The Jumble Book.
by David Cory.
"h.e.l.lO CENTRAL!"
"_h.e.l.lo Central!_"
"Give me all the little boys and girls in the World. I want to tell them about the JUMBLE BOOK!"
"_h.e.l.lo! Is that you, Jimmy?_"
"Well, this is David Cory, the JUMBLE BOOKman. Do you like Indian stories? You do, eh? Well, you"ll find some in the JUMBLE BOOK.
Good-by!"
"_h.e.l.lo, Polly!_"
"This is the man who wrote the JUMBLE BOOK. Do you like Fairy Stories? I thought you did. Well, you"ll find lots of them in the JUMBLE BOOK.
Good-by."
"_h.e.l.lo, Billy._"
"This is the JUMBLE BOOKman. Do you like stories about animals? Well, I"m glad you do, for I"ve written a lot of them for you in the JUMBLE BOOK. Good-by."
"_h.e.l.lo, Mary!_"
"This is your friend David Cory. What kind of stories do you like? All kinds, eh? Well, the JUMBLE BOOK"S the book for you, then. You"ll find all kinds of stories all jumbled together between its covers!
Good-by!"
The Jumble Book
LITTLE SIR CAT
Little Sir Cat Takes a Farewell Look at the Castle
Once upon a time I promised to tell a little boy how Little Sir Cat caught the Knave of Hearts who had run away with the Queen"s tarts.
Well, Sir! That Knave had run only about half way across the courtyard when Little Sir Cat pounced on him as if he were a mouse, and his Highness, the Knave of Hearts, stopped right then and there, but he spilt the tarts all over the ground. Wasn"t that a shame?
This made the King dreadfully angry, and he "beat the Knave full sore,"
as the rhyme goes in dear "Old Mother Goose," and if you don"t believe me, just get the book and see for yourself. "Now ask me a favor, and it shall be granted," said the Queen who had asked Little Sir Cat to come into the castle and sit on the throne by her side.
"Tell me where I may find my fortune," answered Little Sir Cat.
"Ah!" cried the Queen, "that is not so easy. For each of us must make his own fortune. But I will help you," and she called for her old seneschal.
"He will not find it on Tart Island," said the old retainer. "Mayhap in Mother Goose Island he will find it."
[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE SIR CAT TAKES A FAREWELL LOOK AT THE CASTLE]
So pretty soon, not so very long, Little Sir Cat left the big castle, and by-and-by he came to an old willow tree by a pond. And who do you think he saw? Why, little Mrs. Oriole sitting close beside her nest that hung like a big white stocking from the branch. As soon as she saw Little Sir Cat she began to sing, and all her little birds peeped out of the nest, but they didn"t say anything, for they had never met him before. "Children, this is Sir Cat. I knew him when he lived in a castle," said Mrs. Oriole.
Well, after that, he went in to the farmyard, for it was noontime, and he was hungry, and knocked on the kitchen door. Just then the Cuckoo Clock in the kitchen sounded the hour of noon, and the farmer"s wife looked out of the window to see if her man was coming through the gate, when, of course, she spied Little Sir Cat.
"Dinner is ready. Come in, Kitten!" So he stepped into the neat, clean kitchen, and as soon as the good woman had put on a clean ap.r.o.n, they sat down to supper. By-and-by the cuckoo came out of her little clock and said: "Time for kittens to be in bed," and the twinkle, twinkle star shone through the window, and sang a little lullaby:
"_Sleep, little p.u.s.s.y cat, sleep.
The little white clouds are like sheep That play all the night while the moon"s shining bright.
Sleep, little p.u.s.s.y cat, sleep._"
And in the next story you will find what Little Sir Cat did when he woke up in the morning.
Little Stories of Famous Animals
How a Dog Discovered a Hot Spring
Tradition reports that Charles IV. discovered the Carlsbad Spring, but after you have read this little history perhaps you will agree with me that if it hadn"t been for his dog he never would have even seen the spring.
It happened this way: More than four hundred years ago Charles IV. was hunting in the neighborhood. In the exciting chase and pursuit of a stag he suddenly lost all trace of it. As he paused, undecided which course to take, he heard the yelping of one of his hounds, and following the sound, he found it lying scalded in the waters of the spring, which, as you know, is a stream of water probably escaping from a smoldering volcano way down deep in the earth. The faithful animal had followed the stag"s leap into the valley, and had missed a sure footing on the rocks near by.
On the top of the hill, which is now called the Hirschensprung (stag"s leap), a cross has been erected, and a little lower down a lookout house has been built. Still farther down, on a high pointed rock, a citizen of Carlsbad has had erected an iron figure of a chamois.
After chance had made known the hot waters of the spring to Charles IV., he had a bath and a hunting lodge built there, which were called after him, Karlsbad.
The real discoverer of the spring, the faithful hound, has no mention made of him by name or monument, although the crest of the hill is named for a stag and the spring after a king.
TESSIE, TOTTIE AND TEDDY
Or the Three Tiny T"s
[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Three Tiny T"s All in a Row._]