game by stopping to cry.
No one enjoys playing with a tearful boy or girl.

All the children were playing in the snow when Johnnie Jones joined
them. They had built a snow fort, which half of the children were trying
to destroy with snowballs, and which half were defending. They were
having the merriest sort of a time. Occasionally some one would be
struck by a ball, but he would just laugh and send back another, for it
was all in fun.

Johnnie Jones began to play, too, and was enjoying himself very much,
when unfortunately a stray ball struck his cheek. It did hurt, but not
nearly enough to cry about, for all the balls were soft. Johnnie Jones,
however, began to cry, called the children "unkind," which was foolish,
and ran away home.

As soon as he entered the house, Mother gave him some of the medicine.
Never was anyone more surprised than Johnnie Jones, when he tasted it!
The only other medicine he had ever taken had been sweet, but this was
dreadfully bitter. He had no sooner swallowed it than he began to cry
again. Mother immediately poured more of it from the bottle.

"I won't take any more," Johnnie Jones, said between his sobs, "it is
bad medicine."

"Yes, indeed," Mother told him, "you must take it every time you cry,
just as the doctor said, because we can't continue to have a cry-baby in
the house. You must take another dose now unless you can stop crying
without it."

"I'll stop," said Johnnie Jones, and he did.

Mother poured some of the medicine into another bottle to send to Miss
Page at kindergarten, and then placed the rest on the mantel where
Johnnie Jones could see it.

It was remarkable how quickly the little boy was cured of his bad habit.
After he had taken but three doses of the bitter medicine he learned
to stop and think when anything failed to please him. Then, instead of
allowing himself to cry, he would often manage to laugh, which was much
more sensible, and much pleasanter for the people near him. Soon he
began to realize what a foolish little boy he had been, and at last he
made up his mind to be, instead of a cry-baby, a big, brave boy. And
that is what he was, all the rest of his life, bright and sweet and
brave, so that everyone loved to be with him, grown folks as well as
the children.

* * * * *

Johnnie Jones and the Man Who Cried "Wolf" too Often

Some time passed by before people began to realize that Johnnie Jones
was no longe