LINDA was a little girl who rarely thought of any one but herself. She would take the warmest place by the fire and the largest piece of cake on the dish, or the finest apple or pear; and she would take away the toys from the other children, and did not care for anything as long as she was amused herself.
Her mother was very sorry to see that Linda was selfish, and used to talk very seriously to her about it, and to tell her that no one would love her if she did not mend her ways.
But Linda did not care, and she did not believe what her mother said.
“You will always love me, Mother,” said she.
“Perhaps so,” said her mother; “but then you are my own little girl, and it is my duty to take care of you. Besides, I shall be very sorry for you, because you will be very unhappy. But no one else will care for you. Every one will dislike you because you are selfish—every one in the world.”
Linda did not say anything, but the words “every one in the world” came into her head many times during the day, and at night they came into her dreams, and she fancied she saw the words written in letters of fire, from which the flames shot up in all directions, and she was saying half aloud, “The bed will be on fire,” when a voice said—
“But you are not in bed, you are in the farmyard.”
Then she looked round, and saw that she was near the barn, and that there was a ladder not far off, and a great barrel close by. Also there was a heap of carrots, which Linda began to toss about, and to snap in two, and to pull the leaves off; and at last she was throwing them all into the duck-pond, when a voice suddenly said, “Stop!”
Linda looked round, but no one was to be seen.
“Stop!” said the voice again.
Then Linda looked down, and seated upon a stone she saw a carrot whose green top-knot of leaves she had broken off. Two little legs and two little arms had sprouted out, and it had eyes and a mouth, but no nose.
“Have you no feelings?” said the carrot. “Is it not enough to be taken from my home in the earth, without being knocked about and flung into a duck-pond? How would you like it?”
“I’m not a carrot,” said Linda.
“You don’t care for any one but yourself,” replied the carrot, growing redder and redder; “no one likes you, not even carrots, and you will find that some day people will pay you back for being so selfish. I am going to begin at once. Come carrots, carrots, carrots!” he shouted.
Then suddenly all the carrots that were lying about sprang up, and those that were in the duck-pond sprang out of it. They were joined by those in the gardens near, and they came trooping along like an army. They could walk as well in the air as on the ground; and they whirled around Linda and pulled her hair and pinched her arms, till she cried aloud for mercy.
shouted the carrots, as they twirled up and down and round and round.
The air was full of carrots, and the ground was covered by them, and Linda made up her mind that if she ever got clear of them she would never meddle with a carrot again as long as she lived. She kept off their blows as long as she could, but at last she was too tired to do so any longer, and she sank down to the ground crying, “Oh, please leave off! please leave off!”
said the carrot who had first spoken to her.
“Carrots, depart,” said he, waving his hand.
The last carrot had said “Good-by,” but Linda had not spoken.
She waited till she thought he had gone, and then she looked up. The carrot certainly was not there, but a large cat was sitting beside her.
“Topsy, poor Topsy!” said Linda.
But Topsy put up her back, and her eyes looked very fierce.
“Poor Topsy, indeed!” said the cat, angrily; “don’t think to coax me, you never think of me in the house, you pull my whiskers and my tail, and you never give me a bit of meat, or anything nice that you are eating; and this morning, though I sat on the chair beside you, longing for a little new milk, you drank it all up—you did not leave me a drop. You are the most selfish little girl I know, and I don’t like you, so I am going to scratch you.”
“Oh dear! oh dear!” said Linda, “please don’t. The carrots have punished me till I am quite sore.”
called the cat loudly.
Ah! all the cats and kittens in the world must have come. So many! And they all thronged round her, and sat upon her shoulders, and clung round her arms.
“All the cats in the world hate you,” said Topsy.
“We do! we do! we do!” mewed the cats. “She never cares what becomes of poor cats and kittens.”
Then the cats tumbled over each other, and tumbled over Linda, and crowded round her and upon her, until she was sitting under a heap of cats, with only her face peeping out, and Topsy was crouching in front, looking fiercely at her.
“Now that you cannot stir,” said Topsy, “I am going to scratch you.”
“Oh! oh! oh!” shrieked Linda, and she gave such a start that all the cats fell down upon the ground; and at that moment she opened her eyes, and found herself in her bed, with her mother standing beside her.
“What is the matter?” asked her mother, for she had heard Linda scream.
“Oh! oh! oh!” sobbed Linda, “I have had such a horrid dream.”
“Well, it was only a dream. You are awake now, and I am with you.”
“Every one in the world hates me, even the cats and the carrots,” sobbed Linda, and bit by bit she told her mother all her dream.
“It was such a horrid dream, and I was so frightened,” said Linda, “I can’t think why it came.”
“I will tell you,” said her mother; “it came out of your own heart. You had been thinking of the words I said to you, that every one would dislike you but myself. I am glad that you have had this dream, for it shows me that my words have sunk into my little girl’s heart, and I hope now that she will try to improve.”
“I will try,” said Linda.
And she did try, and whenever she was inclined to do any selfish act she thought of her wonderful dream, and said to herself, “I should not wish all the world to be like the cats and the carrots.”
“That’s a good story,” said Mary Frances to the Queen. “I shall try to remember it.”
“It is a good story,” replied the Queen, smiling; “but we have still better, as you shall hear.”
Here a page boy who sat on a stool at the foot of the Story Lady began to fidget, as if to ask a question.
“Well, what is it, Roland?” asked the Story Lady.
“If you please, can’t we have a story about a boy?” answered Roland.
“Yes,” said the Story Lady; “you shall have two stories—one about a tiger, and the other about a page boy who killed a dragon.”