Rollo at Play; Or, Safe Amusements Part 7

"I should like it well enough, but I must stay at home and mind my work."

"I wish you could go. I will go and ask my father if he will not let you."

Rollo ran into the house with great haste and eagerness, leaving all the doors open, and calling out, "Father, father," as soon as he had begun to open the parlor door.

"Father, father," said he, running up to him, "I wish you would let Jonas go with us to-morrow."

Now, Rollo's father had come home but a short time before, and was just seated quietly in his arm-chair, reading a newspaper, and Rollo came up to him, pulling down the paper with his hands, and looking up into his father's face, so as to stop his reading at once. Heedless boys very often come to ask favors in this way.

His father gently moved him back and said,

"No, my son, it is not convenient for Jonas to go to-morrow. Besides, I am busy now, and cannot talk with you;--you must go away."

Rollo turned away disappointed, and went slowly back through the kitchen. His mother, who was there, and who heard all that pa.s.sed, as the doors were open, said to him, as he walked by her, "What a foolish way that was to ask him, Rollo! You might have known it would have done no good."

Rollo did not answer, but he went and sat down on the step of the door, and was just beginning to think what the foolishness was in his way of asking his father, when a little bird came hopping along in the yard. He ran in to ask his mother to give him some milk to feed the bird with.

She smiled, and told him milk was good for kittens, but not for birds; and she gave him some crumbs of bread. Rollo threw the crumbs out, but they only frightened the little thing away.

That night, when Rollo went to bed, his father said, that when he was all ready, he would come up and see him. When he came into his chamber, Rollo called out to him,

"O, father, look out the window, and see what a beautiful ring there is round the moon."

"So there is," said his father; "I am rather sorry to see that."

"Sorry, father! why? It is beautiful, I think."

"It does look pretty, but it is a sign of rain to-morrow."

"Of rain? O no, father; it is a kind of a rainbow. It is a round rainbow. I am sure it will be pleasant to-morrow."

"Very well," said his father, "we shall see in the morning." Then he sat down on Rollo's bed-side some time, talking with him on various subjects, and then heard him say his prayers. At length he took the light, and bade Rollo good night.

Rollo's eye caught another view of the moon as his father was going, and he said,

"O, father, just look at the moon once more; that _is_ a rainbow; I see the colors. I expect it will grow into a large one, such as you told me was a sign of fair weather. I will watch it."

"Yes," said his father, "you can watch it as you go to sleep."

So Rollo laid his face upon his pillow in such a way that he could see the moon through the window; and he began to watch the bright circle around it, but before it grew any bigger, he was fast asleep.

WHO KNOWS BEST, A LITTLE BOY OR HIS FATHER?

The next morning, Rollo awoke early, and he was very much pleased to see, as soon as he opened his eyes, that the sun was s.h.i.+ning in at the windows. He was not only pleased to find that the prospect was so good for a pleasant ride, but his vanity was gratified at the thought that it had turned out that he knew better about the weather than his father.

He began to dress himself, as far as he could without help, and was preparing to hasten down to his father, to tell him that it was going to be a pleasant day. When he was nearly dressed, he was surprised lo observe that the bright sunlight on the wall was gradually fading away, and at length it wholly disappeared. He went to look out the window to see what was the cause. He found that there was a broad expanse of dark cloud covering the eastern sky, excepting a narrow strip quite low down, near the horizon. When the sun first rose, it shone brightly through this narrow zone of clear sky; but now it had ascended a little higher, and gone behind the cloud.

"Never mind," said Rollo to himself. "The cloud is not so very large after all, and the sun will come out again above it when it gets up a little higher."

Rollo came down to breakfast, and he went out into the yard every two or three minutes, to look at the sky. The cloud seemed to extend, so that the sun did not come out of it, as he expected, but still he thought it was going to be pleasant Children generally think it is going to be pleasant, whenever they want to go away.

His father thought it was probably going to rain, and that at any rate it was very doubtful whether Uncle George would come. However, he said they should soon see, and, true enough, just as they were rising from the breakfast table, a chaise drove up to the door, and out jumped Uncle George and cousin Lucy.

Lucy was a very pleasant little blue-eyed girl, two or three years older than Rollo. She had a small tin pail in her hand, with a cover upon it.

"Good morning, Rollo," said she. "Have you got your basket ready?"

"Yes," said Rollo; "but I am afraid it is going to rain."

While the children were saying this, Uncle George said to Rollo's father,

"I suppose we shall have to give up our expedition to-day. I am in hopes we are going to have some rain."

"In _hopes_," thought Rollo; "that is very strange when we want to go a blueberrying."

Rollo's father and mother and his uncle looked at the clouds all around. They concluded that there was every appearance of rain, and that it would be best to postpone their excursion, and then went into the house. Rollo was very confident it would not rain, and was very eager to have them go. He asked Lucy if she did not think it was going to be pleasant, but Lucy was more modest and reasonable than he was, and said that she did not know; she could not judge of the weather so well as her father.

Rollo began by this time to be considerably out of humor. He said he knew it was not going to rain, and he did not see why they might not go.

He did not believe it would rain a drop all day.

Lucy just then pointed down to a little dark spot on the stone step of the door, where a drop had just fallen, and asked Rollo what he called that.

"And that,--and that,--and that," said she, pointing to several other drops.

Rollo at first insisted that that was not rain, but some little spots on the stone.

Then Lucy reached out her hand and said,

"Hold out your hand so, Rollo, and you will feel the drops coming down out of the sky."

Rollo held out his hand a moment, but then immediately withdrew it, saying, impatiently, that he did not care; it was not rain; at any rate it was only a little sprinkling.

Lucy observed that Rollo was getting very much out of humor, and she tried to please him by saying,

"Rollo, I would not mind. If it does rain, I will ask my father to let me stay and play with you to-day, and we can have a fine time up in your little room."

"No, we cannot," said Rollo; "and besides, they will not let you stay, I know. I went yesterday to ask my father to let Jonas go with us to-day, and he would not."

It was certainly very unreasonable for Rollo to imagine that his father and uncle would be unwilling to have Lucy stay just because it had not been convenient to let Jonas go with them. But when children are out of humor, they are always very unreasonable.

"Why would not he let Jonas go?" asked Lucy.

"I do not know. Mother said it was because I did not ask him right."

"How did you ask him?"

"O, I interrupted him. He was reading."