The Nursery, May 1881, Vol. XXIX: A Monthly Magazine for Youngest ReadersVarious
General
The Nursery, May 1881, Vol. XXIX: A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers
Various
Children's literature, American -- Periodicals
PIGGY had a little house close by the barn. There were two rooms in his
house. In one room he had his bed; in the other he had a trough.
On one side of his house there was a door that opened into a pen. The
pen was in the orchard where the sweet apples grew. Sometimes in summer
the apples would fall down from the trees into the pen; then piggy would
pick them up and eat them. Sometimes they would strike him on his back
when they fell; but he did not mind that; he was always glad to get
them.
He had his bed of warm straw to sleep in at night, and every day he had
as much as he wanted to eat. He had all a pig could wish for: so he was
contented. One morning farmer Jackson brought a pailful of milk for
piggy's breakfast. He poured the milk into the trough, and piggy made
haste to come and eat it.
While he was eating, something hard and cold came into his mouth. He bit
it, but found that it was not good: so he left it. He ate up all the
milk. When it was gone, he saw a bright silver spoon in the bottom of
the trough.
"Oh!" said piggy, "I see how it is. They would like to have me eat with
a spoon; but they would never make me fat in that way. I should be
hungry all the time. Now I can eat fast and grow fast, and I like my own
way best."
So piggy turned up his nose at the spoon. Then he went out into the pen,
and began to root in the dirt to find bits of apple. "Fine work I should
make using a spoon," said piggy, and he laughed whenever he thought of
it.
At night farmer Jackson came to bring his supper. He saw the spoon in
the trough, took it out and carried it into the house. When his wife saw
it, she said somebody had been very careless, and dropped the spoon into
piggy's pail. She could not find out who had done it, though she asked
everybody. Then she thought that perhaps she had done it herself. She
was glad to get her spoon back again, and piggy was glad to have it
taken from the trough.
He had left the print of his teeth on it: so it was afterwards called
"Piggy's spoon."
MARY E. N. HATHAWAY.
[Illustration]
THE TRAVELLER.
SOMETIMES he travels in a boat;
(A bench turned upside down,)
Sometimes his mother's rocking-chair
Takes him from town to town.
[Illustration]
For journeying, by sea or land,
He always has a plan,
He'll be a famous traveller
When he grows to be a man.
W. G.
BOUNCER.
"GRANDMA, grandma, may we have it? may we have it?" cried three excited
little voices, as three little boys came running into the room.
"Have what?" said grandma smiling, as she looked up from her book. "The
measles?"
"Why, grandma, of course it isn't the measles," said Ned, the eldest.
"It is a dog,--a real puppy. Mrs. James told Arthur she would give it to
him, if you were willing."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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