The Project Gutenberg eBook of Very Short Stories and Verses For Children
Title: Very Short Stories and Verses For Children
Author: Mrs. W. K. Clifford
Illustrator: Edith Campbell
Release date: October 16, 2009 [eBook #30272]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Edwards, Diane Monico, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
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VERY SHORT STORIES
MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD
"Apple Blossom, I am waiting; are you here?" P. 14
VERY SHORT STORIES
AND
VERSES FOR CHILDREN.
BY
MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD,
Author of "Anyhow Stories," &c.
With Illustrations by Edith Campbell.
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
1886.
Preface.
These stories, with the exception of the first one, are reprinted from two little books—"Children Busy," etc., and "Under Mother's Wing." They were then only signed with my initials. Some of the verses appear now for the first time.
TO YOU—AND ETHEL AND ALICE
CONTENTS.
- PAGE
- MASTER WILLIE 9
- SWINGING 17
- THE WOODEN DOLL 18
- WATCHING 20
- THE LIGHT ON THE HILLS 22
- WRITING A BOOK 25
- THE RABBIT 27
- THE SANDY CAT 28
- ON THE WAY TO THE SUN 30
- IN THE MOONLIGHT 33
- THE POOR LITTLE DOLL 35
- THE VIOLETS 37
- THE FIDDLER 39
- THE BROKEN HORSE 40
- THE RAINBOW-MAKER 41
- OVER THE PORRIDGE 43
- A-COMING DOWN THE STREET 45
- THE PROUD BOY 47
- SEEKING THE VIOLETS 49
- TOMMY'S STOCKINGS 51
- MIDSUMMER-NIGHT 52
- THE LITTLE MAID 54
- WAR 55
- PEACE 56
- MY LITTLE BROTHER 58
- THE KITE 59
- THE TINKER'S MARRIAGE 61
- THE CHILDREN AND THE GARLAND 62
- ROUND THE TEA-TABLE 64
- TOMMY 67
- THE SWALLOWS 69
- A FIRST LOVE-MAKING 71
- SMUT 72
- SEE-SAW 74
- THE BAD GIRL 75
- MORNING TIME 78
- THE PINK PARASOL 80
- THE SISTERS 82
- THE WHITE RABBITS 83
- THE WOODEN HORSE 84
- THE DUCK POND 86
- THE LITTLE MAID 88
- THE DONKEY ON WHEELS 89
- COCK-A-DOODLE 91
- THE BOY AND LITTLE GREAT LADY 92
- GOOD-DAY, GENTLE FOLK 94
MASTER WILLIE.
There was once a little boy called Willie. I never knew his other name, and as he lived far off behind the mountain, we cannot go to inquire. He had fair hair and blue eyes, and there was something in his face that, when you had looked at him, made you feel quite happy and rested, and think of all the things you meant to do by-and-by when you were wiser and stronger. He lived all alone with the tall aunt, who was very rich, in the big house at the end of the village. Every morning he went down the street with his little goat under his arm, and the village folk looked after him and said, "There goes Master Willie."
The tall aunt had a very long neck; on the top of it was her head, on the top of her head she wore a white cap. Willie used often to look up at her and think that the cap was like snow upon the mountain. She was very fond of Willie, but she had lived a great many years and was always sitting still to think them over, and she had forgotten all the games she used to know, all the stories she had read when she was little, and when Willie asked her about them, would say, "No, dear, no, I can't remember; go to the woods and play." Sometimes she would take his face between her two hands and look at him well while Willie felt quite sure that she was not thinking of him, but of someone else he did not know, and then she would kiss him, and turn away quickly, saying, "Go to the woods, dear; it is no good staying with an old woman." Then he, knowing that she wanted to be alone, would pick up his goat and hurry away.
He had had a dear little sister, called Apple-blossom, but a strange thing had happened to her. One day she over-wound her very big doll that talked and walked, and the consequence was quite terrible. No sooner was the winding-up key out of the doll's side than it blinked its eyes, talked very fast, made faces, took Apple-blossom by the hand, saying, "I am not your doll any longer, but you are my little girl," and led her right away no one could tell whither, and no one was able to follow. The tall aunt and Willie only knew that she had gone to be the doll's little girl in some strange place, where dolls were stronger and more important than human beings.
After Apple-blossom left him, Willie had only his goat to play with; it was a poor little thing with no horns, no tail and hardly any hair, but still he loved it dearly, and put it under his arm every morning while he went along the street.
