LITTLE POLLY.
After admiring her apple a little more, Polly eats it in a most deliberate manner, enjoying every bite as if it were the first she had eaten that day, and when she has finished it, gives a contented little sigh, and sits looking at the fine brown seeds [!-- Illustration - LITTLE POLLY --] which she holds in her hand. Presently she says, earnestly,—
“Grandmother!”
“What now, Polly?”
“I wish I had that dear little apple’s two brothers and two sisters, and I would put them in the doll’s chest until to-morrow; I wouldn’t eat them to-day, you know.”
“I will tell you what you can do,” says grandmother. “Are those seeds in your hand? Go find Dorothy, and ask her to give you the empty flower-pot from the high shelf at my window; and then you can fill it with dark earth from one of the flower-beds, and plant them; then by and by you will have a tree, and can have plenty of your apple’s children.”
That was a happy thought. And Polly puts the seeds carefully on a leaf, and runs to find Dorothy. Now she comes back with a queer little Dutch china flower-pot, and sits down on the grass again, and makes a hole in the soft brown earth with her finger, and drops the fine seeds in.
For days she watered them, and carried them to sunny places; but at last she grew very impatient, and one morning, when she was all alone in the garden, very much provoked that they had not made their appearance, took a twig and explored; and the first poke brought to light the little seeds, as shiny and brown as when they left the apple. It was a great disappointment, and Polly caught them up, and threw them as far away as she could, and with tears in her eyes ran in to tell grandmother.
“Ah,” said the dear old lady, “it was not time! Thou hast not learned thy lesson of waiting; and no wonder, when there are few so hard, and thou art still so young.”