Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories; Short stories
They carried them into the house, and Baby was allowed to keep one,
which he trained to become a very clever doggie, and the others were
sent to the Home Farm.
And why do you think Nell had kept her secret so well? She had been
afraid that someone would rob her of her darlings; so she had hidden
them up until they were old enough to trot about nicely, and were so
sweet and pretty that she was sure no one would have the heart to harm
them.
_L. L. Weedon._
[Illustration]
HIDE AND SEEK
HIDE-AND-SEEK is a jolly game when you play it out of doors and there
are a good many of you; but when you have to play it indoors and there
are only two of you, you have to make the dolls play too. Molly and I
used to each be captain of a side; she had nine dolls and I had only
seven; so our side had much more looking to do than hers.
One very snowy day, when we couldn’t play in the garden, we had tried
all the games we could think of, and Molly was getting crosser and
crosser because she could not draw Selina properly, when I said:
“Let’s play hide-and-seek.” Molly said: “All right, only I don’t know
where half my dolls are. You must lend me some of yours. I’ll have the
talking one and the one that shuts its eyes.”
I didn’t like this very much, but I gave in. “And our side will hide
first,” said Molly. I didn’t like that either, but I gave in again.
I said good-bye to my dear Rosalie and Selina, and handed them over to
Molly; then I turned my pinafore over my head and waited while she hid
them.
“Cuckoo! cuckoo!” cried Molly, as a signal that all were hidden.
I soon found Molly; she was behind the window curtain, and made it
stick out, of course; and I soon found her dolls and my Selina. Molly
had hidden her in the coal-scuttle, and though she had wrapped her
in a piece of paper, I didn’t think it was quite nice of her; but
I couldn’t find Rosalie, the squeaking doll, anywhere. I looked in
Nurse’s work-basket, I looked in the doll’s house, I looked everywhere
you could think of—_no_ Rosalie! Just then Molly had to go and have her
dress “tried on.”
Hide-and-seek is no fun by yourself, but I couldn’t bear to think of
Rosalie being hidden somewhere all alone, so I went on looking. It
was beginning to get dark, and Nurse had gone down to her tea, and I
felt very miserable and forsaken, when suddenly in the quiet Nursery I
heard Rosalie’s well-known squeak. The dear doll, she was calling to
me! The sound came from the chest-of-drawers. The drawers themselves
we were forbidden to open, but I pulled out Nurse’s work-drawer,
and there, lying on the cut-out flannel petticoats, was my precious
Rosalie. What I had so often wished had come true, no doubt. Rosalie
had squeaked by herself. If she could squeak she could talk, and what
interesting talks we should have! I told Nurse all about it when she
came up from her tea.
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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