Title: Little Stories for Little Children
Author: Anonymous
Release date: October 5, 2007 [eBook #22896]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
LONDON:
PRINTED BY JOSEPH MASTERS,
ALDERSGATE STREET.
JOHN WILSON. |
JANE NORTH. |
MARY AND LUCY. |
ANN SHARP. |
THE COAT. |
THE BURNT CHILD. |
GOOD ADVICE. |
TOM AND FRED. |
THE KIND SISTER. |
John-ny Wil-son and Ned Brown were play-ing at ball one day, and the ball hit John on the hand: he was ve-ry an-gry, and ran af-ter Ned and [Pg 8]beat him ve-ry hard. Just then, a man came by and gave John a box on the ear which made him let go of Ned, and he be-gan to cry. Then the man said, “You beat that lit-tle boy and for-get how you hurt him, but you do not like it your-self."
Then John was sor-ry, and said he would ne-ver do so any more; he shook [Pg 10][Pg 9]hands with Ned, and he kept his word, and all who knew him lov-ed him.
Jane North was an i-dle girl; she did not like her book, and when she was told to read her les-son she would cry, and say she want-ed to play with her doll. So her doll was tak-en from her till she had read; but she read ill, and would not learn to write. So she grew up a dunce, and [Pg 14][Pg 13][Pg 12]no one lov-ed her.
Had each a nice doll, and they took care of them. One day Tom call-ed them to play at ball, and they ran a-way to play, and left the two dolls on a chair. By and by the cat came in the room, and pull-ed the dolls to pieces, think-ing I dare say, that it was fine fun to tear them to bits, [Pg 16]and scam-per round the room with poor dol-ly's nose in her mouth.
When the girls came back, and saw the nice new dolls all in bits, they be-gan to cry, and to beat poor puss; but their mam-ma said, “No, you must not beat puss, for you left your dolls a-bout, and the cat did not know that they were not for her to play with. Next time you must be more [Pg 18][Pg 17]care-ful of your toys."
Was a kind girl. One day she was out, and a poor girl came to her and said, “Give me some bread, I have had none to eat all day.” So Ann said, “I have no bread, but here is six-pence that my mam-ma gave me, take it, [Pg 20]and buy some bread.”
The poor girl took it and said, “Oh! thank you, miss, I can now get [Pg 22][Pg 21]some-thing to eat, and will take some to my poor dad-dy who is sick.”
“Do not go out with-out your warm coat, Tom; it is a hard frost, and the snow lies thick on the ground, and you will catch cold, if you do, and then poor Tom will be ill.”
“But I feel quite warm.”
“Yes, you do now; but see what a large fire there is here, out of doors there is no fire, and the cold wind blows; and if you have no warm coat on, you will feel cold.”[Pg 24]
But Tom thought he knew best, so he went out with no coat on, and he caught a bad cold and cough, and he was put to bed quite ill. Now Jack and Will and Tom were to have had some fine sport on the fro-zen pond in the farm, but Tom was too ill to go. When he was in bed he thought how sil-ly he had been, to think he knew bet-ter than his kind friends; and then he said to him-self, he would try and do all that he was bid when he got well.[Pg 26][Pg 25]
One day a child want-ed to reach some-thing off the man-tel shelf, and not be-ing tall e-nough, she stood on the fen-der, and her mo-ther said, “Fan-ny, you must not get on the fen-der, it will turn o-ver, and then you will fall in the fire and be sad-ly burnt.”
But Fan-ny was not a good child, and did not al-ways do as she was bid: so when her mo-ther went out of the room, she want-ed to get her fa-ther's watch that lay[Pg 28] on the man-tel shelf, and she stood on the fen-der to reach it, but the fen-der turn-ed o-ver, and Fan-ny fell in the hearth and her clothes took fire. She scream-ed loud-ly, but she was not heard for a lit-tle time, and when her mo-ther ran to her, all her clothes were in a blaze; she roll-ed the rug over to put out the flame and then car-ried her to bed.
Poor Fan-ny was sad-ly burnt, and it was a long time be-fore she was well, and she had a great many scars on her face and neck which ne-ver wore off.[Pg 30][Pg 29]
Jack did not love his book; he was i-dle, and was cross when he was sent to school, and one day when he ought to have gone, he play-ed a-bout the mea-dows in-stead; and he met Sam, who was go-ing to school, and he said, “Come and play with me, Sam, and we will have some fun.”
“No,” said Sam, “I must go and learn to read, or I shall be a[Pg 32] dunce; so come with me, Jack, and then af-ter school is o-ver we will play.”
“But it is so hard to learn,” said Jack, “and I want to climb that tree to get a bird's nest.”
“No, do not get a bird's nest, for it is cru-el,” said Sam. “Come with me and try to earn the prize, come, Jack-y, to please me.”
Jack then went to school, and he found that when he tried to learn, it was not very hard, and he could soon read pret-ty sto-ries, and won a nice prize.[Pg 34][Pg 33]
“Tom, have a game at trap-bat-and-ball.”—“I do not know how to play at it.”—“Well I will teach you, look at me; that is the way, now do it your-self. That is right, you will soon learn to do it fast.”—“Yes, it is not hard to learn: now let us go and have a race. One, two, three, and off!”
“Tom, you have won it.”—“Yes, I run bet-ter than you; and you[Pg 36] play trap-bat-and-ball bet-ter than I do.”—“I am too hot to run any more, let us sit down and get cool.”—“I am to have a seat put near this tree, should you like one too?” “Yes, but I have no wood to make one.”—“Well, we will ask Dick to give you some wood; come now and ask him.”[Pg 38][Pg 37]
“Come, dear Ann, sit down and sew a lit-tle.”—“Yes, mam-ma, shall I hem my frock?”—“Yes, do.”
Ann was a good child, and al-ways did as she was bid, and when she had done her work her mam-ma told her to play with her brother. Ann had a lit-tle gar-den of her own, and she had made an ar-bour in it. When she went to play she found her bro-ther cry-ing,[Pg 40] for he had fall-en down, and broken her ar-bour to pieces. But Ann said, “You must not cry, dear, ne-ver mind break-ing the ar-bour, we will soon build it up.” So she kiss-ed him, and they work-ed till tea time and made a bet-ter ar-bour than be-fore. And Ann felt much more hap-py than she would have been had she scold-ed and been cross with poor lit-tle George.
J. MASTERS, PRINTER, ALDERSGATE STREET, LONDON.[Pg 42][Pg 41]
Transcriber's note:
There was no Table of Contents in the original, one has been added to this etext.