Tuesday, directly after lunch, I play with my doll's house. You see, I have all the work to do for Dolly, and so I take out the clothes from the basket in the doll's house kitchen, and smooth them out, ready for ironing. There is a cunning little ironing board, besides two small irons, for "Ironing Day." There are lots of things to iron, all Dolly's table linen and the cute little sheets and pillow cases and towels, too. Oh, dear me! Sometimes I feel that Mother has a pretty hard time with our big house when I see how it bothers me to keep Dolly's house in perfect order.
Sometimes, before I have finished, my little friend Eleanor Gray will come in, and want me to go out with her. Then we both take our hoops and go to the park and play all afternoon. As soon as I get home I put Dolly to bed, before I have my own supper, because if I don't, very often I haven't time to attend to her afterwards and she has to sit up all night, which must be very tiresome even for a doll.
[BILLY LOVES CANDY]
Billy was only five years old, but he had learned to like candy! You small boys who are hearing this read to you needn't look surprised. It probably was very natural to you to like candy, but that is no reason why Billy didn't have to learn. He first began on a peppermint stick; one of those lovely sticks with red lines running curly upwards, and white inside, with hollow tubes running through, so that you can suck an orange with it—well, it was just this sort of a stick that Billy first tasted, and at first he didn't like it, but as he got a taste almost every day, he finally was just as fond of it as was his little master. There, I have let the cat out of the bag, or the dog—and there is no use in my telling any more of this story, for you know all about it now. That is, you know who Billy is, and that's all there really is to this tale of a little dog.
[DICK'S VALENTINE]
The front doorbell rang furiously and Mary, knowing that it was snowing and blowing a gale outside, answered the ring as fast as she was able.
Two shivering little figures stood upon the doorstep, one a small boy, 10 or 12 years of age, who surveyed her a moment quite as coolly as she surveyed him. Deliberately stepping into the lighted hallway, he dragged with him his little companion, a shivering mite of a girl, almost hidden in the folds of a ragged coat. This coat he suddenly jerked from her shoulders, saying:
"Here's a valentine for the lady wot lives here!" Then, turning, he ran rapidly down the steps and disappeared around the corner into the snowy darkness.