_"Guten morgen! Guten morgen!"_ [*]
Sounded at my door,
Eager footsteps in the entry
Outside, and before
I could answer, on the threshold,
Happiest in the land,
Stood my little German neighbor,
Bowing, hat in hand!
[Illustration: (rudolph)]
But I scarcely knew my Rudolph.
What do you suppose
Changed him so? He laughed and shouted,
"Don't you see my clothes?
I'm a boy at last! And even
If my hair does curl,
Folks won't ever dare to call me
Any more, a girl,--
"Will they?" "No," I said, half sadly,
You're a big boy now!
"I shall miss my baby Rudolph."
Such a saucy bow
As he gave me! But his sweet face,
Brimming o'er with joy,
Made me glad we'd changed our baby
To a noisy boy.
M. M.
---
[Footnote *] Good-morning.
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For the Companion.
"PINKY."
Pinky was a white mouse that a friend of mine bought when it was very
young, and so small that when it was more than two months old it would
amuse itself by running back and forth through her finger ring, as she
held it on the table like a hoop; and he seemed to like his plaything so
well, that when he got too large to get through, his mistress let him
wear it round his neck as a collar. But soon he outgrew it, and then
Pinky had to give up his little gold toy altogether, and made friends
with a spool of cotton, which he would get out of the work-basket, stand
up on the end and sit upon and then with his tiny paws unwind the
cotton, twirling the spool round on the polished table, and so giving
himself a ride, and looking very cunning perched up there.
Sometimes his mistress would hold a knitting needle over the table, and
he would put his fore paws over it, and dance up and down the whole
length of the needle until he was tired.
He had a little red cloak with a hood, and he would stand quite still to
have it put on, and then scamper off to a little block house the
children had, and would peep out of one of the windows, looking for all
the world like a little "Red Riding Hood."
There is always danger in letting our playful pets play too much, and
one day poor Pinky laid in his kind mistress' hand, seemed tired and
sick, and the next day in her hand he died.
The moral of this true story is,--always let your pets, whether puppies,
or kittens, or anything else, have plenty of time to rest and sleep.
R. R.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For the Companion.