_CHAPTER VI.—A Little Journey._
One day, suddenly Mary Ellen began to creep.
[Illustration: “CREEP! CREEP!”]
She was sitting on the rug, reaching for her playthings—her rag doll and
her rag kitten. She had tossed them too far and there was no one in the
nursery to help get them, and finally in her repeated reaching forward,
over she went on her nose! Mama was not there to set her up again and
say, “Bumpity-bump! Up she must jump!” and she whimpered a bit. But she
wanted her playthings, and struggling for them she kicked her little
legs out behind her and tried to jump along on her little stomach. At
last in her mighty effort she drew her little knees up under her, lifted
her little back, and away she went, _creep! creep! creep!_ and with a
very red face and a gurgle of delight grabbed her doll and cat. Then she
tumbled down on her face again. But finally she got herself turned over,
and lay there on the carpet, contented.
And there she still lay, gurgling and cooing over dolly, when Mama Nan
came in, and Grandma Camp. Mama Nan stared at her baby, then at the rug
where the ivory rattle and pillows lay, then at Mary Ellen again.
“What does this mean?” she cried. “She is fully ten feet away from where
I left her!”
Mama Nan’s mother smiled. “I think, Nan, that Mary Ellen has had another
adventure. I rather think she has been creeping!”
For a moment Mama Nan looked more astonished and bewildered than before.
Then she turned and flew out along the little hall that led to the
library. “O, Dick!” she cried. “Come in here! What do you think? Mary
Ellen has been creeping.”
Papa Dick looked, for a second, fully as astonished as Mama Nan. Then he
said, “Well, it’s all right, isn’t it? She’d have to do it sometime,
wouldn’t she?”
[Illustration: MAMA NAN IS ASTONISHED.]
Mama Nan breathlessly told him about it. “Well,” he agreed, “it must have
been quite an exhibition. Suppose we go in and see if she can be got to
repeat the performance,” and back to the nursery they both hurried.
_Ella Farman Pratt._