| The Jimmyjohns:— | Page. | |
| I. | A Morning with the Jimmyjohns | [11] |
| II. | The Sad Fate of “Polly Cologne” | [18] |
| III. | An Account of the Jimmyjohns’ Little Affair with the Gulls | [26] |
| IV. | The Jimmyjohns’ Sailor-Suits | [35] |
| V. | A Leaf from a Little Girl’s Diary | [46] |
| VI. | A Little Girl’s Story | [50] |
| VII. | The Bad Luck of Bubby Cryaway | [57] |
| VIII. | What made Mr. Tompkins laugh | [66] |
| IX. | Mr. Tompkins’s Small Story | [76] |
| Flowers waking up | [80] | |
| The Little Pullwinger’s Dream | [85] | |
| How the Barn came from Jorullo | [95] | |
| A Potato Story which begins with a Bean-Pole | [107] | |
| The Way Mrs. MacGarret’s Tea-Party was broken up | [110] | |
| Getting up in the World | [114] | |
| The Story of Florinda | [118] | |
| The House that Jack built | [134] | |
| A Little Guess-Story | [147] | |
| The Little Beggar-Girl | [152] | |
| Wide-Awake | [169] | |
| Reasons why the Cow turned her Head away | [173] | |
| Two Little Rogues | [179] | |
| The Belated Butterfly | [182] | |
| The Maple-Tree’s Children | [186] | |
| The Whisperer | [189] | |
| A Stranger in Pilgrim-Land, and what He saw | [191] | |
| Dramas and Dialogues:— | ||
| The Gypsies.—A May-Day Drama | [205] | |
| A December Charade.—(Farewell.) | [221] | |
| The Little Visitors.—A Play for Young Children | [233] | |
| The Bird Dialogue | [242] | |
| Shopping.—A Dialogue for the very Little Ones | [250] | |
| May-Day Indoors; or, The Yotopski Family’s Rehearsal | [255] | |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| Page. | |
| “How Easy She goes!” | [2] |
| Joey Moonbeam, Dorothy Beeswax, Betsey Ginger, and Polly Cologne | [22] |
| The Jimmyjohns and the Gulls | [33] |
| “The Little Boys, half crying, held fast by the Sides of the Boat” | [43] |
| Joey Moonbeam’s New Hat | [47] |
| “Over went the Barrel, and over went He” | [63] |
| Flowers waking up | [80] |
| The Barrel-Man looking at his Possessions | [93] |
| The Barrel-Man cuts the Branches, and the Owner complains | [97] |
| The Horses and the Oxen appear in Sight | [101] |
| The Fourteen Hungry Men sit around the Table | [105] |
| “A-shaking their Corn-Poppers over the Coals” | [135] |
| The Cat that caught the Rat | [137] |
| The Dog that was tossed | [138] |
| The Cow with the Crumpled Horn | [139] |
| The Maiden all Forlorn | [140] |
| The Man all Tattered and Torn | [142] |
| “Good-Morrow, Sir Priest! will You Marry Us Two?” | [145] |
| The Little Beggar-Girl | [153] |
| “Now I’ll pull up; now I’m almost up” | [171] |
| “Take this Wisp of Hay” | [174] |
| “Forefathers’ Rock” | [196] |
| Indian Doll | [200] |
THE JIMMYJOHNS, AND OTHER STORIES.
THE JIMMYJOHNS.
CHAPTER I.
A MORNING WITH THE JIMMYJOHNS.
A pretty brown cottage, so small that the vines have no need to hurry themselves in climbing over it, but take plenty of time to creep along the eaves, to peep in at the windows, and even to stop and weave bowers over the doorways. Two “Baldwin” trees shade one end of the cottage, a silver-oak the other. In its rather narrow front-yard grow damask rose-bushes, sweet syringas, and a snowball-tree. In one corner of this front-yard a running-rose, called a “pink prairie-rose,” climbs to the cottage-roof, where it has delightful times with the honeysuckle and woodbine. On either side, and round about and far away, lie broad green meadows, apple-orchards, fields of waving corn, and many a sloping, sunny hill-side, on which the earliest wild flowers bloom. Ah! it must be a pleasant thing to live where one can watch the fields grow yellow with dandelions and buttercups, or white with daisies, or pink with clover; where sweet-scented honeysuckles peep in at one window, roses at another, and apple-blossoms at another; where birds sing night and morning, and sometimes all the day.
Between the hours of seven and eight, one lovely morning in June, there might have been seen, turning the corner of Prairie-rose Cottage, two travellers on horseback, each of whom carried a huckleberry-basket on his arm. These two travellers were of just the same age,—four years and ten months. The horses they rode were of the kind called saw-horses, or, as some call them, wood-horses. Both names are correct, because they are made of wood, and wood is placed upon them to be sawed.