d
chap, and once more he walked out and pretended to look for Mary. Then
Flossie walked out, and this time the play went off very well. Mother
Goose came on when it was her turn and she helped Boy Blue and Miss
Muffet look for Mary and the lost horn. It was finally found in Jack
Horner's pie, which was a big one made of a shoe box. And Johnnie, as
Jack Horner, pulled out the horn instead of a plum. His sore thumb did
not bother him much.

"Well, did you like the play?" the teacher asked the other children, who
had only looked on.

"It was fine!" they all said. "We'd like to see it again."

"Well, perhaps you may," returned Miss Earle. "Would you like to act it
before the whole school?" she asked of Flossie, Freddie and the other
little actors and actresses.

"Yes, teacher!" they said in a chorus.

"Then you shall."

A week later the play was given on the large stage in the big room where
there was a real curtain and real scenery. The little Mother Goose play
went off very well, too, for the children knew their parts better. And
Johnnie Wilson did not fall down off a pile of boxes.

The only thing which happened, that ought not to, was when Flossie sang
a little song Miss Earle wrote for her.

When she had finished, Flossie, seeing Nan out in the audience, stepped
to the edge of the stage and asked:

"Did I sing that all right, Nan?" for Nan had been helping her little
sister learn the piece.

Every one laughed when Flossie asked that, for, of course, she should
not have spoken, but only bowed. But it was all right, and really it
made fun, which, after all, was what the play was for.

"We'll have to get up a play ourselves, Nan," said Bert to his sister
when school was out, and the Mother Goose play had ended. "I like to
act."

"So do I," said Nan.

"I'd like a play about soldiers and pirates," went on Bert.

"I know something about pirates," cried Tommy Todd. "My father used to
tell me about them."

"Say, you'd do fine for a pirate!" cried Bert "You know a lot about
ships and things; don't you?"

"Well, a little," said Tommy. "I remember some of the things my father
told me when he was with us. And my grandmother knows a lot. Her husband
was a sailor and she has sailed on a ship."

"Then we'll ask her how to be pirates when we get ready for our play,"
Bert decided.

"How is your grandma?" Nan inquired.

"Well, she's a little better," said Tommy, "but not very well. She has
to work too hard, I