What queer fancies sick people have! This little girl while ill imagined many things. She thought she was a fairy riding in a little golden carriage driven by two small white kittens, and that the doctor was a giant. She told him he was too big to take a drive with her, he would smash her carriage and kill her kittens. If he would be good, and not make her swallow such horrid stuff, she would change him into a dear little Puck, with a green jacket and a lace ruff.
Sometimes she thought she was an angel flying through the air. She said she was sitting on a horn of the moon, but would fly off soon to a world way off out of sight. That made her mother cry.
Once she very politely asked her father—a very large man—to take a seat on the mantle-piece, as she thought the room was crowded. And once she thought she was a clown in a circus, and tried to stand on her head in bed.
She was very ill; but she got well, however. Now it is Christmas eve. The mother is happy and thankful because there are two little girls instead of one.
PLATO’S SOLILOQUY.
Do I look like a happy dog? Do I look like a handsome dog? Do I look like a respectable dog? Is this what the other dogs call fun?
My master is a very kind man. He has brought me up well. I knew he did not like his dogs to stay out all night, nor wander off at any time with vulgar dogs. I had over-heard dogs talking about the fun they had when off together. I had been invited a number of times to join them. I had always refused until last night. Then I made up my mind I was going to have some fun too. So quietly slipping away, I ran around the corner and off with the dogs.
Fun? Yes, we did have fun, though an uneasy sneaky feeling would come over me at times to interfere with my happiness. Fun? Yes, but it ended in a fight! Fun? Yes, we did have fun, but I’m not having any now!
One eye nearly gone, one ear half chewed off, a hole in my cheek, a hump on my leg, my master in sorrow, and I in disgrace, to say nothing of aches and of pains. It will be some time before I get my good looks back again, or my usual fine gait. Three-legged and one-eyed! Ugh!