days. What if he was dying? It was a long night. The deacon
at last got to thinking of the touching and wonderful Parable of the
Prodigal. And then in the stillness he thought he could hear something in
his heart mewing at him.
At last daylight came, and he hastened to find Tom in a wretched garret
racked with disease. He brought him home tenderly, and Tom got well both
in his body and in his soul.
The Chicken Little Stories.
SIMON AND THE GARULY.
Chicken Little fixed herself up in her new rocking-chair, set her mouth
in a very prim fashion, leaned her head on one side, and began to rock
with all her might, jerking her feet from the floor every time.
"I yish," she began, "I yish somebody yould tell some stories yat yould
be little for me to hear."
And having made this speech, which was meant as a hint for me, she rocked
harder than ever, nearly upsetting herself two or three times.
"What shall it be about?" I said.
"'Bout some naughty boy or 'nother."
She likes to hear of naughty boys, but not of naughty girls. She thinks
stories of naughty girls are a little personal. And so, with her chair
going and her shining eyes peering out from under her overhanging
forehead, I began
_THE STORY._
Simon was a selfish fellow. He was always willing anybody should divide
good things with him, but was never willing, himself, to divide with
anybody else. He was never willing to play with others, for fear he would
not be treated right. His two brothers and his sister had their playthings
together, but Simon would not play with them, for fear he should not get
his rights in all things, and so he took his little stock and set up for
himself. His brothers and sister, of course, by putting theirs together,
had many more than he. Then, too, by working together, they managed to
fix up many nice things. But poor Simon had nobody to help him, and
nobody to play with him. So he came to feel very bad. He thought
everybody was angry with him.
One sunny afternoon, when the other children were laughing and shouting
merrily, poor Simon tried in vain to be happy by himself. Something in
his throat kept choking him.
("I guess it was the cry that choked him," broke in the Small Chicken. "I
had a cry in my throat yesterday. It was bigger than my fist, and most
choked me to death, till I let it out.")
Yes, that was what hurt him, and presently he let it out, as you say, and
had a good, hard cry. Then gradually he went off into a sort of doze.
Soon he felt something strike him on the head.
"Wake up! wake up!"
Simon opened his eyes, and saw a funny, little, old man standing over
him, who kept one of his eyes shut all the time, and looked out of the
other with the queerest twinkle in the world. He had a knotty stick in
his hand, and was tapping Simon over the head with it.
"What do you want?" growled Simon.
With that the old man hit him another sharp blow over the head.
"Get up," he said, "and come with me, and I will show you where I live. I
am one of the Garulies."
Simon got to his feet, partly because he was afraid of another blow from
the cudgel, and partly because he had a very great desire to know
something of the Garulies.
"Come along! come along!" said the queer little man, as he gave Simon
another tap.
He took the road through the woods pasture, down under Swallow Hill, and
then through the blackberry patch, until they came to the brook known as
"Bee Tree Run." Here, just at the foot of a large sycamore, and among its
roots, was fastened a curious boat, made of a large turtle shell turned
upside down.
"Get in! get in!" squealed the little old Garuly.
"I am too large," said Simon; "that craft will sink if I step in."
In an instant the little man whirled round and hit him three tremendous
raps over the head with his cudgel, shouting, or rather _squeaking_,
"Smaller! smaller! smaller!"
The blows made Simon's head ring, but when he recovered himself, he found
that the turtle-shell boat appeared a great deal larger than before. Not
only that, but every thing about him appeared larger. He soon discovered,
however, that he was smaller, and that that was what made other things
seem larger. For you know we measure everything by ourselves.
("Mamma doesn't," said the Chicken; "she measures with a yard-stick.")
Well, Simon prided himself on being so big, and it was not pleasant to
him to find himself suddenly become so small that a large rooster could
have looked down upon him. But he did not say any thing, for fear of old
Garuly's stick, but just got into the boat as soon as possible. The old
man got in, too, and they were soon floating down the stream. The brook
seemed like a river, and the grass upon the banks was like trees, to
Simon, now. The old Garuly guided the boat over the rapids, that seemed
frightful to Simon, and floated it down to where the cliffs were steep,
and presently came to a place where the water runs under a large rock.
The old man steered the queer craft into this dark, cave-like place, and
shot up to a shelving landing-place.
"Get out!" he squeaked.
Simon did as he was commanded.
"Go in! go in!" cried the Garuly, pointing to a hole in the cliff.
"I am too large," said Simon.
And immediately the old man struck him over the head three times, as
before, crying,
"Smaller! smaller! smaller!"
Simon now found himself not more than half as large as he was before. He
went in with the Garuly, who had also grown smaller. Inside there was the
daintiest chamber, all full of beautiful shells wrought into tiny
articles of furniture. The floor was paved with shining pebbles, and the
room was lit up by three fire-flies and two glow-worms.
