“You know,” continued the old woman, “when little boys and girls are greedy and want more than mamma thinks is good for them, they belong to the kingdom of the greedy and this giant is their ruler.”
“He is such a horrid giant, too,” said Dorothy, “so ugly and impolite.”
“Yes,” cried Ray, rubbing his stomach, “he gives me a pain.”
Then the little old woman touched them lightly with her spoon and vanished with a smile and the children found themselves on Aunt Polly’s back steps in the midst of their dear mud pies.
CHAPTER II.
THE LITTLE ROSEBUD CALENDAR.
WHEN Ray was only a baby he would hold the woolly lamb that grandma had brought him in his chubby little fists, saying, “I love oo, lamb,” and there was a great colored ball that he liked to roll across the floor and say, “Oo ball, tum back, tum back.” Then he would run and catch it and hold it up to his dear little dimpled chin.
But when he grew to be quite a little man and could walk from room to room it pleased him to sit in the big chairs, look at the pictures and talk to them all by himself. There was one small picture card on his papa’s desk that Ray liked very much. It was the picture of a golden-haired girl standing beside a large vase, with a bunch of roses in her hand and a wreath of rosebuds on her head.
“I think she looks just like my cousin Dorothy,” said Ray, “only she wears her dress right down to her slippers and Dorothy’s dress is short.”