Part 28 (1/2)

She sat down close to me--for n.o.body minded me--and put her finger on the place.

Now ”the book,” though jointly purchased by the Basins from a travelling salesman, as a highly illuminated volume, promising much of a lively nature, had turned out to be to an altogether unexpected degree serious and didactic.

I followed Belle O'Neill's finger.

”Impressive Lesson.

Perishableness!”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Skull]

”What does it mean?” said the girl, with pale, inquiring lips.

Now as I loved the courtly valor of my race, I laughed.

”You do not understand those long words, Belle. It means, in those peculiar words, something about a Jack-o'-lantern.”

”Oh,” said Belle, gazing at it with sudden refreshment, ”I guess it 's the only funny one in the book! They're usually so solemn.”

We turned to the next page:

”Important Lesson.

Discontent.

The Bachelor's b.u.t.ton that wanted to be a sunflower: the scow that wanted to be a schooner.”

”Why,” said Belle, with her finger on the cut of the angry and resentful bachelor's b.u.t.ton that was throwing down its petals because it could not be a sunflower--”why did it want to be a sunflower?”

”I can't imagine,” I said.

”Wouldn't you just as soon be a bachelor's b.u.t.ton as a sunflower?”

”Well, I don't know,” I murmured; but while I affected still to be pondering this subject doubtfully, Wesley came up from the clam flats.

He pointed to the cut on the opposite page:

”Warning Lesson.

Slothfulness.”

A plump and evidently highly contented maiden was here represented as lolling on a sofa.

”'T means _lazy_. She looks jest like Belle O'Neill, don't she?” said Wesley, grinning maliciously.

”Who”--flamed up Belle O'Neill--”put straws into the cow's teats, an'

let the milk run, while he laid out on the gra.s.s an' slep', and Miss Pray found it out and flailed him with the broomstick?”