Mr. McGregor hung up the little jacket and the shoes for a scare-crow to frighten the blackbirds.
Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the big fir-tree.
He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the floor of the rabbit-hole, and shut his eyes. His mother was busy cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes. It was the second little jacket and a pair of shoes that Peter had lost in a fortnight!
I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.
His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a doze of it to Peter!
"One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time."
But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper.
[387]
The next selection illustrates well the kind of stories in the Bedtime Story series of twenty volumes by Thornton Waldo Burgess (1874—). The books of this series are entitled Adventures of Johnny Chuck, Adventures of Buster Bear, Adventures of Ol' Mistah Buzzard, etc. These books and the Old Mother West Wind series of eight volumes by the same author are enjoyed by children in the second and third grades. Mr. Burgess is an American author who has been editor of several American magazines. (The following selection is from Old Mother West Wind, by permission of the publishers, Little, Brown & Co., Boston.)