The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls | Page 8

further search; so they went up stairs into their bed-chamber. Now the little old Woman had pulled the pillow of the Great, Huge Bear, out of its place.
"=SOMEBODY HAS BEEN LYING IN MY BED!="
said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great, rough, gruff voice.
And the little old Woman had pulled the bolster of the Middle Bear out of its place.
"SOMEBODY HAS BEEN LYING IN MY BED!"
said the Middle Bear, in his middle voice.
And when the Little, Small, Wee Bear came to look at his bed, there was the bolster in its place; and the pillow in its place upon the bolster; and upon the pillow was the little old Woman's ugly, dirty head,--which was not in its place, for she had no business there.
"Somebody has been lying in my bed,--and here she is!"
said the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.
The little old Woman had heard in her sleep the great, rough, gruff voice of the Great, Huge Bear; but she was so fast asleep that it was no more to her than the roaring of wind, or the rumbling of thunder. And she had heard the middle voice of the Middle Bear, but it was only as if she had heard some one speaking in a dream. But when she heard the little, small, wee voice of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, it was so sharp, and so shrill, that it awakened her at once. Up she started; and when she saw the Three Bears on one side of the bed, she tumbled herself out at the other, and ran to the window. Now the window was open, because the Bears, like good, tidy Bears, as they were, always opened their bed-chamber window when they got up in the morning. Out the little old Woman jumped; and whether she broke her neck in the fall; or ran into the wood and was lost there; or found her way out of the wood, and was taken up by the constable and sent to the House of Correction for a vagrant as she was, I cannot tell. But the Three Bears never saw anything more of her.

ABOUT MINDING QUICKLY.
Emma was one day sitting by the fire, on a little stool. She was trying to cut a mouse out of a piece of paper. She had a pair of scissors, with round ends. Her mother had given her these scissors for her own, because they were safer for her to use than scissors with pointed ends.
Presently, her Mother said, "Come here to me, Emma."
"Wait a minute, Mother," said Emma.
"Do you know," said her Mother, "that it was naughty for you to say that?"
"Why, you can wait a little minute," said Emma; "I am very busy. Don't you see that I am making a mouse?"
"Emma," replied her Mother, "do you know that I ought to punish you, because you do not mind?"
"I am coming directly," cried Emma, dropping her scissors and her paper mouse, and running up to her Mother.
Her Mother took her up on her lap, and said, "My little girl, this will never do. You must learn to come at once when you are called; you must obey quickly. If you continue in this very naughty habit of not minding until you are told to do a thing two or three times, you will grow up a very disagreeable girl, and nobody will love you."
Emma looked up mournfully into her Mother's face, and said, "Mother, I will try to do better."
She was a good-tempered child, and was seldom cross or sullen; but she had this one bad habit, and it was a very bad habit indeed--she waited to be told twice, and sometimes oftener, and many times she made her kind Mother very unhappy.
For a few days after this Emma remembered what her Mother had said to her, and always came the first time she was called. She came pleasantly, for it is very important to mind pleasantly, and did everything she was told to do immediately; and her Mother loved her dearly, and hoped she was quite cured of her naughty ways.
But I am very sorry to have to say that a time came when Emma entirely forgot her promise. You shall hear how it happened.
One morning Emma's Mother said to her, "Emma, it is time for you to get up, and put on your stockings and shoes."
Emma did not move. She lay with her eyes wide open, watching a fly on the wall, that was scrubbing his thin wings with his hind legs.
"Did you hear me, Emma? Put on your stockings and shoes!"
Emma got up very slowly. She put one foot out of bed, and then looked again at the fly. This time he was scrubbing his face with his fore legs. So she sat there,