The little boy clapped his hands. "Hurray!" he shouted; "I wish my papa was a soldier."
"So do I," cried Mazie; "wouldn"t father look fine on a big horse?"
"I"m very glad he"s not," said Mother, coming into the nursery. "War is cruel, and many of those brave men may never come back."
Just then in the crowd Mazie saw little Harold Gray holding tightly to his mother"s hand. The little boy"s eyes were filled with tears as he watched his father ride away.
"Oh, mother!" cried Mazie and Jamie together, catching hold of her hand, "I"m so glad father isn"t a soldier. How we"d miss him if he didn"t come home tonight."
LITTLE SIR CAT
Little Sir Cat Sees the Cow Jump Over the Moon
One day as Little Sir Cat was riding along on his pony, Dapple Gray, he met the Cow that jumped over the moon.
"_Come here to-night When the moon is bright.
You"ll hear a fine tune When I jump o"er the moon._"
"All right," he answered, and then he went on his way, and by-and-by he met Little Dog m.u.f.f, who spilt his master"s snuff. And, goodness me! How he did bark! But this didn"t frighten Little Sir Cat. No, Siree. He knew that m.u.f.f was only barking for joy. So he put out his paw and said:
"h.e.l.loa, m.u.f.f. Have you spilt any snuff lately?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE SIR CAT SEES THE COW JUMP OVER THE MOON]
"No. I haven"t," he answered. "I don"t live with my master any more. He wasn"t a kind man; so Old Dog Tray got me a good job, and I"ve been a watch dog ever since." And then Little Sir Cat rode down the street until he came to a Pat-a-Cake Baker Shop, outside of which stood a little boy.
_Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, Baker"s man, Bake me a doughnut As fast as you can._
And goodness me! that little boy stuffed a whole doughnut into his mouth, he was in such a hurry. "Hold on!" cried Little Sir Cat, "don"t choke yourself!" And pretty soon the Baker Man came out of his little shop and gave Dapple Gray a lump of sugar. "You have a fine horse, Sir Cat. How much do you want for him?"
"Nothing."
"What!" cried the Baker Man, in astonishment.
"He"s not for sale," said Little Sir Cat. And just then the school bell rang and off went the little boy to his lessons.
So Little Sir Cat said "Gid-ap!" and rode away with m.u.f.f at his heels, and by-and-by they came to a thick wood. "Don"t let us go in," said Dapple Gray, "for, there may be robbers hidden among the trees." And just then a fierce-looking man ran out and, seizing Dapple Gray by the bridle, shouted: "Give me your purse, or I"ll make you my prisoner!"
But Dapple Gray rose on his hind legs and with his front feet knocked the robber heels over head, and then off he went on a gallop. And after a while, not so very long, Little Sir Cat saw a great white bird sitting on a gold egg. "Did you lay that golden egg, Mr. Big Bird?" he asked.
But the great white bird didn"t answer. Maybe she was frightened, or maybe she was waiting for the golden egg to hatch, for just then, all of a sudden, the sh.e.l.l broke open and out hopped twenty-one little white birds armed with swords. And one of them was dressed like a captain, with gold epaulets on his shoulder wings, and one had a drum, like a regular little drummer boy. And then they all began to sing:
_We are the soldier birds of the air, And we need no aeroplane, For we can fly across the sky In sunshine and in rain.
And if an enemy comes in view With our bright sharp swords we"ll cut him in two._
"Hurrah!" cried Little Sir Cat, and the great white mother bird flapped her wings, for she was mighty proud to think that she had raised a little sky army for Mother Goose Land.
_Jack, be nimble!
Jack be quick!
Jack, jump over the candlestick!
Jack jumped when something struck his wheel, For his candlestick was an automobile!_
[Ill.u.s.tration]
ROCK-A-BYE BABY
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Some might call Tommy naughty Because he sleeps too long, But when you"re fast asleep, I"m sure You can"t be doing wrong.
Besides he"s dreaming such good dreams Of boys on time each day, That never miss a day at school Or straggle on the way.
A LITTLE STORY ABOUT THE ROSES
The flowers in the big garden were all talking about the new rose that had just come to stay with them. "Moss Rose is very beautiful," remarked Peony to the Hollyhock; "you know she was just an ordinary kind of a rose until one evening, when the Queen of the Fairies didn"t know just where to go for the night, she leaned over and said to her, "Will you sleep in the heart of a rose?" and the Queen said of course she would, and in the morning the Fairy Queen in return for the hospitality gave her a delicate veil of moss, and from that time she was called the "Moss Rose.""
"Indeed!" replied the Hollyhock. "How lovely; I wish a fairy would come through our garden."
"Perhaps one will," said the Peony. "At any rate the Rose has always been the queen of flowers, and now that we have a new rose perhaps the Queen of the Fairies may visit our garden."
The Hollyhock smiled. "Tell me more," she said. "Do you know any more stories about red roses, or white roses, or pink roses, or yellow roses?"
"Yes, indeed," replied the Peony, "for I love roses; everybody does. You know the old Romans loved them just as much as we, and they somehow managed to make them bloom in the winter time. When they wanted to talk over matters that they did not want repeated abroad they hung a rose from the ceiling over the table, and all the conversation was called "sub rosa," "under the rose." The reason for this was because Cupid once gave a rose to Harpocrates, the G.o.d of Silence, and that was what the old Romans were thinking about when they hung the rose over the table and talked secrets."
"How interesting!" said the Hollyhock. "Where did you learn all of these wonderful things?"
"Oh," replied the Peony. "I learned it from a poet who used to walk among the flowers. The daughter of the owner of this garden would sit and listen to him while he told her stories and legends about roses; always roses, for her name was Rose, you know."
"Tell me more," said the Hollyhock, and all the other flowers bent near, too, for they had heard a little of what the Peony had told and were anxious to hear more of what the poet knew.
"He said, I remember," continued the Peony, "that the old name of Syria meant the "land of roses" and many varieties came from there, and one, the "Rose of Jericho," was the most wonderful, for there is an old legend that it grew in the desert in places where the Virgin Mary touched her feet when flying into Egypt with the infant Jesus; and they say, too, it will always blossom at Christmas time."
"How beautiful!" cried all the flowers. "Poets are like us--for their poetry is the perfume of their souls."