A TRUE STORY.
Bertie Gale lived near a noisy little brook, which went singing through the meadow. Just below the house in which he lived was a dam. It made a large pond above it, and the water was used to turn the wheel of a small woollen-mill.
It was such fun to watch the water pouring over the wheel, turning it swiftly round and round.
Bertie was never tired of looking at it, but it made his mother very anxious if her little boy was long out of her sight. But he had promised never to go into the water without permission.
But one summer the water was shut off for a while, and the mill was silent. The old wheel was badly decayed and broken, and Mr. Gale said a new wheel must be built.
Every day Bertie hurried home from school to watch his father and the workmen, as they built the new wheel.
One day when he came home, he ran down to the mill as usual. The wheel was in its place all ready for action.
How new and clean it looked! The workmen had gone, and no one was in sight.
"What a nice playhouse it would make," thought the boy. Then he stepped carefully into the wheel.
"This is my castle," said Bertie to himself, "and the brook is the river Rhine, and"—
Bertie did not finish his sentence. Suddenly there was a terrible roaring over his head, and the wheel began to go slowly around. The next thing the boy knew he was lying upon a pile of blocks and shavings, feeling very much as if he had been through his mother's sausage-mill, but very thankful that he was not still going around that swiftly-moving wheel. He was not very much hurt, but it was a long time before he cared to look at the water-wheel again.
JAMIE.
One day lit-tle Jam-ie went with some friends to see some mov-ing pic-tures and a play called "The Johns-town Flood." He had been told the sto-ry be-fore and knew how it turned out. So he sat ver-y still through three acts, and then he saw a man who had been giv-en the name of "Paul Re-vere" just for that play, be-cause he was go-ing to do some-thing such as a real and great Paul Revere once did, more than a hun-dred years be-fore, a thing to warn the land of dan-ger and help the peo-ple to be free.
The man in the play had to mount a horse and gal-lop down a val-ley shout-ing to the peo-ple to go to the hills to get out of the way of a great flood which had bro-ken out from a res-er-voir a-bove the cit-y.
Just then, as the man mount-ed the horse, on the stage, little Jam-ie left his seat and ran home as fast as he could.
"Why, Jam-ie," said his moth-er "The show can't be o-ver yet, it's on-ly four o'clock."
"I know it is-n't o-ver yet, mam-ma," said Jam-ie, "but the ver-y next act was to be the flood, and I thought that if I staid I'd be drowned!"
MOTHER'S CHILDREN
"El-sie, just mind the ba-by for a few min-utes while I fin-ish Jack's lit-tle trou-sers. He tears his clothes so that it's just patch, patch, put in pockets and sew on but-tons all the time."
"Oh, moth-er, look! Ba-by has tak-en a step! Come quick and look at him!"
So moth-er ran to see her ba-by-boy, and kiss the brave lit-tle fel-low who had dared to do this won-der-ful thing. She a-gain seat-ed her-self at her work, when she heard El-sie call, "Oh, mam-ma! Sa-die has got hold of grand-ma's bas-ket, and is toss-ing all the things out of it on the floor. She'll scream when I take it from her, but don't wor-ry, I think I can man-age her."
It was not long aft-er that when mam-ma cried out, "Why, there must be some-thing burn-ing! Oh, where is Tom-my? He has so many tricks with fire!"
Up jumped mam-ma a-gain, and run-ing in-to the li-bra-ry, found Tom-my in high glee at play in front of a bright coal fire in the grate, on the top bar of which was a row of small fig-ures made from dough that cook was work-ing in the kitch-en. Tom had seized a big piece of dough, ran off with it to the li-bra-ry, and mould-ed it up to suit him in the shape of a row of small boys tak-ing hold of hands. He set them on the hot i-ron bar, and was brown-ing them ready to eat!
"This is great fun, moth-er!" said Tom. "I'll give the chil-dren some when they are baked!"
VICTOR.
"It's a nice thing to have spring come!" said Vic-tor.
"With my red wheel-barrow I can work out in the gar-den ev-er-y day with O-bed. He says he'd rath-er have me with him than an-y two men! Why, I can car-ry a wa-ter-ing-pot, a lot of twigs, leaves and things I've raked off the flow-er beds, and some-times I e-ven car-ry a whole load of stones!
"O-bed is go-ing to teach me how to make one gar-den-bed for my-self. He says I can plant an-y-thing there that I like. I'm try-ing to think what I do like. O-bed says that some things come up when you plant seeds and some come up from bulbs. I like po-ta-toes and sweet peas. I guess I'll plant them. For a bor-der, I'd like small on-ions. Seems to me some tur-nips and hol-ly-hocks would look well in my bed. Now would-n't they? Sweet corn grows up pret-ty and grace-ful, I heard Aunt Hat-tie say, so I'll have some of that in my bed with a lot of for-get-me-nots. Aun-tie likes those ver-y much.
"Oh, I must have the fa-vor-ite flow-ers of each one in our house, come to think of it! Let's see, what is Papa's fa-vor-ite flow-er? I guess it must be squash, for he likes mam-ma's squash pies so much.
"Now what is mam-ma's? It must be he-li-o-trope. It's a hard word, but I've sure-ly heard her say he-li-o-trope sach-et. It must be a pret-ty flower, for ev-er-y thing in the clothes press has that per-fume, Ka-tie says.
"Now I don't know all these plants I've heard folks talk about. I don't know an-y of them. Per-haps be-fore I tell O-bed to get all these things for me to start I'd bet-ter ask him if they'll go well to-geth-er."
GRANDMOTHER'S HOME.
Grand-moth-er Gra-ham was a love-ly old la-dy. She had a beau-ti-ful home a few miles from the city. Her chil-dren and her grand-chil-dren went out to see her quite oft-en.
A-my thought there was no place like Grand-ma's for her sum-mer va-ca-tion. There was a lake, a boat, white lil-ies, squir-rels, grand trees old-er than grand-moth-er, her-self. Then there were barns, sta-bles, hor-ses, cows, calves, and a Shet-land pony that an-y child could ride.
A-my had her bi-cy-cle with her, and went off on it to see Grand-ma's neigh-bors and do any lit-tle er-rands that were re-quired. If cous-in Jam-ie were on a vis-it at the same time, per-haps he would mount Gyp-sy, the po-ny, and ride a-long by Am-y's side. A race be-tween the bi-cy-cle and the po-ny was great fun.
But there were days when rains kept the chil-dren in the house. Grand-ma told them love-ly sto-ries then. Jam-ie would sit play-ing with his sol-diers, and A-my al-ways had all she could do in her "house-days" as she called them, sew-ing to "keep her dolls in clothes," for "Elm Lodge" was a great place to wear out clothes.
The sto-ries Grand-ma liked best to tell were "true sto-ries" of the days when her own chil-dren were small, and A-my liked best to hear a-bout her own fa-ther and what he did when he was a child. So one day grand-ma told this: