Project Gutenberg's Miss Elliot's Girls, by Mrs Mary Spring Corning

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Title: Miss Elliot's Girls

Author: Mrs Mary Spring Corning

Release Date: January 6, 2005 [EBook #14610]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: "What's the matter?" said Charlie. "A great, horrid
green worm," said I. Page 53. _Miss Elliot's Girls._]

MISS ELLIOT'S GIRLS

STORIES OF
BEASTS, BIRDS, AND BUTTERFLIES

By MRS. MARY SPRING CORNING

[Illustration]

A.L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1886, BY
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND PUBLISHING SOCIETY.

CHAPTER I.

GREENY, BLACKY, AND SLY-BOOTS.

Sammy Ray was running by the parsonage one day when Miss Ruth called to
him. She was sitting in the vine-shaded porch, and there was a crutch
leaning against her chair.

"Sammy," she said, "isn't there a field of tobacco near where you live?"

"Yes'm; two of 'em."

"To-morrow morning look among the tobacco plants and find me a large
green worm. Have you ever seen a tobacco worm?"

Sammy grinned.

"I've killed more'n a hundred of 'em this summer," he said. "Pat Heeley
hires me to smash all I can find, 'cause they eat the tobacco."

"Well, bring one carefully to me on the leaf where he is feeding; the
largest one you can find."

Before breakfast the next morning Ruth Elliot had her first sight of a
tobacco worm.

"Take care!" said Sammy, "or he'll spit tobacco juice on you. See that
horn on his tail? When you want to kill him, you jest catch hold this
way, and"--

"But I don't want to kill him," she said. "I want to keep him in this
nice little house I have got ready for him, and give him all the tobacco
he can eat. Will you bring me a fresh leaf every, morning?"

While she was speaking she had put the worm in a box with a cover of
pink netting. On his way home Sammy met Roy Tyler, and told him (as a
secret) that the lame lady at the minister's house kept worms, and would
pay two cents a head for tobacco worms. "Anyway," said Sammy, "that's