Mother will say to herself, "He can give money to whom he likes, for he is grown up." In the holiday time in October father will come home and, thinking that I am still a baby, will bring for me from the town little shoes and small silken frocks. I shall say, "Father, give them to my dâdâ [_elder brother_], for I am as big as you are." Father will think and say, "He can buy his own clothes if he likes, for he is grown up." TWELVE O'CLOCK Mother, I do want to leave off my lessons now. I have been at my book all the morning. You say it is only twelve o'clock. Suppose it isn't any later; can't you ever think it is afternoon when it is only twelve o'clock? I can easily imagine now that the sun has reached the edge of that rice-field, and the old fisher-woman is gathering herbs for her supper by the side of the pond. I can just shut my eyes and think that the shadows are growing darker under the _madar_ tree, and the water in the pond looks shiny black. If twelve o'clock can come in the night, why can't the night come when it is twelve o'clock? AUTHORSHIP You say that father writes a lot of books, but what he writes I don't understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really make out what he meant? What nice stories, mother, you can tell us! Why can't father write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his own mother stories of giants and fairies and princesses? Has he forgotten them all? Often when he gets late for his bath you have to go and call him an hundred times. You wait and keep his dishes warm for him, but he goes on writing and forgets. Father always plays at making books. If ever I go to play in father's room, you come and call me, "what a naughty child!" If I make the slightest noise, you say, "Don't you see that father's at his work?" What's the fun of always writing and writing? When I take up father's pen or pencil and write upon his book just as he does,--a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i,--why do you get cross with me, then, mother? You never say a word when father writes. When my father wastes such heaps of paper, mother, you don't seem to mind at all. But if I take only one sheet to make a boat with, you say, "Child, how troublesome you are!" What do you think of father's spoiling sheets and sheets of paper with black marks all over on both sides? THE WICKED POSTMAN Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all wet, and you don't mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother to come home from school. What has happened to you that you look so strange? Haven't you got a letter from father to-day? I saw the postman bringing letters in his bag for almost everybody in the town. Only, father's letters he keeps to read himself. I am sure the postman is a wicked man. But don't be unhappy about that, mother dear.