"When I was a girl, and wanted to hear a story, and the grown-up people didn't feel like telling me one, they would say,—
"'I'll tell you a story about Jack O'Nory;
And now my story's begun.
I'll tell you another about Jack and his brother;
And now my story's done.'
"Now, every time this was said to me, I would think that I really should hear the story about Jack O'Nory, or the other one about Jack and his brother. But it was always the same; just as I thought the story was coming, I would hear, instead, 'And now my story's done.'
"One day, when I begged for one of the stories, my aunt told me that I couldn't hear about Jack O'Nory or his brother, because Mother Goose never told the stories about them; that she just began, and then thought better of it. After that I didn't ask any more; but I said to myself, 'If ever I get big, I'll find out those stories.' And so, sure enough, I did. And I am going to tell one of them now,—the one about Jack O'Nory himself.
"'It is a story that all came of his having a great liking for buns. Jack lived in the next house to Mother Goose, and every morning, if she peeped between the curtains, she was sure to see Jack waiting on the pavement for the bun-man. You see the bun-man went around very early, so that people could have their buns for breakfast.
"'But one morning Jack slept too late, and, when he ran out, the bun-man had already gone by and was almost out of sight. Jack ran after him, but could not catch him.
"'It didn't seem to Jack a bit nice, not to have any bun with his milk that morning; and so all day Jack kept saying to himself, "That bun-man won't get by the house to-morrow morning without my knowing it, I guess!" And this was the last thing he thought of as he took off his shoes and stockings at night before the fire.
