126 A Tired Boy.

must tell you that May did not forget
to read her little pupil a story.

For Johnny loved stories with all
his heart; and when there was a
chance of one, he would get his
little three-legged stool that father
made for him a long time ago, and
sit down on it, very often resting his
fat cheeks on his fat hands, and
looking very earnestly into the
reader’s face. Because, you know,
May was not the only person to read
stories. There was the father—he
would read some good ones, and
make Johnny laugh by the funny
way in which he read them; and
mother, too: sometimes she related
stories without a book—told about