My grandfather does give me nice things! Last birthday he gave me a
lovely box of tools, and he gave me the rocking-horse when I was quite
little, and the swing trapeze that hangs from the nursery ceiling, and
books and toys,--I can't remember them all now. But his last present was
best of all: it was a tricycle!
I was nine last birthday, and I couldn't help wondering--though it
sounds rather greedy--what grandfather would give me, because I thought
it wouldn't be a toy, and he had given me a book at Christmas, for he
said I was growing "quite a man."
When the birthday morning came, and I ran down to breakfast, there was
nothing at all from grandfather! I'm afraid I looked very disappointed
just at first; but presently we heard a little noise outside, and there
was grandfather himself, and a man with him, who was wheeling the
dearest little tricycle you ever saw.
It was rather hard work at first, and I soon got tired; but now I can go
ten miles with father, and not feel at all tired.
I'll tell you one thing that makes me so glad about my tricycle. I was
just going out on it one morning, when mother came running out of the
house, looking so pale and frightened that I was quite frightened too.
"Bertie," she said, "tell John to go at once to Dr. Bell's and ask him
to come here at once--_at once_, remember. Your father has cut his hand
very badly, and we can't stop the bleeding."
"I'll go, mother; let me go on the tricycle," I said.