What nice stories, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father write like that, I wonder?

Did he never hear from his own mother stories of giants and fairies and princesses?

Has he forgotten them all?

Often when he gets late for his bath you have to go and call him a hundred times.

You wait and keep his dishes warm for him, but he goes on writing and forgets.

Father always plays at making books.

If ever I go to play in father’s room, you come and call me, ‘What a naughty child!’

If I make the slightest noise, you say, ‘Don’t you see that father’s at his work?’

What’s the fun of always writing and writing?

When I take up father’s pen or pencil and write upon his book just as he does,—a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i,—why do you get cross with me, then, mother?

You never say a word when father writes.

When my father wastes such heaps of paper, mother, you don’t seem to mind at all.

But if I take only one sheet to make a boat with, you say, ‘Child, how troublesome you are!’

What do you think of father’s spoiling sheets and sheets of paper with black marks all over on both sides?

the wicked postman

Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, mother dear?

The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all wet, and you don’t mind it.

Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother to come home from school.

What has happened to you that you look so strange?

Haven’t you got a letter from father to-day?

I saw the postman bringing letters in his bag for almost everybody in the town.

Only, father’s letters he keeps to read himself. I am sure the postman is a wicked man.

But don’t be unhappy about that, mother dear.

To-morrow is market day in the next village. You ask your maid to buy some pens and papers.

I myself will write all father’s letters; you will not find a single mistake.

I shall write from A right up to K.

But, mother, why do you smile?

You don’t believe that I can write as nicely as father does!

But I shall rule my paper carefully, and write all the letters beautifully big.

When I finish my writing, do you think I shall be so foolish as father and drop it into the horrid postman’s bag?

I shall bring it to you myself without waiting, and letter by letter help you to read my writing.

I know the postman does not like to give you the really nice letters.

the hero

Mother, let us imagine we are travelling, and passing through a strange and dangerous country.

You are riding in a palanquin and I am trotting by you on a red horse.

It is evening and the sun goes down. The waste of Joradighi lies wan and grey before us. The land is desolate and barren.