Sallie Hicks's Forefinger
Sallie Hicks was a little girl who was good most of the time, but she had one bad habit, and that was caused by her forefinger on her right hand.
Sallie's right-hand forefinger would get into things it should not, and it caused Sallie's mother a great deal of trouble, and most of Sallie's punishments were on account of that unruly right-hand-forefinger.
One day Sallie's mother set a dish of hot jelly on the kitchen table to cool. She told Sallie it was hot and she must not touch it.
But no sooner was her mother out of the kitchen and the cook's head was turned another way than Sallie Hicks forgot all about her mother's warning, and the naughty right-hand forefinger went right into the hot jelly.
Oh, how Sallie screamed with pain! And she forgot all about putting the forefinger in her mouth to taste the jelly, it burned her so.
The big tears ran right down Sallie's pretty pink cheeks, and her mother and grandmother, and cook, too, came running to see what was the matter.
The little forefinger told the story, and it had to be wrapped in some cooling salve and a soft piece of linen.
"I told you that some day you would get that finger burned," said her mother, "and now because you disobeyed me you must sit in the big chair in the hall until lunch time and not speak to anyone. I want you to think about that naughty finger."