"My lit-tle Har-vey was ver-y fond of fruit and flow-ers. When he was a
wee bit of a lad he liked noth-ing bet-ter than to pull the tu-lips off
by their heads and fill the crown of his hat with them. We told him that
he must not do this, for there were not e-nough of them to waste in that
way. He looked sad, but sat down un-der a tree, and seemed in deep
thought. He was-n't more than three years old then.
"We left him and went in-to the house. In a few min-utes he went soft-ly
down the gar-den walk, took off his shoes, stooped down, and scooped up
earth e-nough to fill them, and then, in his stock-ing-feet, ran in
a-mong the tulips and filled each cup full of the earth, emp-ty-ing all
from his shoes in-to them. Daugh-ter and I had been watch-ing the child
from the li-bra-ry win-dow. We crept out of the house and got in-to the
gar-den as quick-ly as we could, and peep-ing be-hind the hon-ey suc-kle
ar-bor, lis-tened while the lit-tle fel-low talked a-loud. 'Now 'ou
tu-lips, dear, make haste and grow. All this dirt will make 'ou grow, I
know, and then there'll be e-nough tu-lips for me to fill my 'it-tle hat
full ev'ry day!'
"The lis-ten-ers had to laugh at that. My ba-by-boy dropped his shoes
and ran as fast as he could a-way from us, 'round-and-'round, through
the damp gar-den paths! He led us quite a chase be-fore we could catch
him."
How A-my and Jam-ie laughed when Grand-ma told "tales out of school" as
she called them.
[Illustration: ALL HER CHILDREN LIKED TO VISIT GRANDMA.]
"But I must just tell you this, my dear, for the tu-lip-story al-ways
makes me think of it.
"There came a day, at last, when we had to send Har-vey to school.
Tom-my Short took him, with his green wool-len bag, slate, pen-cil, and
two cook-ies, just round the cor-ner to Miss Burt's school. Aft-er a few
weeks, Grand-pa Chase met the new pu-pil in the gar-den one day, just as
he came in from school.
"'Well, Har-vey' said Grandpa, 'I suppose you can spell al-most an-y
thing by this time!'
"'Yes, sir?' said Har-vey.
"'Can you spell rat?'
"'R-a-t, rat' said the small boy, with much pride.
"'Ver-y well, my boy. Now can you spell mouse?'
"Har-vey wrink-led up his fore-head and tried hard to think how it could
be done. Aft-er a few min-utes the child said, 'No, Grandpa, I can't do
it.'
"'What,' cried Grandpa Chase, 'you can spell a great rat and can't spell
a lit-tle bit of a mouse!'
"A-gain Har-vey thought hard, and then he said, 'Yes I can spell a big
rat, but I guess a spelt mouse is a great deal big-ger than a spelt
rat!'"