Johnny hung his head, and did not want to tell; but an extra hard poke of the giant's big finger made him open his mouth and say with shame, that he always said, "I'm going to."
"O that's it!" said the giant. "Well, then, you stand there."
So he unwound a bit of the web from his fingers—just enough so that he could hold the Procrastinator's Primer—and stood him at the end of a long row of children, who were saying over and over again, just as fast as they could speak, "Going to, going to, going to, going to," just that, and nothing else in the world.
Johnny was tired and hungry by this time, and longed to see his mamma, thinking that, if he could only get back: to her, he would always mind the very moment she told him to do any thing.
He made a great many good resolutions while he stood there. At last the giant called him to come and say his lesson.
"You shall have a short one to-day," said he, "and need say it only a thousand times, because it is your first day here. To-morrow, you must say it a million."
Johnny tried to step forward, but the web was still about his feet, so he fell with, a bang to the floor.
Just then he opened his eyes to find that he had rolled from the rock to the grass, and that mamma was calling him in a loud voice to come to supper, and this time he didn't say, "I'm going to."
Directions for Reading.—The words in quotation marks should be read in the same manner as in Lesson I.