Tim started to follow him, bent only on saving his pet, and forgetting that there was such a person in the world as Captain Pratt, when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.
[to be continued.]
[FRIENDS IN NEED.]
This is another "once upon a time" story, only that it was not such a very long time ago that old Grandma Sparrow, Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow, and three little Sparrow children lived on Bird Alley, only three doors away from Mr. Jack Rabbit's house.
When the Sparrow family first moved into Bird Alley the weather was warm, and Mr. Sparrow had not the slightest difficulty in doing his marketing, for food was plenty in the streets, and he knew of as many as a hundred cozy places where water could be found.
So all the summer long this family had three good meals each day simply by going a short distance for them, and when it was very stormy some of the children brought grandma's dinner to her, which showed that they loved the old lady very dearly.
They were as industrious a family as ever lived in that alley, the children doing exactly what their parents desired without ever once crying to go out and play marbles, or to have a new doll, and they always minded their own business, instead of idling around to see what the neighbors were doing.
They knew that just around the corner the Rabbits lived, for several times, when they had been out for food, the Sparrows had seen them at the window, but the two families had never visited each other. Perhaps they were not acquainted, because Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Sparrow had never been introduced, or perhaps politics had something to do with it; at all events, they were not acquaintances, and paid very little attention to each other during the entire summer.