"Course!"
The grasshopper put his head on one side and looked at Billy. Billy looked at the ground. Finally he spoke. "My teacher has so much worsted! I don't know how many cards you could sew with all she has—all colors too!"
The grasshopper put his head on the other side and looked at Billy. Billy began to feel very uncomfortable.
"Why don't you take it back and tell your teacher all about it?" asked the grasshopper.
"Take it back!" gasped Billy, "and give it to my teacher! I couldn't! I'll take it back and put it on the the floor."
"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the grasshopper, jumping over to another blade of grass, "Be a man! You will be happier after you have told her."
Now Billy knew that his teacher always stayed at kindergarten, after the children had gone, to "straighten up" and his kindergarten was right across the street. So he thought a moment and then jumped up. "You wait here till I come back!" And away he ran as fast as his little legs would carry him. But when he reached the kindergarten door, he stopped. His teacher was sitting with her back to the door, arranging the worsted in the large, linen worsted-case. She was humming a little song, too. Billy's heart beat fast, for he loved his teacher and thought her the most beautiful lady in all the world next to his mother. He started to run away, but he remembered the grasshopper's words, "Be a man!" So he put his little hand in his pocket and tip-toed into the room, right up to his teacher.
"O," she said, "I thought you were a little mouse, Billy!" She laughed as she said it but Billy looked very grave. He pulled his little fist out of his pocket, held it toward her and opened it.
"I bwought this back to you! I found it on the floor."
"And took it home?" asked his teacher, her beautiful eyes wide open.