“Toodle-doo was a dandy cock-robin:
He tied up his tail with a piece of blue bobbin.”
Effie was afraid to go under. Her arm-basket got upset, and made her cry. Snip flew at Hiram when Hiram caught Johnny. He went under, too, when they went under, and barked most all the time. I was the one that got caught the most times, and so then I had to be judged; and I chose cousin Floy for my judge, and she judged me to tell a story.
We are going to have pumpkin for dinner. Joey Moonbeam’s party is going to be a soap-bubble party. When Clarence was the siren, he sang,—
“Hop, hop, hop!
Go, and never stop.”
Sometimes Clarence stops to play with us when he comes here. My mother says he is a very good boy. His father is dead: his mother is sick; so is his little brother. He has got two little brothers and two little sisters. They do not have enough to eat. He comes here to get the cold victuals my mother has done using.
CHAPTER VI.
A LITTLE GIRL’S STORY.
Mrs. Plummer holding “Josephus,” and Mr. Plummer, and grandma Plummer, and Hiram, take seats in the row, and play they are little children like the rest, waiting to hear the story. Hiram, sometimes called “the growler,” sits on a cricket, his long legs reaching across a breadth and a half of the carpet. Annetta seats herself in front of the row.