So the children all did what they liked best, and frolicked in the sunshine like a swarm of butterflies, or like several hundred little kittens, until it came night; and then they went into the houses, and put themselves to bed. But some of them, I am afraid, forgot to say their prayers when their mammas were not there to remind them of it.
The next morning they all jumped up, and dressed very gayly (for children do not often lie in bed), and came down to breakfast: but, lo and behold! there was no breakfast ready, nor even any fire in the ranges and cooking-stoves, and in some houses not even any shavings and kindling wood to make a fire; and the cows, who were mostly of a Scotch breed, came to the bars, calling,—
"Moo, moo, moo!
Who'll milk us noo?"
and the hens all stuck their heads through the bars of the poultry-yard fence, and cried,—
"Kah-dah-cut, kah-dah-cut!
Are you having your hair cut?
Can you give us some corn
This beautiful morn?"
and the pigeons came flying down to the back door, murmuring,—
"Coo, coo, coo!
Must we breakfast on dew?"
and all the little children began to cry as loud as they could, and call,—
"Mamma, mamma, mamma!
I want you and papa!"
So, altogether, the older children were just about crazy, and felt as if they'd like to cry too. But that never would do, of course; for nobody cries when old enough to know better: so after running round to each others' houses, and talking a little, they agreed they would all work together, and that every one should do what he could do best. So Tom Tearcoat, instead of climbing trees, and smashing the furniture with his hatchet, went and split kindlings in all the wood-houses; and his sister Georgie, who never wanted to be in the house, carried them into the kitchens; and Patty Pettitoes tried her hand at cooking, instead of eating; and Dowsabelle Dormouse made the beds, and beat up the sofa-pillows; and Mattie Motherly, whose chief delight was playing at housekeeping in her baby-house, set the tables, and put the parlors to rights. But there seemed to be nothing that Finnikin Fine could do; for she had never thought of any thing but dressing, in all the gay clothes she could get, and looking into the mirror until she had worn quite a place in the carpet before it. But, at last, someone said,—