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Page 68
[Illustration]
As soon as the people and the chickens and donkeys and wasps and cows
and all the others were seated, side by side, in two long rows, the
magician gave out the first word. It was "Roe-dough-mon-taide"--at
least that was the way he pronounced it. The king and the queen were at
the heads of the two lines, and it was their duty to begin,--first the
king, and then the queen, if he missed.
But neither of them had ever heard of the word, and so they didn't try.
Then one of the wasps tried, and afterward a ram, a rabbit, and the
head ninny-hammer; but they made sad work of it. Then each one of the
company made an effort and did his, her or its very best, but it was of
no use; they could not spell the word.
Uprose then the little chicken that had stood on his mother's back and
tried to crow in tune with his father, and he cried out: "Give it up!"
"Wrong!" said the magician. "That's not it. You are all now under the
influence of a powerful spell. Here you will remain until some one can
correctly answer my question."
They are all there yet. How long would you, my reader, have to sit on
the grass before you could spell that word?
[Illustration]
SCRUBBY'S BEAUTIFUL TREE.
BY J.C. PURDY.
I.
"Papa!"
"Well, dear!"
"Wont to-morrow be Kissmuss?"
"Why, no, darling! We had Christmas-day long ago. Don't you remember?"
"Yes; but you said we'd have another Kissmuss in a year, and then I'd
have such a pitty tree. I'm sure it's a year. It _is_ a year, papa; and
it takes so awful long to wait for some time--it's jess a noosance. I
fink ole Kriss was drefful mean not to let me have a tree only cos we'd
got poor. Wasn't we ever poor before, papa? Don't he give trees to
_any_ poor little girls? I _do_ want a tree--sech a pitty one, like I
used to have!"
It was little Scrubby said all that. She was only four years old, but
she could say what she had to say in her own fashion. When she saw her
father's sorrowful face, she thought she had said rather too much this
time; so she gave him a hug and put up her mouth for a kiss.
"I dess I can wait, papa," she said. "But he will bring me a tree
_next_ Kissmuss, wont he? Jess like I used to have? And then wont that
be nice! There's my baby waked up. She'll be cryin' in a minute, I
s'pose."
Old Lucy, the dearest baby of all in this little girl's large family,
was taken up and quieted; and then something happened that was really
wonderful. Scrubby, with her poor torn and tangled doll in her arms,
sat very still for at least five minutes. The little maid was thinking
all that time. She did not think very straight, perhaps, but she
thought over a great deal of ground, and settled a good many things in
that busy little head of hers; then she sang them all over to good old
Lucy.
"Hush, my dear!" she sang. "Don't stay long, for it beats my heart when
the winds blow; and come back soon to your own chickabiddy, and then
Kissmuss'll be here. S'umber on, baby dear. Kriss is coming with such a
booful tree; then wont you be s'prised? She went to the hatter's to get
him a coffin, and when she come back he was fixin' my Kissmuss-tree!"
The little singer grew so enthusiastic when she came to the tree that
she could not wait to sing any more; so she just danced Lucy up and
down and chattered to her as fast as her tongue could go.
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