THE STORY KATIE TOLD.
Now, stay right still and listen, kitty-cat, and I’ll tell you a story.
Once there was a girl.
She was a pretty good little girl, and minded her papa ’n’ mamma everything they said, only sometimes she didn’t, and then she was naughty; but she was always sorry, and said she wouldn’t do so any more, and her mamma’d forgive her.
She was going to hang up her stocking.
“You’ll have to be pretty good, ’lest ’twon’t be filled,” said her mamma.
“’Less maybe there’ll be a big bunch of sticks in it,” said her papa.
Do you think that’s a nice way to talk, kitty-cat? I don’t.
So the little girl was good as she could be, ’less she was bigger, and didn’t cry and slap her little sister hardly any at all, and always minded her mamma when she came where the chimney was, ’specially much.