One day Alice was walking in the road with her nurse. She had seen one of the ladies pick a checkerberry leaf out of the grass and eat it, so she pulled up a handful of leaves and crammed them into her mouth.
“Oh, take them out, take them out! Do, Alice!” cried the nurse. “They may be poison! If you swallow them you will die, and have to lie in the cold grave, and the worms will eat you up!”
But the nurse had to pull her mouth open, and dig out the leaves, for Alice had never before heard of the cold grave, and she did not care a button about it.
That night her mamma, with whom the little girl slept, was awakened by a feeling as if some one were choking her, and found Alice sleeping with her curly head buried in her mother’s neck, and the rest of her little fat body spread across her breast. She lifted the child gently, and put her back on her own pillow. But the next instant Alice flung herself again on her mother.
“Don’t, dear,” she said; “you must lie on your own side. It hurts me to have your head on my throat.”
“Well,” said the sleepy little thing, “if you don’t let me I shall die, and have to lie in the told drave, and the wullims will eat me up.”
Her mother was perfectly astonished at this speech. She could not imagine where Alice had heard it; but we know, don’t we?
The farmer had a poor old fiddle-headed white horse, whose stiff old legs couldn’t run away if the rest of him wanted to, and the young ladies used to drive him by themselves in a buggy. The morning after Alice’s speech two young ladies took her driving with them. She sat on a little bench at their feet, and went off in high glee.
It was cloudy, and, for fear it might rain, they took a big waterproof cloak. Before they got back it was pouring down, so all were buttoned up in the cloak, with Alice’s little round rosy face just peeping out in front. The old white horse jogged on not a bit faster than usual, though Miss Lizzie, who was driving, slapped his back with the reins the whole time. At last he whisked up his tail, and twisted it in the reins.
“Oh, now, just look at that horrid old tail!” said Miss Lizzie. “How am I ever to get rid of it?”