"How could you make the place so beautiful?" cried Simon.
"The Garulies work together," said the old man, sharply.
The little man told Simon to go in through another door, but Simon was
still too large for that, and so the Garuly again pounded him, crying,
"Smaller! smaller! smaller!"
Once in, Simon saw indeed the treasures of the Garuly's household. There
were easy-chairs, made of the hulls of hickory-nuts; hammocks, made of
the inside bark of the paw-paw; wash-bowls, curiously carved from the
hulls of beech-nuts; and beautiful curtains, of the leaves of the silver
poplar. The floor was paved with the seeds of the wild grape, and
beautifully carpeted with the lichens from the beech and maple trees. The
beds were made of a great variety of mosses, woven together with the
utmost delicacy of workmanship. There was a bath-tub made of a
mussel-shell, cut into beautiful cameo figures.
"How wonderful!" cried Simon, clapping his hands.
"The Garulies work together!" said the old man, more decidedly than
before.
Simon noticed that his own voice was beginning to squeak like that of the
old Garuly himself. But after seeing the interior of his dwelling, he
would not have minded being changed into a Garuly.
The old man was now leading him out through a different entrance. Then
along a path they went until they came to a fence, the rails of which
seemed to Simon to be larger than logs. They crawled through the fence,
and found themselves in a farm-yard. The chickens seemed to be larger
than those great creatures that geologists say once lived on the earth,
and that were as high as a house. Presently they came to a bee-stand. The
bees seemed to Simon to be of immense size, and he was greatly afraid;
but the old Garuly spoke to the fierce-looking sentinel bee that stood by
the door and shook one of his antennæ in a friendly way.
("His Aunt Annie?" said Chicken Little. "What do you mean?"
"His antennæ are his feelers, the little hair-like things that stand out
from his head.")
Now the bees seemed to know the Garuly, and so they let him pass in. But
poor Simon had to be pounded down again before he was small enough to go
in. When he got in, he saw a world of beauty. Being so small himself, and
so near to the bees, he could see how beautiful their eyes were, made up
of hundreds of little eyes, with little hairs growing out between them.
And then, too, the honey-comb seemed like great, golden wells, full of
honey. Each well seemed as large as a barrel. They climbed up along the
sides of the combs, and saw some bees feeding the young, some building
cells, some bringing in honey, some feeding the queen bee, some clearing
out the waste matter, and others standing guard. They all seemed
cheerful.
"Bees all work together!" piped the old man. "No bee is selfish. These
bees will not live to eat this honey. Bees that work hard in summer only
live to be about two months old. This honey is stored for others. But see
how happy they all are. How much may be done by those who work together
cheerfully."
Out of the hive they went, and back toward the Garuly's house. But the
old man turned aside to go to an ant-hill.
"Let's go in here," said the Garuly.
"No, I am too large," said Simon.
"Smaller! smaller! smaller!" cried the Garuly, beating him over the head
again, until Simon was not much larger than the ants, and the ants
appeared to be as large as ponies. Down the well-like hole they climbed,
until they entered the chambers of the ants. Here all were busy, some
carrying out earth, others excavating new chambers, others caring for the
eggs, others bringing in food, while others were clearing out the road.
But no one grumbled, none said that he had the heaviest load.
"See!" cried the Garuly, "the little ants work together. They have all
things in common. There is no selfishness and no quarrelling among them."
Just then a wise old ant came up, and hearing the Garuly's remark, he
said,
"Did you never hear the
_"STORY OF THE SELFISH ANT?_
"There was once a selfish ant who could never be satisfied. He always
thought he had the hardest work in the world. If he carried burdens, he
complained that those who cared for the eggs had the easiest time; and if
he had charge of the eggs, he wished to be changed to some other kind of
work. At last he thought he would set up for himself. It was exceedingly
hard work for him to dig and find his own food with no help, so that half
the summer was gone before he got a place to live in, and a sorry place
it was. Before he got any food laid by, the rain filled up his house, and
he had to spend another month in digging. And so, with one mishap and
another, and no one to help him, the summer was soon almost gone, and he
had no store for winter. When the first frost came, the selfish fellow
came back, heartbroken and crestfallen, and begged to be taken into the
colony again. All winter long he had to eat the bread that others had
gathered, and he never afterward grumbled because his work was a little
harder than that of others."
"You see," said the Garuly, "that the ants work together. What a shame it
is that you should not be able even to play with your brothers and
sister!"
And with that the little old man turned his one eye on Simon, and it
shone like a coal of fire, and Simon thought he could feel it burning
him. Just then an ant came up, who had heard the conversation, and asked
the Garuly what it meant.
"He will not even play with his brothers," said the old man, looking
fiercer than ever.
