"THE PICTURE-BOOK"
It was the first murder you had ever heard about. You saw it all, the hideous spectacle—a beautiful, warm, red breast pierced by that fatal dart—a poor, soft little birdie, dead, by an assassin's hand. A lump rose in your throat. A tear rose in your eye—two tears, three tears. They rolled down your cheek. They dropped, hot and sad, on the fish with his little dish, on the owl with his spade and trowel, on the rook with his little book.
"P-poor Cock R-robin!"
"There, there, dear. Don't cry."
"But, M-mother—the Sparrow—he k-killed him."
Alas, yes! The Sparrow had killed him, for the book said so, but had you heard?
"N-no, w-what?"
The book, it seems, like other books, had told but half the story. Mother knew the other half. Cock Robin was murdered, murdered in cold blood, it was true, but—O merciful, death-winged arrow!—he had gone where the good birds go. And there—O joy!—he had met his robin wife and his little robin boy, who had gone before.
"And I expect they are all there now, dear," she told you, kissing your tear-stained cheek, "the happiest robins that ever were."
Dry and wide were your eyes. In the place where the good birds go, you saw Cock Robin. His eyes and his fat, red breast were bright again. He chirped. He sang. He hopped from bough to bough, with his robin wife and his little robin boy. For in the mending of little stories or the mending of little hearts, like the mending of little stockings, Mother was wonderful.