“I wonder what this is.
I guess it is a kernel of corn.
I wonder how it came here
All alone by itself.
I guess I don’t know.
I wonder if it can be planted
In the grass in our yard.
Yes!”
When he said “Yes!” he stooped down and dug a hole in the ground in the
dooryard with his fingers.
Then he put the kernel of corn in the hole and covered it over with
dirt.
Afterwards he stood up and sang at the top of his voice, “Now I guess
it will grow!”
Of course it grew!
After a few days it poked itself up through the earth to make Little Me
Too remember. For Little Me Too had forgotten all about it.
When he saw it poking its head up through the grass, he didn’t remember
even then that it was the kernel of corn.
It had changed.
When he put it into the ground and covered it with dirt, it was yellow
and hard.
Now it was green and soft. It looked somewhat like the rest of the
grass,—but not _just_ like it, or Little Me Too wouldn’t have noticed
it.
[Illustration]
When he saw it he said, “There’s a grass that wants to be different.
Perhaps it’s the grandfather grass.”
He let it alone, and he got the man with the lawn mower to let it
alone. That gave it a good chance to grow.
It grew just as fast as it could, and as soon as it was big enough it
showed Little Me Too that it was no grandfather grass, but a cornstalk.
The man with the lawn mower said so.
Then it was that Little Me Too remembered. When he remembered, he said,
“Yes, it grew.”
When it had grown to be taller than Little Me Too, people walking along
the sidewalk would look at it, and say, “What a fine garden!”
The mother said, “I am glad it is something that can’t find its way
into the nursery.”
Little Me Too it was who first saw the ear of corn growing on the stalk.
He showed it to some people, and there were others who saw it without
having it shown to them.
Each of them asked for a bite from it when it should be ripe.
Little Me Too said “yes,” to them all.
When he had said “yes” to thirty-one people, his mother said, “Don’t
say ‘yes’ to any more people; you won’t have corn enough for them all.”
Little Me Too promised not to say “yes” again, but sometimes he
forgot, and by the time the corn was ripe he had said “yes” to fifty
people.
But he had plenty of corn, for it was an ear of pop corn.
After it was popped over the nursery fire it filled a big, big bowl.
—_Julia Dalrymple._
“DO YOU KNOW?”
Do you know
That you can go
In the early morning light
When the dew is on the grass
And find the little cobweb tents
The fairies sleep in all the night?
But, alas, you’ll find no traces
Of their little fairy faces!
—_Edith Colby Banfield._