"Put him out!" cried the ant. And then a hundred ants cried, "put him
out!" and they began tugging at him with all their might. One caught hold
of his right foot and another of his left, one took him by the arm and
another by the head, and as they were nearly as big as he was, they were
about to carry him off bodily, when Simon suddenly awoke, and started up,
to find that instead of the ants tugging at him, it was the other
children, who had come to awaken him, for fear he would catch cold
sleeping in the night air, and to find that what he thought was the one
fiery eye of the Garuly, was the full moon shining through the trees.
* * *
"There," said the Wee Chick, "that spoils the story. I don't want it to
be a dream. What made 'em yake him up so twick?"
"Was he better afterward?" said Fairy.
"Yes, for the very next day he moved to the same playhouse with the rest
of the children, and whenever he was selfish he would look around to see
if the old Garuly was looking at him out of one eye."
THE JOBLILIES.
We have oak trees and green grass at our house, what many children in
crowded cities do not get. Three little girls love to play in the green
grass, with some pet chickens, and a white, pink-eyed rabbit for
companions. Now, you must know that I am quite as fond of the oaks and
the grass and the blue sky as Sunbeam, or Fairy, or the brown-faced
Little Chick. And so it happens, when the day is hot, and the lazy
breezes will not keep the house cool, that I just move my chair and table
out by the lilac-bush that grows under the twin oaks, and then I think I
can write better. And there I sit and watch the trains coming and going
to and from the great, bustling city, only a dozen miles away, or listen
to the singing of the robins while I write.
I was sitting thus one dull, hot afternoon, trying to write; but it was a
lazy day; the robins had forgotten to sing, the little sparrows that live
up in the oaks had stopped twittering, and the very honey bees were
humming drowsily, when Chicken Little came up with a wreath of white
clover around her head, and begged for a story. The older children wanted
one, also, and so I had to tell one. To tell the truth, I was a little
lazy myself, and so I willingly sat down in the grass among the children
and began.
"Shall I tell about a lazy girl about as big as Chicken Little?" I asked.
"No, sir," she said; "tell about a lazy boy that was as big as Sunbeam."
Sunbeam laughed at this, and nodded her head for me to go on.
And so I began thus: "Little Lazy Larkin laughed and leaped, or longed
and lounged the livelong day, and loved not labor, but liked leisure."
"Ha! ha!" cried the Wee Chick; "that sounds so funny!"
"It's got so many l's, that's the reason," said Fairy.
"Tell it right," said Sunbeam.
"Well, then," I said, "Larkin was an indolent juvenile, fond of
mirthfulness and cachinatory and saltatory exercises--"
"I don't know what you mean!" said Fairy, just ready to get angry.
"Sech awful big words!" cried the Little Pullet; "they is as big--as
big as punkins!"
"I guess that's what they call hifalutin," said Sunbeam; "now do tell it
right."
And so I told it "right."
Larkin was an idle fellow, and was so utterly good-for-nothing, that he
came to be called "Lazy Larkin." It is a dreadful thing to get a bad name
when you are young. It sticks to you like a sand burr. Larkin would
neither work nor study. He did not even like good, hearty play, for any
great length of time, but was very fond of the play that boys call
_mumble-the-peg_, because, as he said, you could sit down to play it. He
fished a little, but if the fish did not bite at the first place, he sat
down; he would not move, but just sat and waited for them to come to him.
He had gone out to Bass Lake to fish, one day, in company with some other
boys, but they had put him out of the boat because he was too lazy to row
when his turn came. The others were rowing about, trolling for pickerel,
and he sat down on a point of land called "Duck Point," and went to
fishing. As the fish would not bite, he sat looking at them in the clear
water, and wishing that he was a fish--they had such a lazy time of it,
lying there in the sun, or paddling idly around through the water. He saw
a large pickerel lying perfectly still over a certain spot near the
shore. When other fish came near the pickerel, it darted out and drove
them off, and then paddled back to the same place again. Larkin dropped
his bait near by, but the fish paid no attention to it, and, indeed,
seemed to have nothing to do but to lie still in the same place.
"I wish I were a pickerel," said the lazy fellow; "I wouldn't have to
carry in wood or pull weeds out of the garden, or feed the chickens, or
get the multiplication table, or--or--do anything else;" and he gave one
vast yawn, stretching his mouth so wide, and keeping it open so long,
that it really seemed as if he never would get it together again. When it
did shut, his eyes shut with it, for the fellow was too lazy to hold them
open.
"Ha! ha! lazy fellow! lazy fellow!"
Larkin heard some one say this, and raised up his head to see who it was.
Not finding any one about, he thought he must have been dreaming. So he
just gave one more yawn, opening his mouth like the lid of an old tin
coffee-pot, and keeping it open nearly a minute. Then he stretched
himself upon the grass again.
"Ha! ha! lazy fellow! lazy fellow!"
This time there seemed to be half a dozen voices, but Larkin felt too
lazy to look up.
"Ha! ha! very lazy fellow!"