"Oh, dear! it always _does_ rain when I want to go anywhere," cried
little Jennie Moore. "It's too bad! Now I've got to stay in-doors all
day, and I know I shall have a wretched day."
"Perhaps so," said Uncle Jack; "but you need not have a bad day unless
you choose."
"How can I help it? I wanted to go to the park and hear the band, and
take Fido and play on the grass, and have a good time, and pull wild
flowers, and eat sandwiches under the trees; and now there isn't going
to be any sunshine at all, and I'll have to just stand here and see it
rain, and see the water run off the ducks' backs."
"Well, let's make a little sunshine," said Uncle Jack.
"Make sunshine," said Jennie; "why how you do talk!" and she smiled
through her tears. "You haven't got a sunshine factory, have you?"
"Well, I'm going to start one right off, if you'll be my partner,"
replied Uncle Jack.
[Illustration]
"Now, let me give you three rules for making sunshine: First, don't
think of what might have been if the day had been better. Second, see
how many pleasant things there are left to enjoy; and, lastly, do all
you can to make other people happy."
"Well, I'll try the last thing first; and she went to work to amuse
her little brother Willie, who was crying. By the time she had him
riding a chair and laughing, she was laughing too.
"Well," said Uncle Jack, "I see you are a good sunshine-maker, for
you've got about all you or Willie can hold now. But let's try what we
can do with the second rule."
"But I haven't anything to enjoy; 'cause all my dolls are old, and my
picture-books all torn, and--"
"Hold," said Uncle Jack; "here's a newspaper. Now let's get some fun
out of it."
"Fun out of a newspaper! Why, how you talk."
But Uncle Jack showed her how to make a mask by cutting holes in the
paper, and how to cut a whole family of paper dolls, and how to make
pretty things for Willie out of the paper. Then he got a tea-tray and
showed her how to roll a marble round it.
And so she found many pleasant amusements; and when bedtime came she
kissed Uncle Jack, and said:
"Good-night, dear Uncle Jack."
"Good-night, dear little sunshine-maker;" said Uncle Jack.
And she dreamed that night that Uncle Jack had built a great house,
and put a sign over the door, which read: