Will ran up, and his mother ran down. She was gone an hour, but he did not think it was more than ten minutes, for he and baby were having a great time, playing that the big woolly ball was a tiger, and that they were elephants chasing it through the jungle.
Will blew a horn, because it spoke in the “Swiss Family Robinson” of the elephants’ trumpeting; and baby blew a tin whistle, which was a rattle, too; and the tiger blew nothing at all, because tigers do not trumpet.
It was a glorious game; but when Mamma came back, Will’s face fell, and he stopped trumpeting, because he knew it would tire Mamma’s head.
“Dear Mamma!” he said, “what shall I do this long, long afternoon, with the rain pouring and nothing to do?”
His mother took him by the shoulders, gave him a shake and then a kiss, and turned him round toward the window.
“Look there, goosey!” she cried, laughing. “It stopped raining half an hour ago, and now the sun is setting bright and clear. It is nearly six o’clock, and you have just precisely time enough to run and post this letter before tea-time.”
THE JACKET.
“Tailor, tailor, tell me true,
Where did you get my jacket of blue?”