JOHNNY’S RED SHOES AND WHITE STOCKINGS
For every day, Johnny always wears blue; blue rompers in the morning, when he is playing in the sand box or helping Maggie make bread in the kitchen, and a blue sailor suit in the afternoon, when he goes “walk-a-walk-a” with Mamma. But on Sunday afternoon he goes walk-a-walk-a with Daddy (but they take Mamma too!), and then he has on his white sailor suit, and his white stockings and red shoes. Aunt Kitty brought him the shoes, and when they came there was a china cat inside one, and a tin frog inside the other. They were surprises, the cat and the frog; Aunt Kitty likes to give surprises.
Well! one Sunday morning Mamma and Daddy were going to church, and Maggie was very busy, so she put Johnny in the sand box, and told him to play like a good boy, and he did. He made two forts, one with the red tin pail and one with the blue tin pail; and then he hammered on them with the old kitchen spoon and said, “Bang! bang! bang!” and that made a battle. While he was having the battle, the Boy Over the Fence came and looked through the pickets, and said, “Hurnh! I’ve got new shoes on!” Johnny looked, and he had; new brown shoes, that tied in front. So Johnny said: “I have new shoes too, only they are not on; they are up-stairs, and they are red.”
“They ain’t!” said the Boy Over the Fence. He was not a very nice boy.
“HE HELD THEM UP SO THAT THE BOY OVER THE FENCE COULD SEE THEM.”
“They are!” said Johnny. “Bright red, with wankle buttons. Aunt Kitty bringed them, and there was a cat in one, and a frog in the other, and they were s’prises. And white stockings too, so there!” Then he stopped, for he was out of breath.
“Hurnh!” said the Boy Over the Fence. “Let’s see ’em!”
Johnny trotted up the back stairs and brought down the white stockings and the red shoes; they were laid out on the chair, with the white suit, all ready for him to put on. He held them up so that the Boy Over the Fence could see them, and said, “So there!” again; it was all he could think of to say.
And the Boy Over the Fence said, “Hurnh!” again, as if that was all he could think of to say.
Just then Maggie opened the kitchen door and said: “Come in this minute of time, Johnny boy, and get your luncheon! see the nice cracker and the lovely mug of milk Maggie has for ye!”
Johnny was hungry, and he dropped the red shoes and white stockings and ran in to have his luncheon. While he was eating it, Maggie told him the story of the Little Rid Hin; (Mamma says it is “Red Hen,” really, but Maggie always says it the other way, and Johnny likes it better); and then she said it was time for his nap, and she whisked him up-stairs and tucked him up in his crib and told him to go to sleep like a good boy, and he went.
By and by he woke up, and Mamma came in to dress him for dinner. She washed his face and hands, and brushed his hair, and put on his white sailor suit; and then she said, “Why, where ever are the shoes and stockings?”
She looked under the chair, and on the bureau, and under the bed. “Johnny,” she said, “I cannot find your red shoes and white stockings. I put them here with your suit, and now they are gone.”
“Oh!” said Johnny.
“Do you know where they are, dear?” asked Mamma.
“Oh!” said Johnny again. “I think—they are in—the sand box!”
“In the sand box!” said Mamma.
“The Boy Over the Fence said they wasn’t red,” said Johnny; “and they was, and I gotted them and showed him, and then Maggie called me, and—and—I think that is all I know.”
“My goodness!” said Mamma. And she ran down-stairs and out into the yard to the sand box. But no red shoes or white stockings were there. Mamma looked all about carefully. There was the red tin pail, and the blue tin pail, both turned upside down, and the old kitchen spoon laid across them. And there were the marks of Johnny’s moccasins, and—oh! there were the marks of another pair of shoes, a little bigger than Johnny’s, with heels to them.
“My goodness!” said Mamma. “You don’t suppose—” but she did not say what you didn’t suppose.
She looked over toward the next yard. There was no one there, but there were muddy footmarks leading from the fence to the sand box, and sandy footmarks leading back from the sand box to the fence.
“Now,” said Mamma, “I am afraid—” but she did not say what she was afraid of.
Just as she was stepping out of the sand box, her foot struck against the red tin pail and knocked it over; and—what do you think? Inside of the pail was one red shoe and one white stocking.
“My goodness!” said Mamma again. Then she turned over the blue tin pail, and there was the other red shoe and the other white stocking.
Mamma looked very severely over the fence, but no one was there; so she took the shoes and stockings up-stairs and showed them to Johnny. “Oh!” said Johnny.
She told him where she had found them; and then she put them away in the drawer, and brought out Johnny’s old brown moccasins and a pair of rather old brown stockings. “You shall wear these to-day!” said Mamma.
“But why?” said Johnny. “I like my red shoes and white stockings best.”
“But you took them out and left them in the sand box!” said Mamma.
“But I did forget!” said Johnny.
“But this will help you to remember!” said Mamma.
And it did.
THE FOOLISH TORTOISE
(Adapted)
Close beside the Pool of the Blue Lotus lived the two geese White-Wings and Gray-Back, and in the pool lived the tortoise Shelly-Neck, and the three were good friends. One night Shelly-Neck heard two fishermen talking together beside the pool. “To-morrow morning,” they said, “we will lay our nets and catch that old tortoise and cook him for our dinner.”
Shelly-Neck was much frightened, and when the men were gone he called his friends the geese, and begged them to save him.
“We will save you,” said White-Wings.
“But you must do just what we tell you to do!” said Gray-Back.
“I will! I will!” cried poor Shelly-Neck.
The two geese waddled about, looking till they found a stick. “Now,” said White-Wings, “take this in your mouth and hold on tight!”
“And remember,” said Gray-Back, “that once you have taken hold you must not let go till we bid you.”
The tortoise promised and took hold on the middle of the stick with his strong jaws. Then White-Wings took one end of the stick in his bill and Gray-Back took the other, and they flew high up in the air over the roofs of the houses.
All the people came running to see this strange sight. “Look! look!” cried one. “See the flying tortoise!”
“Ho!” said another, who was one of the fishermen. “He has no wings; soon he will forget and open his mouth, and then down he will come and we shall have him for dinner.”
“I will not let go! You shall not have me for dinner!” cried Shelly-Neck.
Crash! Down he fell on the hard ground. When the fishermen picked him up he was dead and they did have him for dinner.
White-Wings and Gray-Back flew sadly away. “We did our best,” they said; “but a fool cannot be saved from his folly.”