Excerpt
"WHY DID ELFRIDA GO TO SLEEP?" HAT was the question, "Why did Elfrida go to sleep?" She had been sent to the grocer's in the village; and the grocer's was only half a mile off from Brook Cottage, where she lived with her aunt and five cousins. She had been sent to buy a pound of sugar, half a pound of coffee, and five small rolls of bread.
Usually she would go to the shop and return in less than half an hour. Now a whole hour went by, and no Elfrida was to be seen. What could be the matter? Had she run a thorn into her foot, and been lamed? Had she stopped to talk with the children on their way home from school? Had she been run over by a fast horse?
"Let us go and find her," cried James, the eldest of the three boys. "Let us all go!" echoed Susan, his youngest sister. "Shall Sport go with us?" asked Emma. "By all means!" said James. "Here, Sport, Sport! Where are you, old fellow?" A big black-and-white Newfoundlander soon rushed frisking in, wagging his tail, and seeming ready to eat up every one of the children, just to show them how fond he was of them all.
Then the children all set out for Mr. Spicer's shop. There they learned that no Elfrida had been seen in the shop that afternoon. "Where can she be?" cried James, a little anxious. "Sport, where is Elfrida?"
Sport stopped his nonsense of playing with a stick, and began to look serious. Then he made a bee-line for the nearest turning on the right, on the way home. This was an old lane, on which some old gardens backed, and which led, by a little longer way, to Brook Cottage.
By the time the children had arrived at the head of the lane, Sport was seen galloping back in a state of great excitement. "Bow-wow!"—"Oh, you have found her, have you, old fellow?"—"Bow-wow!"—"Well and good! You are a jolly old Sport!"
On the step of the gate of an old garden sat Elfrida, fast asleep, with her empty basket in her lap. Emma proposed to tickle her nose with a straw. "No! I will pull that thick braid of hair," said Susan. "No! let me whisper in her ear," said James. But, before anybody did any thing, Sport settled the question by putting his paws up on her shoulders, and crying, "Bow-wow!"
Elfrida started, and looked around as if in a dream. "What does it mean? How long have I been here?" cried she. "Why did you go to sleep?" asked the two girls. "Yes, why, why, did you go to sleep?" echoed all the boys. "Oh, that's my secret," said Elfrida. "Now who can catch me in my run to Mr. Spicer's?" So off she started, followed by Sport and all the children.
"Now tell us why did you go to sleep?" said the children, as they were all on their way home, after she had made her purchases. "Will you promise not to tell anybody, if I tell you?" asked Elfrida. "We promise, we promise!" cried all the children. "Now, then, why did you go to sleep?"—"Hush! I went to sleep because—because—because I was sleepy," said Elfrida.
Arthur Selwyn. THE PRAIRIE-DOGMy friend John lives in Colorado, not far from Denver; and he writes me, that he and his sister, not long ago, walked out to see some prairie-dogs....