, and
they both laughed softly so as not to wake up the babies.

The next night Mr. Mouse went house hunting in the barn.

There he found a very good home in a box of grain.

Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

MISTRESS MARY

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Mary.

She had no brothers and sisters, but she had a dear, good father and
mother.

Mary always went to school with her little friends.

She played with them after school and on Saturdays.

One Saturday in winter all the children went coasting down the long
hill near the school-house.

Mary took her new red sled and went with them.

Oh, it was such fun to coast down that long hill!

The children ran and laughed and shouted all the way.

They had not been coasting long when Mary fell off her sled right into
a snow bank.

That was fun, too, and Mary didn't care one bit.

But when she tried to stand up, it hurt her so it made tears come into
her brown eyes.

"Are you hurt very much?" asked Little Boy Blue.

"My foot hurts," said Mary, trying not to cry.

"We'll give you a ride home," said Jack Horner.

So Mary sat on her sled, and Boy Blue and Jack Horner played they were
her horses.

They trotted so fast that Mary was soon at home and in her mother's
arms.

When the doctor saw Mary's foot he shook his head.

"This little girl has sprained her foot," he said.

"She will have to stay in the house for some time."

I am afraid Mary cried when the doctor said this.

She did not like to stay at home.

She wanted to go to school with all her playmates.

She wanted to go coasting and skating and play in the snow.

In a few days Mary could sit by the window and watch the children.

Then she was not so lonely.

Jack brought home her school books and she studied very hard.

"I want to keep up with my class, Mamma," she said.

So every day Mary and her mother played school together.

Every week Miss Brown came in to see how the little girl was getting
along.

Of course the children went to see Mary very often.

They told her everything they had been doing in school.

One day Jack said, "I think it would be good fun to give Mary a
surprise party."

"Oh yes," said Alice, "and we can all take something to make her
happy."

"We can have the party next Saturday afternoon," said Jack.

"I asked Mary's