"It is only made of painted wood and a little hair, Master Willie," said the blacksmith's wife one day. "Why should you care for it; it is not even alive."
"But if it were alive, anyone could love it."
"And living hands made it," the miller's wife said. "I wonder what strange hands they were;—take care of it for the sake of them, little master."
"Yes, dame, I will," he answered gratefully, and he went on his way thinking of the hands, wondering what tasks had been set them to do since they fashioned the little goat. He stayed all day in the woods helping the children to gather nuts and blackberries. In the afternoon he watched them go home with their aprons full; he looked after them longingly as they went on their way singing. If he had had a father and mother, or brothers and sisters, to whom he could have carried home nuts and blackberries, how merry he would have been. Sometimes he told the children how happy they were to live in a cottage with the door open all day, and the sweet breeze blowing in, and the cocks and hens strutting about outside, and the pigs grunting in the styes at the end of the garden; to see the mother scrubbing and washing, to know that the father was working in the fields, and to run about and help and play, and be cuffed and kissed, just as it happened. Then they would answer, "But you have the tall lady for your aunt, and the big house to live in, and the grand carriage to drive in, while we are poor, and sometimes have little to eat and drink; mother often tells us how fine it must be to be you."
"But the food that you eat is sweet because you are very hungry," he answered them, "and no one sorrows in your house. As for the grand carriage, it is better to have a carriage if your heart is heavy, but when it is light, then you can run swiftly on your own two legs." Ah, poor Willie, how lonely he was, and yet the tall aunt loved him dearly. On hot drowsy days he had many a good sleep with his head resting against her high thin shoulders, and her arms about him.
One afternoon, clasping his goat as usual, he sat down by the pond. All the children had gone home, so he was quite alone, but he was glad to look at the pond and think. There were so many strange things in the world, it seemed as if he would never have done thinking about them, not if he lived to be a hundred.
He rested his elbows on his knees and sat staring at the pond. Overhead the trees were whispering; behind him, in and out of their holes the rabbits whisked; far off he could hear the twitter of a swallow; the foxglove was dead, the bracken was turning brown, the cones from the fir trees were lying on the ground. As he watched, a strange thing happened. Slowly and slowly the pond lengthened out and out, stretching away and away until it became a river—a long river that went on and on, right down the woods, past the great black firs, past the little cottage that was a ruin and only lived in now and then by a stray gipsy or a tired tramp, past the setting sun, till it dipped into space beyond. Then many little boats came sailing towards Willie, and one stopped quite close to where he sat, just as if it were waiting for him. He looked at it well; it had a snow-white sail and a little man with a drawn-sword for a figure-head. A voice that seemed to come from nowhere asked—
"Are you ready, Willie?" Just as if he understood he answered back—
"Not yet,—not quite, dear Queen, but I shall be soon. I should like to wait a little longer."
"No, no, come now, dear child; they are all waiting for you." So he got up and stepped into the boat, and it put out before he had even time to sit down. He looked at the rushes as the boat cut its way through them; he saw the hearts of the lilies as they lay spread open on their great wide leaves; he went on and on beneath the crimson sky towards the setting sun, until he slipped into space with the river.
He saw land at last far on a-head, and as he drew near it he understood whither the boat was bound. All along the shore there were hundreds and hundreds of dolls crowding down to the water's edge, looking as if they had expected him. They stared at him with their shining round eyes; but he just clasped his little goat tighter and closer, and sailed on nearer and nearer to the land. The dolls did not move; they stood still, smiling at him with their painted lips, then suddenly they opened their painted mouths and put out their painted tongues at him; but still he was not afraid. He clasped the goat yet a little closer, and called out, "Apple-blossom, I am waiting; are you here?" Just as he had expected, he heard Apple-blossom's voice answering from the back of the toy-town—
"Yes, dear brother, I am coming." So he drew close to the shore, and waited for her. He saw her a long way off, and waved his hand.
"I have come to fetch you," he said.
"But I cannot go with you unless I am bought," she answered, sadly, "for now there is a wire spring inside me; and look at my arms, dear brother;" and pulling up her pink muslin sleeves, she showed him that they were stuffed with sawdust. "Go home, and bring the money to pay for me," she cried, "and then I can come home again." But the dolls had crowded up behind, so that he might not turn his boat round. "Straight on," cried Apple-blossom, in despair; "what does it matter whether you go backwards or forwards if you only keep straight when you live in a world that is round?"
