his way, he felt so
happy that he sang this little song, which he had heard the kindergarten
children singing at the owl school a few days before. This is the song,
but of course I can't sing it very well. Please don't laugh. I'll do the
best I can, although, perhaps, I shan't get the words just right:

"'Soldier boy, soldier boy, where are you going,
Waving so proudly your red, white and blue?'
'I'm going to the war to fight for my country,
And if you'll be a soldier boy, you may come too.'"

That's the way Sammie sang it, anyhow, and just as he finished he got to
the drug store.

"Who was that singing?" asked Dr. Possum, who happened to be in the
store just then.

"I was," said Sammie.

"Oh, indeed; I didn't know you sang," went on Dr. Possum. "That is very
good indeed. I could not do better myself. Will you kindly sing it
again?" So Sammie sang it again, and then he got the colors for his
mamma to put on the Easter eggs.

"Now, children," said Mamma Littletail, when Sammie reached home. "Get
the eggs that Mrs. Cluck-Cluck gave you the other day, and we will color
them."

"Oh, won't we have fun!" cried Susie.

"Indeed we will!" said Sammie.

So they first boiled the eggs good and hard, so that if they happened to
drop one, it wouldn't get all over the floor, and you know how
unpleasant it is, to say the least, when an egg drops, and gets all over
the floor. Isn't it, really? Well, they boiled the eggs, and then Mamma
Littletail had the dye ready.

Well, you should have seen all the colors she had! There was red and
blue and yellow and green and purple and pink and old rose and crushed
strawberry and ashes of roses and magenta and Alice blue and Johnnie red
and Froggie green and toadstool brown and skilligimink. That last, the
storekeeper told Sammie, was a new color, very scarce. As there isn't
any more of it at the store, I can't just tell you what it looked like,
except that it was a very fine color indeed, Oh, yes!

Well, Sammie and Susie helped their mamma dip the eggs in the dye and
stained them all sorts of pretty colors. Some were all one shade, and
some were half one tint and half another, and then there were some all
speckled with different colors, and very hard to make. Then, after they
were all dry, Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with her sharp teeth, just like
chisels that a carpenter uses, drew pretty things on the eggs; pictures
of trees and birds and mountains and flower