Read Ebook: Sandman's Goodnight Stories by Walker Abbie Phillips Chase Rhoda Illustrator

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Ebook has 730 lines and 26700 words, and 15 pages

marrying her River God, for she lived happy ever after, and sometimes when they come up from the river bottom to sit in the moonlight she will say to the River God: "What do you suppose became of the Goblin? Do you think he ever told the Queen?"

"Of course he did," replied the River God. "He ran as fast as he could to the Queen, but the silver cap was so uncomfortable for him to wear that I am sure he has discarded it long before this. So he gained nothing for playing the spy."

"Perhaps his conscience pricked him and he is sorry," said the Little Fairy.

The Little Fairy was right. The Goblin was sorry when it was too late, and the silver thistle swayed in the breeze. It tried to tell the breeze it was sorry for telling tales, but even the breeze did not wish to listen to a prickly thistle, so there it had to bloom unloved and alone the rest of its life.

DAME CRICKET'S STORY

"Come, children, it is time to get up," said Dame Cricket to her ten little crickets.

"Hurry, now, and take your bath and put on your little black caps and your little brown suits. The sun has almost gone down over the hill and the birds will soon be asleep."

But the little crickets snuggled under the bedclothes just as if they did not hear their mother's words.

"Come, come," she said, a few minutes later, "you will sleep all night if you don't hurry. Some of our cousins are already singing, and it will soon be dark."

"Oh dear! why do we have to get up?" said one little cricket, poking his head over the clothes. "Lots of bugs sleep all night."

"Yes, but they are up all the daytime," answered Dame Cricket, "and they run a great risk, I can assure you, my dear. Our family used to sing in the daytime, but if we had kept on there would be no cricket family. There is a reason for our sleeping days and singing at night."

"Oh, mother, is it a story?" asked all the little crickets, jumping out of bed with a bound and gathering about their mother.

"Yes, there is a story about our family, and if you will all hurry and dress I will tell it to you," she said.

Very quietly all the little crickets began to dress, and their mother began the story:

"Once, long, long ago," she said, "our family sang in the daytime and slept at night; but one day the Great-grandfather Cricket noticed that our singing was not as loud as usual, so he called all the children, big and little, about him and looked at their throats.

"'Strange, strange!' he remarked. 'You all have fine-looking throats, as fine as ever crickets had, and yet our singing is very faint; there is not as much volume to it as in the old days. I will call on Doctor Frog this very day, and see what he thinks about it.'

"Doctor Frog thought awhile and then he asked, 'How many have you in your family, now, Mr. Cricket?'

"Great-grandfather called us all about him and began to count, and to his amazement he found our family was only about half the size it should be.

"'Just as I thought,' said Dr. Frog, 'the voices are as good as ever, but there are not so many of you, and, of course, the singing is not so loud as it was once.

"'Shall I tell you the reason for this?' asked Dr. Frog.

"Great-grandfather said that was why he called on him, so Dr. Frog told him that the birds were eating our family, and if they kept it up we soon would be out of existence.

"'Horrors! horrors!' chirped Great-grandfather Cricket. 'Whatever will we do to preserve the family?'

"'Easy enough to do that,' said Dr. Frog. 'Sleep days and sing at night as our family do; little chance we would have if we came out and sang in the daytime.'

"So that is the reason we sleep days and sing nights, so the birds and chickens and bug-eating animals cannot catch us.

"Of course, sometimes they do get a cricket, but it is always one who has stayed out too late or gotten up too early, usually a very young cricket who thinks he knows more than his mother or father.

"But the good little crickets who mind and get up when they are called are pretty sure to live to a good old age."

When Madam Cricket stopped talking all the little crickets stood looking at her with very curious expressions on their faces.

"We are good little crickets, aren't we, mother?" they asked.

"Of course you are. Here you are all ready to go out and sing and the sun has just dropped behind the hill," she said.

"Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp," they sang as they scampered after their mother out into the night.

THE PLAYROOM WEDDING

Paper Doll had been the maid of honor, but she did not at all approve of the match. "It will never be a happy marriage," she told Teddy Bear the night of the wedding. "Such marriages never are. How I should feel married to a man who wore dresses."

Yes, he did look as if he wore a dress, for he was a Japanese gentleman doll, you see, and when he came to the playroom to live everybody, including French Doll Marie, thought he was very queer looking.

But after a while they became used to Takeo, for that was his name, and when the little mistress announced that Marie was to marry Takeo she did not make the least objection.

"What difference does it make?" she said to Frieda, the Dutch doll, who lived next to her. "I suppose I shall have to marry someone, and truly I could never live with Jumping Jack; that fellow makes me so nervous."

"He seems very quiet," said Frieda Doll, meaning Takeo, "and perhaps you can get him to dress in men's clothes after you are married."

"Yes, he is quiet and I cannot understand a word he says, so we shall not quarrel," said Marie Doll.

And so they were married. Jack-in-the-box was the minister, because the little mistress thought he stood better than anyone else. She put a black cape on him and a white collar, and Jack behaved in the most dignified manner.

Little Paper Doll wore a dress that quite outshone the bride's dress, only no one noticed it; but it was all lace and had tiny little pink buds caught in the flounces, and she wore a beautiful hat with white feathers.

The bride wore a white dress and a long white veil, and there were tiny white flowers all around her head which held the veil in place.

But Takeo was far from looking the bridegroom, to Paper Doll's way of thinking, though Marie Doll gave him no thought at all, for she thought the bride was the important one, and as she told Frieda Doll, "You have to have a bridegroom to be a bride, of course; but really he is not of any importance that I can see."

They had been married a week, and, while Marie talked to Takeo, he, of course, did not take the least notice of what she said. "Poor fellow, he cannot understand," said Marie Doll. "He won't be any trouble, though, because I shall be able to do as I like. He cannot tell me not to."

"These foreigners, my dear," said Paper Doll, "are sometimes unpleasant to live with. I cannot see how you came to marry him. Do make him wear men's clothes."

"Oh, I think he looks quite out of the ordinary, and everyone stares at him when we go out riding in the park with the little mistress," said Marie Doll. "As I am French, you see we both are foreigners, so that does not matter; and then, dear, Takeo is so comfortable to live with. He is no bother at all."

But one night Marie Doll awoke to find her husband quite a different man from what she thought, for beside her sat two little Japanese dolls.

When the clock struck twelve Marie Doll called to everyone: "Come quick and see my baby girls!"

"Oh, dear! they look just like Takeo," said Paper Doll. "This place will be filled with foreigners. It is too bad."

"I shall change their clothes at once," said Marie Doll.

And then it was Marie Doll and all the toys got the surprise of their lives, for from the corner where he sat came Takeo, and when he stood in front of his wife, he said, "Madam will not change the clothes of our sons."

When Marie recovered from her surprise, she gasped: "Sons! They are daughters!"

"They are sons, madam, and sons they will remain!" said Takeo, looking at Marie very steadily.

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