So he sailed on once more beneath the sky that was getting grey, through all the shadows that gathered round, beneath the pale moon, and the little stars that came out one by one and watched him from the sky.
I saw him coming towards the land of story-books. That was how I knew about him, dear children. He was very tired and had fallen asleep, but the boat stopped quite naturally, as if it knew that I had been waiting for him. I stooped, and kissed his eyes, and looked at his little pale face, and lifting him softly in my arms, put him into this book to rest. That is how he came to be here for you to know. But in the toy-land Apple-blossom waits with the wire spring in her breast and the sawdust in her limbs; and at home, in the big house at the end of the village, the tall aunt weeps and wails and wonders if she will ever see again the children she loves so well.
She will not wait very long, dear children. I know how it will all be. When it is quite dark to-night, and she is sitting in the leather chair with the high back, her head on one side, and her poor long neck aching, quite suddenly she will hear two voices shouting for joy. She will start up and listen, wondering how long she has been sleeping, and then she will call out—
"Oh, my darlings, is it you?" And they will answer back—
"Yes, it is us, we have come, we have come!" and before her will stand Willie and Apple-blossom. For the big doll will have run down, and the wire spring and the sawdust will have vanished, and Apple-blossom will be the doll's little girl no more. Then the tall aunt will look at them both and kiss them; and she will kiss the poor little goat too, wondering if it is possible to buy him a new tail. But though she will say little, her heart will sing for joy. Ah, children, there is no song that is sung by bird or bee, or that ever burst from the happiest lips, that is half so sweet as the song we sometimes sing in our hearts—a song that is learnt by love, and sang only to those who love us.
SWINGING.
Through the drowsy afternoon;
Swing, swing, swing,
Up I go to meet the moon.
Swing, swing, swing,
I can see as I go high
Far along the crimson sky;
I can see as I come down
The tops of houses in the town;
High and low,
Fast and slow,
Swing, swing, swing.
See! the sun is gone away;
Swing, swing, swing,
Gone to make a bright new day.
Swing, swing, swing.
I can see as up I go
The poplars waving to and fro,
I can see as I come down
The lights are twinkling in the town,
High and low,
Fast and slow,
Swing, swing, swing.
THE WOODEN DOLL.
The wooden doll had no peace. My dears, if ever you are a doll, hope to be a rag doll, or a wax doll, or a doll full of sawdust apt to ooze out, or a china doll easy to break—anything in the world rather than a good strong wooden doll with a painted head and movable joints, for that is indeed a sad thing to be. Many a time the poor wooden doll wished it were a tin train, or a box of soldiers, or a woolly lamb, or anything on earth rather than what it was. It never had any peace; it was taken up and put down at all manners of odd moments, made to go to bed when the children went to bed, to get up when they got up, be bathed when they were bathed, dressed when they were dressed, taken out in all weathers, stuffed into their satchels when they went to school, left about in corners, dropped on stairs, forgotten, neglected, bumped, banged, broken, glued together,—anything and everything it suffered, until many a time it said sadly enough to its poor little self, "I might as well be a human being at once and be done with it!" And then it fell to thinking about human beings; what strange creatures they were, always going about, though none carried them save when they were very little; always sleeping and waking, and eating and drinking, and laughing and crying, and talking and walking, and doing this and that and the other, never resting for long together, or seeming as if they could be still for even a single day. "They are always making a noise," thought the wooden doll; "they are always talking and walking about, always moving things and doing things, building up and pulling down, and making and unmaking for ever and for ever, and never are they quiet. It is lucky that we are not all human beings, or the world would be worn out in no time, and there would not be a corner left in which to rest a poor doll's head."
WATCHING.
We'll blow him kisses, baby dear,—
He may come home to-day.
A happy wind that journeys south
Seems just to linger round my mouth,
Then bear a kiss away.
We'll watch the waves that outward go,
And call, "Come back to-day!"
For father's heart seems always near,
And who can tell but he may hear,
Or know the words we say?
The honeysuckle's grown so tall,
It sees above the gate;
The flowers came hurrying up so sweet—
We told the little seeds they'd meet
Dear father,—and they wait.
Far, far away, there where the light
Has swept the morning dim;
So silent will his coming seem,
'Twill be like waking from a dream
To wave our hands to him.
And swiftly pass the people by,
Just stopping here and there
To shake the neighbours by the hand,
And tell them of the southern land,
And ask them how they fare.
