s and fairy castles and lakes
and hills, and all sorts of things. Oh, they were the prettiest Easter
eggs you ever saw!

"Here is the last egg," said Sammie. "May I dip this one in, mamma?"

"Yes," she answered, but she never would have let him if she had known
what was going to happen.

"I'll make this a skilligimink color," said Sammie, and he stood over
the pot. Then, what do you think occurred? Why, Sammie leaned too far
over and he fell right in that pot of skilligimink color; he and the egg
together. And oh, dear me! what a time there was. He splashed around
and scattered the skilligimink color all over the kitchen, and when his
mamma and Susie fished him out, if he wasn't dyed the most beautiful
sky-blue-pink you ever saw! Oh, but he was a sight! The skilligimink
color made him look like a piece of the rainbow. "Oh, Sammie!" cried
Susie, "how funny you do look?" And Sammie grunted: "Huh! I guess it's
nothing to laugh at!" So they dried him with a towel, but the color
didn't come off for ever so long, honest it didn't. But they had a
lovely lot of Easter eggs, anyhow, ready for the children, and so Sammie
didn't mind much. Now, how about Hot Cross Buns for to-morrow night, eh?
Oh, of course, I mean a story about them.

XXIII

SUSIE LITTLETAIL'S HOT CROSS BUNS

Let's see, where did we leave off last night? Oh, I remember now, it was
about how Sammie fell down and hurt his nose, wasn't it? Oh, no, it
wasn't either. It was about how he was colored sky-blue-pink; to be
sure. Well, now I'm going to tell you about Hot Cross Buns, how Susie
Littletail made some very especially fine ones, and what happened to
them. But the last part is a secret, so I wish you wouldn't tell any
one.

Susie was out skipping her grapevine rope, and thinking what a nice day
it was, when her mamma called to her:

"Susie, don't you want to help Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy make some Hot
Cross Buns?"

"Of course," the little rabbit girl said, and, being a very kind little
creature, she added: "Can Sammie help me, mamma?"

"Oh, I don't want to," said Sammie, who was playing marbles with Bully,
the frog. They were using old hickory nuts and acorns for their shooters
and for the agates in the ring. "I'm going to be a soldier or run an
automobile when I grow up, so I don't want to learn to cook."

"Humph! I guess soldiers and automobile men are glad enough to eat when
some one else cooks for them," said Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy. "Anyhow, I c