90 GREAT RUSSELL ST., W.C.
Once upon a time
there was a man and his wife who were poor and very old. They had never had any children, and this was a great trouble to them, for they foresaw that in a few years more they would not be able to grow their beans and take them to market.
One day while they were weeding in their field (that with a little cabin was all they possessed—I wish I owned as much!)—one day, I say, while they were getting rid of the weeds the old woman spied in a corner, where they grew thickest, a small bundle very carefully tied up; and what should she find in it but a lovely boy, eight or ten months old to look at, but quite two years in intelligence! He had been weaned; at all events he needed no pressing to partake of boiled beans, which he raised to his mouth very prettily.
On hearing his wife’s cries of surprise, the old man hurried from the end of the field; and when he too had gazed at the beautiful child God had given them these old people embraced each other with tears of joy, and then returned quickly to their cabin lest the falling dew should hurt their boy. When they were snug in the chimney corner it was a fresh delight to them to see the little fellow reach out his hands to them, laughing winsomely, and calling them mamma and pappa, as though he had known no other father or mother.
The old man took him on his knee and danced him gently up and down, in “the way the ladies ride in the Park,” and said all sorts of droll things to amuse him; and the child responded in his own prattling fashion, for who would like to seem backward in such jolly talk?