For mother said he'd come to-day—
We knew it by her face;
She caught you up and kissed you so,
And now she's busy to and fro,
And sings about the place.
THE LIGHT ON THE HILLS.
"I want to work at my picture," he said, and went into the field. The little sister went too, and stood by him watching while he painted.
"The trees are not quite straight," she said, presently, "and oh, dear brother, the sky is not blue enough."
"It will all come right soon," he answered. "Will it be of any good?"
"Oh yes," she said, wondering that he should even ask, "it will make people happy to look at it. They will feel as if they were in the field."
"If I do it badly, will it make them unhappy?"
"Not if you do your very best," she answered; "for they will know how hard you have tried. Look up," she said suddenly, "look up at the light upon the hills," and they stood together looking at all he was trying to paint, at the trees and the field, at the deep shadows and the hills beyond, and the light that rested upon them.
"It is a beautiful world," the girl said. "It is a great honour to make things for it."
"It is a beautiful world," the boy echoed sadly. "It is a sin to disgrace it with things that are badly done."
"But you will do things well?"
"I get so tired," he said, "and long to leave off so much. What do you do when you want to do your best,—your very, very best?" he asked, suddenly.
"I think that I am doing it for the people I love," she answered. "It makes you very strong if you think of them; you can bear pain, and walk far, and do all manner of things, and you don't get tired so soon."
He thought for a moment. "Then I shall paint my picture for you," he said; "I shall think of you all the time I am doing it."
Once more they looked at the hills that seemed to rise up out of the deep shadows into the light, and then together they went home.
Soon afterwards a great sorrow came to the boy. While the little sister slept, she wandered into another world, and journeyed on so far that she lost the clue to earth, and came back no more. The boy painted many pictures before he saw the field again, but in the long hours, as he sat and worked, there came to him a strange power that answered more and more truly to the longing in his heart—the longing to put into the world something of which he was not ashamed, something which should make it, if only in the person of its meanest, humblest citizen, a little happier or better.
At last, when he knew that his eye was true and his touch sure, he took up the picture he had promised to paint for the dear sister, and worked at it until he was finished.
"This is better than all he has done before," the beholders said. "It is surely beautiful, for it makes one happy to look at it."
"And yet my heart ached as I did it," the boy said, as he went back to the field. "I thought of her all the time I worked,—it was sorrow that gave me power." It seemed as if a soft voice, that spoke only to his heart, answered back—
"Not sorrow but love, and perfect love has all things in its gift, and of it are all things born save happiness, and though that may be born too——"
"How does one find happiness?" interrupted the boy.
"It is a strange chase," the answer seemed to be; "to find it for one's own self, one must seek it for others. We all throw the ball for each other."
"But it is so difficult to seize."
"Perfect love helps one to live without happiness," his own heart answered to himself; "and above all things it helps one to work and to wait."
"But if it gives one happiness too?" he asked eagerly.
"Ah, then it is called Heaven."
WRITING A BOOK.
"Let us write a book," they said; "but what shall it be about?"
"A fairy story," said the elder sister.
"A book about kings and queens," said the other.
"Oh, no," said the brother, "let's write about animals."
"We will write about them all," they cried together. So they put the paper, and pens, and ink ready. The elder sister took up a fairy story and looked at it, and put it down again.
"I have never known any fairies," she said, "except in books; but, of course, it would not do to put one book inside another—anyone could do that."
"I shall not begin to-day," the little one said, "for I must know a few kings and queens before I write about them, or I may say something foolish."
"I shall write about the pig, and the pony, and the white rabbit," said the brother; "but first I must think a bit. It would never do to write a book without thinking."
Then the elder sister took up the fairy story again, to see how many things were left out, for those, she thought, would do to go into her book. The little one said to herself, "Really, it is no good thinking about kings and queens until I have known some, so I must wait;" and while the brother was considering about the pig, and the pony, and the white rabbit, he fell asleep.
So the book is not written yet, but when it is we shall know a great deal.
THE RABBIT.
A little breeze is blowing,
The radish leaves are crisp and green,
The lettuces are growing.
With both his eyes a-winking;
The rabbit shakes his little tail,
And sits him down a-thinking—
And are the frogs a-wooing?
Will no one come to play with me?
What are they all a-doing?"
Don't let the master meet you;
He'll shoot you with his little gun,
And merrily he'll eat you!
THE SANDY CAT.
