Polly said, "You funny grandmother, to

hide your spectacles there.

all the time."

You had them

Grandmother said, "I need your eyes to help me find mine."

"I wish I had four eyes," said Polly.

Her grandmother gave her a pair of spectacles. The glass was gone. She said, "You may have them for your very own." How pleased Polly was! see better now that I have told grandmother.

"I think I can

four eyes," she

66

If you

Can you see to wipe dishes? If can, you may stay to supper with me." "Oh, yes, grandmother, I can see to do that."

"Then take this cup and ask your mother for some cream. Be sure to wear your spectacles. You might stub your toe if you did not. Then what would become of grandmother's cream?"

Peter and Wag-wag were playing together. "What is in your cup?" asked Peter.

"Nothing," said Polly. "I came for cream. Grandmother wants a cupful. I am going back to grandmother's for supper."

Peter took the cup. He ran ahead of Polly. "Mother," he shouted, "grandmother wants a couple."

"A couple of what?" asked mother.

66

"Why, a couple of cream," cried Peter, "a couple of cream!"

66

Oh, mother," said Polly, "he means a cupful of cream, not a couple of cream! He doesn't get his words just right, does he, mother?"

IN THE FIELDS

"I

Peter and Polly love to play in the fields. They love to play among the wild flowers. "I like the buttercups," said Peter. like the daisies. I like them all better than tame flowers."

His father said, "Farmers do not like daisies."

66

'Why don't they?" asked Peter.

"Because they spoil the hay. You cannot make good hay out of daisies.

"When I am a farmer, I shall have a whole field of daisies. Then I shall make just daisy hay," said Peter.

"What will you do with it?" asked father. "Your cows will not like it. Your horses will not like it."

"I will tell them that they must eat it.

I have to eat bread and milk.

that."

I do not like

“But bread and milk is good for a little boy. It will help him grow.

"Poor hay is not good for cows. You must learn better than that, Peter.

must be a good farmer."

But Peter still likes the daisies.

not a farmer yet.

You

He is

In the daisy field is a little brook. It is a good little brook. It always sings softly to itself.

The Story Lady said, "It is telling lovely stories. Sometimes it sings about the water

fairies. Their home is in its water.

"If one grows tired of staying at home, she goes on a journey.

"One day a sunbeam says, 'Are you tired of staying in the brook? Come with me and I will take you far away.'

"So the water fairy goes with the sunbeam. Up, up, up, he takes her. She begins to feel lonely. Then she comes to a place where there are many other water fairies.

66

They all crowd together. Peter looks up into the sky. He sees them. He calls them a cloud.

"The wind pushes them along. SomeSometimes they fly

times they fly fast.

slowly. It is such fun to sail up there in the sky.

"But they cannot stay always. At last they wish to go home. Down they come through the air.

"Peter thinks they are just raindrops. Watch them hop up and down on the sidewalk and see.

This is what the Story Lady says the little brook sometimes sings about.

66

"does our

Story Lady," asked Polly, little brook like to run? Does it get tired?"

"I think it likes to run, Polly. It is not hard work for the little brook.

It always runs downhill. I will tell you a story about a fairy and the brook. It begins, It begins, Once

upon a time.'”

Now Polly knew something and Peter

knew something. It is this.

If a story be

gins, "Once upon a time," it is not a

true story. them so.

truly

The Story Lady had told