Lotarop PuBiisHine (OMpaNy | Mig oh _... Bosron. eS ‘ i $ i + o 4 « i . . : eS, Yoong st ty ] ?, f x if) # r . i 4 a scaitepepcaaeigs cao 5 LARGE PRINT | FOR LITTLE READERS © BY EMMA E. BROWN LILUSTRATED BOSTON LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY CoryricutT, 1880, BY D. Lorurop & Co. CoPpyRIGHT, 1895, BY LoTHRoP PUBLISHING COMPANY. All rights reserved. LARGE PRINT FOR LITTLE READERS. It was a day in spring, but it was a ver-y cold day. The snow-drops out in the gar-den looked as if they were sor-ry they had come up quite so soon. Their lit-tle white heads hung so low, it real-ly seemed as if they were try-ing to creep down into their nice warm beds un-der the ground. The wind blew ver-y hard, and great hail-stones fell up-on the roof and down a-gainst the win-dow- panes. | Jack and Jill left their play, and drew their stools close up to the bright fire. Then Tot, the ba-by broth-er, be-gan to cry. | “Oh! [I know what he wants,” sald Jill, pull-ing off the ba-by’s socks. “Do just feel of his feet; they are as cold as ice. He wants us to toast them by the fire.” “Goo! Goo!” laughed Tot, as they pushed his chair up to-wards the hearth, and held up his lit-tle bare feet to the blaz-ing log. “Hark!” cried Jack, as they sat there by the fire, “don’t you hear a fun-ny noise?” “May be it’s the wind,” said Jill, “or the hail as it beats a-gainst the panes.” “No,” said Jack, “TI don’t think it is the wind or the hail. There! didn’t you hear it just then —‘ peep, peep, p-e-e-p??" Jill wasn’t quite sure, but she ran to the door and looked out. “Don’t leave Tot,” she called back to Jack who was a-bout to fol-low her ; “I won’t be gone long.” Down in the gar-den where the snow-drops hung thew pale faces, Jill saw a ti-ny brown bird. “That is what Jack heard,” she said to her-self, “and I do be-lieve the poor lit-tle thing is just a-bout froz-en.” When Jill tried to take the bird up in her hand she saw that one wing was brok-en. So she put her mit-ten on the ground and laid the bird up-on it. On this soft bed she could car-ry it up to the house with-out hurt-ing its wings. “Why! what have you found ?” said the ba-by’s nurse, who met Jill at the door. | “A poor lit-tle sick bird,” said Jill, “and I want to see if the doc- tor can-not make it all well a-gain.” © “Let me see what I can do for. it,” said nurse, who had a kind heart, and could not bear to see aaa an-Vy thing suf-fer. 4) “We will bathe its =a) wing and wrap it *))) up in some-thing 7 warm. And then 8 NIN) we must take care <<<" that pus-sy does not find it. Aft-er I rock ba-by Tot to sleep, we will make a cage for it out of my old work bask-et.” The bird that Jill had found was a lit-tle brown finch. These birds come North vy ear-ly ‘in the spring. They build their nests a-way down a-mong the dead leaves and grasses. Like the snow-drops, they come ely VES = = : a) i Wf, jg XN Zijullile aR ter is o-ver; but some-times they come so ear-ly that. Jack Frost meets them on the way. “Let's call our lit-tle bird Peep, said Jill, “for that is all it says.” “All right,” said Jack; “but I should like to know if it has built a nest down in the gar-den.” “Tt does not hail now,” said Jill, “we might go out and see.” So off they ran in great glee to find the nest. The hail-stones were melt-ing fast, but all the gar-den walks were 1-cy. “T found the lit-tle bird right here,” said Jill, when they came to the bed where the snow-drops grew. Jack looked un-der the leaves, but he could not see any thing that looked like a nest. “Let's go down to the brook,” said he; “per-haps we shall find it there a-mong the tall reeds.” So on they went through the short wet erass, till a sud-den cry from Jack made Jill turn quick-ly round. | “Qh-oh-on! do help me up!” he cried. | Poor Jack! he had fall-en his full length in a pool of mud and melt-ing ice. Jill took his hand and tried to help him up, but a-las! he had sprained his an-kle, and could not walk, or even stand. He was ver-y brave a-bout it, and told Jill not to mind; but the lit-tle girl could not help ery- ing as she ran back to the house to call mam-ma. een the a dog, met her at the door, and put out his paw, as much as to say, ‘ae “Do please tell (07) me what is the (| mat-ter!” And | when mam-ma and nurse brought J a in, and laid him on the bed, ihe poor dog be-gan to whine in_ the most dole-ful way. It was a num-ber of days be-fore Jack could leave his bed. be-sides sprain-ing his an-kle, he had ta-ken a very bad cold, and the doc-tor said he might have a slow fe-ver. Jack tried to be good and pa-tient, but he found it hard to be so qui-et. The days seemed ve-ry long to him. He thought he knew how to pit-y the poor lit-tle finch with the brok- en wing. “When it gets well, ” he said to him-self, “I shall not keep it in a cage. Justas soon as it can use its wings Ill o-pen the door wide and let it fly a-way.” Jack had a great man-y kind friends who sent him fruit and flow- ers while he was sick. “How good ever-y bod-y is to me!” he said one day to his mam-ma when she brought in a great bunch of white grapes. “Yes, dear,” said mam-ma, “and since ev-er-y-body is so good to you, why, you must be good to ev- er-y-body.” Jill was ver-y lone-ly. “There was no fun in play-ing,” she said, **with-out Jack.” E-ven her pet doll Rose, with all the fine clothes : that nurse had made for it, couldn’t take the place of Jack. | . “T wish I hada live doll, mam- ma,” she said at last, “a doll that t cry jus 1P-1eS Ss Ce SS SS SS Jill says she thinks the fa S&S could laugh and talk and like real folks.” for i i i i 9 (i fj Mn i dl ll al S she what think ?— why, a real live black baby, right down a-mong her play-things. when she went back to the play- room, she found — what do you must have heard aN i} i i “OQ mam-ma, mam-ma!” she cried, “do come and see what I have found—it’s just what I want-ed — but who put it there? where did it come from?” Mam-ma o-pened her eyes ver-y wide when she saw the fun-ny black ba-by in the play-room. How it came there she could not tell, and no-bod-y in the house knew any- thing a-bout it. The door of the play-room and the out-side door were both wide o-pen. | Jill ran to look out, but all she could see was Tab-by, the cat, watch- ing the old white hen and her chick- ens. If Jill could have looked o-ver the gar-den wall and down in-to the street, she would have seen a fun-ny sight, and found out where the black ba-by came from. A par-ty of ne-groes on their way to town had stopped to rest and sun them-selves by an old build- ing just out-side the gar-den wall. One lit-tle fel-low, in spite of fre- quent nudg-es from his wide a-wake sis-ter, was al-read-y fast a-sleep. The ba-by’s moth-er had gone to and when no one was look-ing the ba-by had crept off. While Jill was play-ing with this fun-ny “live doll,” there came such a loud knock on the door that e-ven Jack was star-tled, and sat up in bed. It was the black ba-by’s moth-er. | ‘“Bress its lit-tle heart! T thought Pd lost it, sure!” she eried, as she caught the ba-by upin her arms and be-gan to hug and kiss it. Jill felt so bad-ly a-bout giv-ing up her ‘live doll,” that her mam-ma, to com-fort her, made a fun-ny cap out of some brown pa- per and said she would tell her and Jack a sto- ry a-bout a lit-tle boy she knew who used to wear a cap that looked some-what like this one. “The first time I saw him,” said mam-ma, “he was sit-ting on the top of a fence play-ing his flute. It was one sum-mer when pa-pa and I were spend-ing a few daysin a lit-tle vil- lage a-mong the Alps. I had been out rid-ing on horse-back, and had stopped by a field of wheat to pick some pret-ty blue corn-flow-ers and : , bright red pop-pies. | “T knew the boy /was a shep-herd, from the long crook by his side. Down in the val-ley I could see a flock of sheep, and as the boy play- “ed up-on his flute, che came slow-ly up the hill-side one by one. _ “Pierre (for that was the boy’s fiir rh lM ii all ih ) name as I found out af-ter-ward) did not at first see me. But when I spoke, he turned quick-ly round, took off his fun-ny hat, and made a low bow. — “T liked his bright, earn-est face, and asked him where he lived. ““Down yon-der, he said point- ing to a lit-tle cot-tage down in the val-ley, ‘and that is my sis-ter,’ he— add-ed, ‘the lit-tle girl pick-ing flow-ers o-ver there in the field. She of-ten comes up here to help 1 me take care of the sheep.’ “