The sandy cat sat by the kitchen fire. Yesterday it had had no supper; this morning everyone had forgotten it. All night it had caught no mice; all day as yet it had tasted no milk. A little grey mouse, a saucerful of milk, a few fish or chicken bones, would have satisfied it; but no grey mouse, with its soft stringy tail behind it, ran across the floor; no milk was near, no chicken bones, no fish, no anything. The serving-maid had been washing clothes, and was hanging them out to dry. The children had loitered on their way to school, and were wondering what the master would say to them. The father had gone to the fair to help a neighbour to choose a horse. The mother sat making a patchwork quilt. No one thought of the sandy cat; it sat by the fire alone and hungry.
At last the clothes were all a-drying, the children had been scolded, and sat learning a lesson for the morrow. The father came from the fair, and the patchwork quilt was put away. The serving-maid put on a white apron with a frill, and a clean cap, then taking the sandy cat in her arms, said, "Pussy, shall we go into the garden?" So they went and walked up and down, up and down the pathway, till at last they stopped before a rose tree; the serving-maid held up the cat to smell the roses, but with one long bound it leaped from her arms and away—away—away.
Whither?
Ah, dear children, I cannot tell, for I was not there to see; but if ever you are a sandy cat you will know that it is a terrible thing to be asked to smell roses when you are longing for a saucerful of milk and a grey mouse with a soft stringy tail.
ON THE WAY TO THE SUN.
He had journeyed a long way, and was very tired. It seemed like a dream when he stood up after a sleep in the field, and looked over the wall, and saw the garden, and the flowers, and the children playing all about. He looked at the long road behind him, at the dark wood and the barren hills; it was the world to which he belonged. He looked at the garden before him, at the big house, and the terrace, and the steps that led down to the smooth lawn—it was the world which belonged to the children.
"Poor boy," said the elder child, "I will get you something to eat."
"But where did he come from?" the gardener asked.
"We do not know," the child answered; "but he is very hungry, and mother says we may give him some food."
"I will take him some milk," said the little one; in one hand she carried a mug and with the other she pulled along her little broken cart.
"But what is he called?" asked the gardener.
"We do not know," the little one answered; "but he is very thirsty, and mother says we may give him some milk."
"Where is he going?" asked the gardener.
"We do not know," the children said; "but he is very tired."
When the boy had rested well, he got up saying, "I must not stay any longer," and turned to go on his way.
"What have you to do?" the children asked.
"I am one of the crew, and must help to make the world go round," he answered.
"Why do we not help too?"
"You are the passengers."
"How far have you to go?" they asked.
"Oh, a long way!" he answered. "On and on until I can touch the sun."
"Will you really touch it?" they said, awestruck.
"I dare say I shall tire long before I get there," he answered sadly. "Perhaps without knowing it, though, I shall reach it in my sleep," he added. But they hardly heard the last words, for he was already far off.
"Why did you talk to him?" the gardener said. "He is just a working boy."
"And we do nothing! It was very good of him to notice us," they said, humbly.
"Good!" said the gardener in despair. "Why, between you and him there is a great difference."
"There was only a wall," they answered. "Who set it up?" they asked curiously.
"Why, the builders, of course. Men set it up."
"And who will pull it down?"
"It will not want any pulling down," the man answered grimly. "Time will do that."
As the children went back to their play, they looked up at the light towards which the boy was journeying.
"Perhaps we too shall reach it some day," they said.
IN THE MOONLIGHT.
He picked a buttercup, and held it up to her chin. "Do you like butter?" he asked.
"Butter!" she exclaimed. "They are not made into butter. They are made into crowns for the Queen; she has a new one every morning."
"I'll make you a crown," he said. "You shall wear it to-night."
"But where will my throne be?" she asked.
"It shall be on the middle step of the stile by the corn-field."
So when the moon rose I went out to see.
He wore a red jacket and his cap with the feather in it. Round her head there was a wreath of buttercups; it was not much like a crown. On one side of the wreath there were some daisies, and on the other was a little bunch of blackberry-blossom.
"Come and dance in the moonlight," he said; so she climbed up and over the stile, and stood in the corn-field holding out her two hands to him. He took them in his, and then they danced round and round all down the pathway, while the wheat nodded wisely on either side, and the poppies awoke and wondered. On they went, on and on through the corn-field towards the broad green meadows stretching far into the distance. On and on, he shouting for joy, and she laughing out so merrily that the sound travelled to the edge of the wood, and the thrushes heard, and dreamed of Spring. On they went, on and on, and round and round, he in his red jacket, and she with the wild flowers dropping one by one from her wreath. On and on in the moonlight, on and on till they had danced all down the corn-field, till they had crossed the green meadows, till they were hidden in the mist beyond.
