“Mother,” he said; “I don’t suppose you could be an angel, could you?”
“Oh, what a foolish child!” said the mother. “Who ever heard of an angel in a blue gingham apron?” and she went on singing, and stepped out so bravely on her lame foot that no one would ever have known she was lame.
[THE APRON-STRING]
Once upon a time a boy played about the house, running by his mother’s side; and as he was very little, his mother tied him to the string of her apron.
“Now,” she said, “when you stumble, you can pull yourself up by the apron-string, and so you will not fall.”
The boy did that, and all went well, and the mother sang at her work.
By and by the boy grew so tall that his head came above the window-sill; and looking through the window, he saw far away green trees waving, and a flowing river that flashed in the sun, and rising above all, blue peaks of mountains.