Project Gutenberg's The Story of Little Black Mingo, by Helen Bannerman

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Title: The Story of Little Black Mingo

Author: Helen Bannerman

Release Date: February 19, 2004 [EBook #11162]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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[Illustration]

THE STORY OF LITTLE BLACK MINGO

By The Author Of
'The Story Of Little Black Sambo'

The Story of Little Black Mingo.

Once upon a time there was a little black girl, and her name was Little
Black Mingo.

[Illustration]

She had no father and mother, so she had to live with a horrid cross old
woman called Black Noggy, who used to scold her every day, and
sometimes beat her with a stick, even though she had done nothing
naughty.

[Illustration]

One day Black Noggy called her, and said, "Take this chatty down to the
river and fill it with water, and come back as fast as you can, _quick
now_!"

[Illustration]

So Little Black Mingo took the chatty and ran down to the river as fast
as she could, and began to fill it with water, when Cr-r-rrrack!!!
Bang!!! a horrible big Mugger poked its nose up through the bottom of
the chatty and said "Ha ha! Little Mingo, I'm going to eat you up!"

[Illustration]

Little Black Mingo did not say anything. She turned and ran away as fast
as ever she could, and the Mugger ran after her. But the broken chatty
round his neck caught his paws, so he could not overtake her.

[Illustration]

But when she got back to Black Noggy, and told her how the Mugger had
broken the chatty, Black Noggy was fearfully angry. "You naughty girl,"
she said, "you have broken the chatty yourself, I have a good mind to
beat you." And if she had not been in such a hurry for the water she
_would_ have beaten her.

[Illustration]

Then she went and fetched the great big chatty that the dhobi used to
boil the clothes in. "Take this," said she, "and mind you don't break
it, or I _will_ beat you." "But I can't carry that when it is full
of water," said Little Black Mingo.

"You must go twice, and bring it half full each time,"