That is all I know; but I think that in the far far off somewhere, where the moon is shining, he and she still dance along a corn-field, he in his red jacket, and she with the wild flowers dropping from her hair.
THE POOR LITTLE DOLL.
It was a plain little doll that had been bought for sixpence at a stall in the market-place. It had scanty hair and a weak composition face, a calico body and foolish feet that always turned inwards instead of outwards, and from which the sawdust now and then oozed. Yet in its glass eyes there was an expression of amusement; they seemed to be looking not at you but through you, and the pursed-up red lips were always smiling at what the glass eyes saw.
"Well, you are a doll," the boy said, looking up from his French exercise. "And what are you staring at me for—is there anything behind?" he asked, looking over his shoulder. The doll made no answer. "And whatever are you smiling for?" he asked; "I believe you are always smiling. I believe you'd go on if I didn't do my exercise till next year, or if the cat died, or the monument tumbled down." But still the doll smiled in silence, and the boy went on with his exercise. Presently he looked up again and yawned. "I think I'll go for a stroll," he said, and put his book by. "I know what I'll do," he said, suddenly; "I'll take that doll and hang it up to the apple tree to scare away the sparrows." And calling out, "Sis, I have taken your doll; I'm going to make a scarecrow of it," he went off to the garden.
His sister rushed after him, crying out, "Oh, my poor doll! oh, my dear little doll! What are you doing to it, you naughty boy?"
"It's so ugly," he said.
"No, it is not ugly," she cried.
"And it's so stupid,—it never does anything but smile,—it can't even grow,—it never gets any bigger."
"Poor darling doll," Sis said, as she got it once more safely into her arms, "of course you can't grow, but it is not your fault, they did not make any tucks in you to let out."
"And it's so unfeeling. It went smiling away like anything when I could not do my French."
"It has no heart. Of course it can't feel."
"Why hasn't it got a heart?"
"Because it isn't alive. You ought to be sorry for it, and very, very kind to it, poor thing."
"Well, what is it always smiling for?"
"Because it is so good," answered Sis, bursting into tears. "It is never bad-tempered; it never complains, and it never did anything unkind," and, kissing it tenderly, "you are always good and sweet," she said, "and always look smiling, though you must be very unhappy at not being alive."
THE VIOLETS.
The sun came out and shone down on the leafless trees that cast hardly any shadows on the pathway through the woods.
"Surely the Spring is coming," the birds said; "it must be time to wake the flowers."
The thrush, and the lark, and the linnet sang sweetly. A robin flew up from the snow, and perched upon a branch; a little ragged boy at the end of the wood stopped and listened.
"Surely the Spring is coming," he too said; "and mother will get well."
The flowers that all through the Winter had been sleeping in the ground heard the birds, but they were drowsy, and longed to sleep on. At last the snowdrops came up and looked shiveringly about; and a primrose leaf peeped through the ground, and died of cold. Then some violets opened their blue eyes, and, hidden beneath the tangle of the wood, listened to the twittering of the birds. The little ragged boy came by; he saw the tender flowers, and, stooping down, gathered them one by one, and put them into a wicker basket that hung upon his arm.
"Dear flowers," he said, with a sigh, as if loth to pick them, "you will buy poor mother some breakfast," and, tying them up into little bunches, he carried them to the town. All the morning he stood by the road-side, offering his flowers to the passers-by, but no one took any notice of him; and his face grew sad and troubled. "Poor mother!" he said, longingly; and the flowers heard him, and sighed.
"Those violets are very sweet," a lady said as she passed; the boy ran after her.
"Only a penny," he said, "just one penny, for mother is at home." Then the lady bought them, and carried them to the beautiful house in which she lived, and gave them some water, touching them so softly that the poor violets forgot to long for the woods, and looked gratefully up into her face.
"Mother," said the boy, "see, I have brought some bread for your breakfast. The violets sent it to you," and he put the little loaf down before her.
The birds knew nothing of all this, and went on singing till the ground was covered with flowers, till the leaves had hidden the brown branches of the trees, and the pathway through the woods was all shade, save for the sunshine that flecked it with light.