Georgie by Jacob Abbott (the little red hen ebook .txt) 📖

and it rolled along down into a crack under
a building. Then he began to cry. Selfish stood by, holding his own
money tight in his hands, and said he did not pity Shallow at all;
it was good enough for him; he had no business to be tossing it up.
Wise came up, and tried to get the money out with a stick, but he
could not. He told Shallow not to cry; said he was sorry he had
lost his money, and that he would give him half of his, as soon as
they could get it changed at the shop.

So they walked along to the toy-shop.

Their mother said that each one might choose his own plaything; so
they began to look around on the counter and shelves.

After a while, Shallow began to laugh very loud and heartily at
something he found. It was an image of a grinning monkey. It looked
very droll indeed. Shallow asked Wise to come and see. Wise laughed
at it too, but said he should not want to buy it, as he thought he
should soon get tired of laughing at any thing, if it was ever so
droll.

Shallow was sure that he should never get tired of laughing at so
very droll a thing as the grinning monkey; and he decided to buy
it, if Wise would give him half of his money; and so Wise did.

Selfish found a rattle, a large, noisy rattle, and went to
springing it until they were all tired of hearing the noise.

"I think I shall buy this," said he. "I can make believe that there
is a fire, and can run about springing my rattle, and crying,
'Fire! Fire!' or I can play that a thief is breaking into a store,
and can rattle my rattle at him, and call out, 'Stop thief!'"

"But that will disturb all the people in the house," said Wise.

"What care I for that?" said Selfish.

Selfish found that the price of his rattle was not so much as the
half dollar; so he laid out the rest of it in cake, and sat down on
a box, and began to eat it.

Wise passed by all the images and gaudy toys, only good to look at
a few times, and chose a soft ball, and finding that that did not
take all of his half of the money, he purchased a little morocco
box with an inkstand, some wafers, and one or two short pens in
it. Shallow told him that was not a plaything; it was only fit for
a school; and as to his ball, he did not think much of that.

Wise said he thought they could all play with the ball a great many
times, and he thought, too, that he should like his little inkstand
rainy days and winter evenings.

So the boys walked along home. Shallow stopped every moment to
laugh at his monkey, and Selfish to spring his rattle; and they
looked with contempt on Wise's ball, which he carried quietly in
one hand, and his box done up in brown paper in the other.

When they got home, Shallow ran in to show his monkey. The people
smiled a little, but did not take much notice of it; and, in fact,
it did not look half so funny, even to himself, as it did in the
shop. In a short time, it did not make him laugh at all, and then
he was vexed and angry with it. He said he meant to go and throw
the ugly old baboon away; he was tired of seeing that same old grin
on his face all the time. So he went and threw it over the wall.

Selfish ate his cake up, on his way home. He would not give his
brothers any, for he said they had had their money as well as he.
When he got home, he went about the house, up and down, through
parlor and chamber, kitchen and shed, springing his rattle, and
calling out, "Stop thief! Stop thief!" or "Fire! Fire!" Every body
got tired, and asked him to be still; but he did not mind, until,
at last, his father took his rattle away from him, and put it up on
a high shelf.

Then Selfish and Shallow went out and found Wise playing
beautifully with his ball in the yard; and he invited them to play
with him. They would toss it up against the wall, and learn to
catch it when it came down; and then they made some bat-sticks, and
knocked it back and forth to one another, about the yard. The more
they played with the ball, the more they liked it, and as Wise was
always very careful not to play near any holes, and to put it away
safe when he, had done with it, he kept it a long time, and gave
them pleasure a great many times all summer long.

And then his inkstand box was a great treasure. He would get it out
in the long winter evenings, and lend Selfish and Shallow, each,
one of his pens; and they would all sit at the table, and make
pictures, and write little letters, and seal them with small bits
of the wafers. In fact, Wise kept his inkstand box safe till he
grew up to be a man.

That is the end of the story.


THE TOY-SHOP.


"I wish I could get an inkstand box," said Rollo, when the story was finished.

"I think he was very foolish to throw away his grinning monkey," said James "I wish I could see a grinning monkey."

They continued talking about this story some time, and at length they drew nigh to the city. They drove to a stable, where Jonas had the horse put up, and then they all walked on in search of a toy-shop.

They passed along through one or two streets, walking very slowly, so that the boys might look at the pictures and curious things in the shop windows. At length they came to a toy-shop, and all went in.

They saw at once a great number and variety of playthings exhibited to view. All around the floor were arranged horses on wheels, little carts, wagons, and baskets. The counter had a great variety of images and figures,--birds that would peep, and dogs that would bark, and drummers that would drum--all by just turning a little handle. Then the shelves and the window were filled with all sorts of boxes, and whips, and puzzles, and tea-sets, and dolls, dressed and not dressed. There were bows and arrows, and darts, and jumping ropes, and glass dogs, and little rocking-horses, and a thousand other things.

When the boys first came in, there was a little girl standing by the counter with a small slate in her hand. She looked like a poor girl, though she was neat and tidy in her dress. She was talking with the shopman about the slate.

"Don't you think," said she, "you could let me have it for ten cents?"

"No," said he, "I could not afford it for less than fifteen. It cost me more than ten."

The little girl laid the slate down, and looked disappointed and sad. Rollo's mother came up to her, took up the slate, and said,

"I should think you had better give him fifteen cents. It is a very good slate. It is worth as much as that, certainly."

"Yes, madam, so I tell her," said the shopman.

"But I have not got but ten cents," said the little girl.

"Have not you?" said Rollo's mother. She stood still thinking a moment, and then she asked the little girl what her name was.

She said it was Maria.

She asked her what she wanted the slate for; and Maria said it was to do sums on, at school. She wanted to study arithmetic, and could not do so without a slate.

Jonas then came forward, and said that he should like to give her five cents of Georgie's money, and that, with the ten she had, would be enough. He said that Georgie had given him authority to do what he thought best with his money, and he knew, if Georgie was here, he would wish to help the little girl.

Rollo and James were both sorry they had not thought of it themselves; and, as soon as Jonas mentioned it, they wanted to give some of their money to the girl; but Jonas said he knew that Georgie would prefer to do it. At last, however, it was agreed that Rollo and James should furnish one cent each, and Georgie the rest. This was all agreed upon after a low conversation by themselves in a corner of the store; and then Jonas came forward, and told the shopman that they were going to pay the additional five cents, and that he might let the girl have the slate. So Jonas paid the money, and it was agreed that Rollo and James should pay him back their share, when they got their money changed. The boys were very much pleased to see the little girl go away so happy with her slate in her hand. It was neatly done up in paper, with two pencils which the shopman gave her, done up inside.

After Maria was gone, the boys looked around the shop, but could not find any thing which