Little Mother Goose

There was a “pleasant spot” in Mrs. Hall’s parlor, and every day at just three o’clock in the afternoon, if they had been perfectly good children, little Dick and Fanny Hall could go in and sit in that place an hour, and nobody else could go there at that time. The “pleasant spot” was under the green palm tree.

If they had behaved well, Dick and Fanny always went to their mother at ten minutes of three to be made as “sweet as roses.” But if they had been naughty they never went.

What did they do in the “pleasant spot?” They told each other stories, and they themselves made the stories.

Fanny’s stories were very short ones, such as this:

“One day a little small new small small baby-girl fly went into a rose, an’ her mama was not looking, an’ she los’ her way in the rose’s leaves an’ never comed out, an’ that little girl-fly never saw her mama any more, never, never, never again, Dicky.”

Dicky’s stories were short too, and such as this one:

“Sometimes, when little boys have a toy train, just a tin one, and they are playing with it, it turns into a live train, and the engine puffs out live smoke, and live people travel in it. But if their fathers and mothers look, or anybody, it is a tin train. And this is a fairy story, Fanny.”

Or like this one, which Dicky said was a “nadventure:”

“One time, when three little boys went up the mountain, they set their lunch basket down on the tip-top. In about two minutes they heard a noise at their basket, and a chipmunk stood there, and the chipmunk had one of their cookies in his paws!”