Richard Roe.
Bessiewent to pass a week with her Aunt Clara and Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank was a portrait-painter. One day Bessie took her doll Cornelia, and went into his studio.
Looking at the portrait
On the easel stood a portrait. Bessie looked at it, and thought it must be a likeness of her friend Col. Fraser. "But," said she, "the mustache is too faint: it wants paint."
Then she remembered hearing her uncle say that he had more work than he could attend to. "What if I do a little work for him, and so give him a surprise!" thought she.
"Uncle Frank, when he is by, never lets me touch his paints," said Bessie to herself; "but that must be because he does not know how clever I am. Nothing can be easier to paint than a mustache. It is only a number of hairs."
Into the paints
So Bessie climbed up into her uncle's chair, and took one of his long brushes in her hand. Then she looked at the colors on the palette, and tried to mix the blue and red as she had seen Uncle Frank do.
The long brush was hard to manage. However, she remembered the rhyme, "Try, try, try again;" and she worked away until she thought she had got the tint.
At last Bessie was ready to begin her great work. So, standing on tiptoe, she applied the brush to the upper-lip. She was determined, while she was about it, to give Col. Fraser a thoroughly good mustache, long and thick.
Fixing the portrait
Now and then she would step back a little way, and consider the picture from a distance, as she had seen her uncle do. She was well pleased with her work. It was certainly a great improvement: so Bessie thought.
At last she laid down her brush. She felt quite charmed with her success, and picked up her doll off the floor, that she might see how well her little mamma could paint.
"It is beautiful! Is it not, Cornelia?" she said, as she threw herself back in the chair. "Uncle will never say again that I cannot paint. Perhaps it is more blue than Col. Fraser's mustache; but it is all the prettier for that."
Admiring her work
Bessie remembered, too, that her mamma had once read to her a story about a man with a blue beard. "So peopledohave blue mustaches sometimes," thought she.
What did Uncle Frank say when he saw what she had done? I am sorry to say he did not agree with Bessie that the picture was improved. At first he was vexed; then he laughed; then he gave Bessie a kiss.
Too many presents
Didyou ever hear of the boy who had a drum and a trumpet and a rocking-horse for his Christmas presents, and cried, after all, because Santa Claus had given his sister a doll, and hadn't given him one?
I have heard of that boy; but, to tell the truth, I doubt the whole story. It is a little too tough for me. I don'tbelieve there ever was such a boy; and I won't believe in him until I see him.
But I did know a little boy whoalmostcried because he hadnoChristmas present. He was a good boy too. He would have been pleased with any thing; and it was too bad that Santa Claus forgot to bring some little gift for him.
The queerest case, though, is that of the little boy whose picture we have here. You see him just as he looked on Christmas morning, with his presents all around him; and yet you see he does not look happy. What can be the matter with the child?
Ah! the trouble is, that he has too many presents. He has so many that he doesn't know what to do with them. He doesn't know which to play with first. He is afraid all the time that some of them will get lost. And so, by trying to enjoy them all at once, he fails to enjoy them at all.
Poor boy! he is having a hard time of it, and I pity him very much. If I were going to prescribe for him, this is what I should say, "Tom, my boy" (I know by his looks that his name is Tom), "don't be cast down. I'll show you the way out of your trouble. Your case is pretty bad; but there's a remedy. What you want to do is togive awaysomething.
"Now, there's that doll that you are hugging so closely. What does a boy like you want of a doll? That must have been meant for some little girl. It was sent to you on purpose to give away. Of course it was.
"Then there are those two wagons. You don't want both of them. You know you don't. Find the boy who hadn't any Christmas presents, and give one of the wagons to him. Let that wooden soldier go with it; for what do you want of a soldier, when you have a gun of your own?
"And what if you should give away something that youdo want very much; why, it wouldn't hurt you a bit: you would feel all the better for it. Just try now, Tom, and see if you wouldn't."
Perhaps the little boy would take my advice; and perhaps he wouldn't, but, if he should, I'm sure he would make a much more cheerful picture than he does now.
Uncle Sam.
The dog and the shadow
A dog, crossing a bridge with a piece of meat in his mouth, saw in the water what he took to be another dog, with a piece of meat twice the size of his own. Letting go his own, he flew at the other dog to get the larger piece from him. He thus lost both,—that which he grasped at in the water, because it was a shadow; and his own, because the stream swept it away.
Music Title
Music
[Transcriber's Note: You can play this music (MIDI file) by clickinghere.]
2. Jack and Jill went round the hillTo tend the geese and gander,But strolled away to sport and play,And left the geese to wander:A fox came down and pounced on one,And stole it for his dinner.While Jill and Jack came running back,But Foxy was the winner.3. Jack and Jill went down the hillTo scare away the crows there:Jack fired his gun, and soon killed one,But blew off his own nose there.Says Jill, "Good luck, my darling Jack!I'll go and fetch your master;And don't suppose you've lost your nose,We'll stick it on with plaster."
Transcriber's Note:Obvious punctuation errors repaired.This issue was part of an omnibus. The original text for this issue did not include a title page or table of contents. This was taken from the January issue with the "No." added. The original table of contents covered the entire year of 1873. The remaining text of the table of contents can be found in the rest of the year's issues.
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
This issue was part of an omnibus. The original text for this issue did not include a title page or table of contents. This was taken from the January issue with the "No." added. The original table of contents covered the entire year of 1873. The remaining text of the table of contents can be found in the rest of the year's issues.