Project Gutenberg's The Grasshopper Stories, by Elizabeth Davis Leavitt

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Title: The Grasshopper Stories

Author: Elizabeth Davis Leavitt

Illustrator: Maude Dewey Doan

Release Date: January 8, 2007 [EBook #20315]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: THE GRASSHOPPER STORIES]

The Grasshopper Stories

BY
Elizabeth Davis Leavitt

WITH
Illustrations by
Maude Dewey Doan

Copyright 1912
by
Elizabeth Davis Leavitt

Henderson & DePew
PRINTERS
JACKSONVILLE, ILL.

[Illustration: Heigho! Little girls and boys who are good!]

Come, read these tales with me!
For the secrets they tell
You will understand well
If you're good
as good
can
be!

THE WISE GRASSHOPPER

"Come, Billy!"

Billy dropped his tin-soldier on the ground and ran in to help his
mother wipe the dishes. She gave him a nice, fresh towel and he began to
rub the tin plates as fast as he could. He never put one down until he
could see himself in it. As for the tin cups, his mother sometimes
thought he would rub them entirely away! But he never did quite that.
You see, Billy's mother allowed him to dry only the tin dishes because
he was so very little, she thought he might break the china ones.

Now, on this particular morning, Billy's mother ran to the front gate to
buy the dinner from the vegetable-man. While she was gone, he finished
all the tin dishes on the draining-tray. There was still a beautiful,
white, china cup to be dried.

"I believe I'll