THE
Grasshopper
Stories
BY
Elizabeth Davis Leavitt
WITH
Illustrations by
Maude Dewey Doan
Copyright 1912
by
Elizabeth Davis Leavitt
Henderson & DePew
PRINTERS
JACKSONVILLE, ILL.
Heigho! Little girls and boys who are good! |
Come, read these tales with me!
For the secrets they tell
You will understand well
If you're good
as good
can
be!
THE WISE GRASSHOPPER
"Come, Billy!"
Billy dropped his tin-soldier on the ground and ran in to help hismother wipe the dishes. She gave him a nice, fresh towel and he began torub the tin plates as fast as he could. He never put one down until hecould see himself in it. As for the tin cups, his mother sometimesthought he would rub them entirely away! But he never did quite that.You see, Billy's mother allowed him to dry only the tin dishes becausehe was so very little, she thought he might break the china ones.
Now, on this particular morning, Billy's mother ran to the front gate tobuy the dinner from the vegetable-man. While she was gone, he finishedall the tin dishes on the draining-tray. There was still a beautiful,white, china cup to be dried.
"I believe I'll wipe just that one!" said Billy. He reached up, caughthold of the cup and was carefully bringing it down to his other hand,when—"Crash!"—the cup lay on the floor in pieces.
Billy was very frightened. He looked out of the door to[6] see if his motherwas coming. But she was still talking to the vegetable-man. Then he dida strange thing. He pushed all the pieces of the broken cup under thetable and ran out the back door to his toys. But he did not play withthem. He sat down on a stone, chin in hand. The little tin-soldierlooked up at him as if to say, "Come on, Billy, let's march!" The littlehorse-and-wagon stood ready to start, as if saying, "Come on Billy,let's go travelling!" The little Teddy Bear, with h