Miss Crane presented the knife to him, and he kept it many years to remind him of the fault that had brought him so much trouble." "I wonder why it is that things you eat on the sly hurt you, and don't when you eat them at table," observed Stuffy, thoughtfully.
"Perhaps your conscience affects your stomach," said Mrs.Jo, smiling at his speech.
"He is thinking of the cucumbers," said Ned, and a gale of merriment followed the words, for Stuffy's last mishap had been a funny one.
He ate two large cucumbers in private, felt very ill, and confided his anguish to Ned, imploring him to do something.

Ned good-naturedly recommended a mustard plaster and a hot flat iron to the feet; only in applying these remedies he reversed the order of things, and put the plaster on the feet, the flat iron on the stomach, and poor Stuffy was found in the barn with blistered soles and a scorched jacket.
"Suppose you tell another story, that was such an interesting one," said Nat, as the laughter subsided.
Before Mrs.Jo could refuse these insatiable Oliver Twists, Rob walked into the room trailing his little bed-cover after him, and wearing an expression of great sweetness as he said, steering straight to his mother as a sure haven of refuge, "I heard a great noise, and I thought sumfin dreffle might have happened, so I came to see." "Did you think I would forget you, naughty boy ?" asked his mother, trying to look stern.
"No; but I thought you'd feel better to see me right here," responded the insinuating little party.
"I had much rather see you in bed, so march straight up again, Robin." "Everybody that comes in here has to tell a story, and you can't so you'd better cut and run," said Emil.
"Yes, I can! I tell Teddy lots of ones, all about bears and moons, and little flies that say things when they buzz," protested Rob, bound to stay at any price.
"Tell one now, then, right away," said Dan, preparing to shoulder and bear him off.
"Well, I will; let me fink a minute," and Rob climbed into his mother's lap, where he was cuddled, with the remark "It is a family failing, this getting out of bed at wrong times.

Demi used to do it; and as for me, I was hopping in and out all night long.
Meg used to think the house was on fire, and send me down to see, and I used to stay and enjoy myself, as you mean to, my bad son." "I've finked now," observed Rob, quite at his ease, and eager to win the entree into this delightful circle.
Every one looked and listened with faces full of suppressed merriment as Rob, perched on his mother's knee and wrapped in the gay coverlet, told the following brief but tragic tale with an earnestness that made it very funny: "Once a lady had a million children, and one nice little boy.

She went up-stairs and said, 'You mustn't go in the yard.' But he wented, and fell into the pump, and was drowned dead." "Is that all ?" asked Franz, as Rob paused out of breath with this startling beginning.
"No, there is another piece of it," and Rob knit his downy eyebrows in the effort to evolve another inspiration.
"What did the lady do when he fell into the pump ?" asked his mother, to help him on.
"Oh, she pumped him up, and wrapped him in a newspaper, and put him on a shelf to dry for seed." A general explosion of laughter greeted this surprising conclusion, and Mrs.Jo patted the curly head, as she said, solemnly, "My son, you inherit your mother's gift of story-telling.

Go where glory waits thee." "Now I can stay, can't I?
Wasn't it a good story ?" cried Rob, in high feather at his superb success.
"You can stay till you have eaten these twelve pop-corns," said his mother, expecting to see them vanish at one mouthful.
But Rob was a shrewd little man, and got the better of her by eating them one by one very slowly, and enjoying every minute with all his might.
"Hadn't you better tell the other story, while you wait for him ?" said Demi, anxious that no time should be lost.
"I really have nothing but a little tale about a wood-box," said Mrs.
Jo, seeing that Rob had still seven corns to eat.
"Is there a boy in it ?" "It is all boy." "Is it true ?" asked Demi.
"Every bit of it." "Goody! tell on, please." "James Snow and his mother lived in a little house, up in New Hampshire.
They were poor, and James had to work to help his mother, but he loved books so well he hated work, and just wanted to sit and study all day long." "How could he! I hate books, and like work," said Dan, objecting to James at the very outset.
"It takes all sorts of people to make a world; workers and students both are needed, and there is room for all.