Little Helpers

His name was Johnny Leslie, and he was standing on an empty flour barrel; in his hand was his United States History, and he was shouting at the top of his little voice,—

It is a great pity that little boys’ legs are so short; they have to hurry so much, and a pair of good long legs, like those of the stately giraffe, for instance, would be such...

You will think, perhaps, that they had literary tendencies, and hoped to grow up into co-editors? Not in the least! They each wondered, as they groaned over “composition day,” h...

There were just two things which could keep Johnny quiet for more than two minutes at a time; one was having some one read aloud to him, and the other was playing checkers. He c...

As time went on, from that Fourth of July when Johnny had reason to change his views about independence, and as he thought more about that, and other matters connected with it,...

He had never yet learned to skate, for the only good skating-pond was at some little distance from his home, and he had no big brother to take him in hand, and see that he had o...

Johnny did not have a great deal of time for thinking. It is difficult to think when one is running, or jumping, or hammering, or shouting, and still more difficult when one is...

Tiny and Johnny were planting their gardens, and Jim Brady was helping them. Johnny had happened to mention to Jim that he liked a garden very well, after the things were up, bu...

A three days’ rain which set in the morning after Johnny’s first appearance as a schoolmaster, put a stop to gardening, and Jim decided for himself that he was not entitled to a...

The desk next to Johnny’s had been vacant for a long time, and he did not like this much, for he was a sociable boy, and although of course, no great amount of conversation was...

be clinched, either in his pockets, or under cover of his desk. Johnny generally managed to keep himself from joining in the fun, as it was considered by all but the victim, but...

Jim looked unusually grave, as he gave Johnny the benefit of these words of wisdom. Johnny was on his way home from school, and he had stopped to show Jim a certain knife, about...

“But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which seeth in secret,”—and she had told him that a...

After that first perfect Latin lesson, Johnny’s road to success seemed in a measure broken, and though he by no means achieved perfection every time, his failures were less tota...

The room they entered was much more neat and clean than Johnny had expected to find it, and there was even some attempt at decoration, in the way of picture cards and show bills...

Perhaps, if you had seen Johnny starting for school on a certain Thursday of which I mean to tell you, you would have thought that somebody was imposing on his good nature, for...

It was Sunday, and Jim was walking home from church with the Leslies. A gradual, but very great change had come over him since Taffy’s death. He had grown nearly as cheerful as...

There was no doubt about it—Johnny had, to use one of his own expressions, “got up wrong end foremost,” that morning. Not that he had really and literally come out of bed upon h...

Johnny did a good deal of thinking, at odd times, the next day, and the more he thought, the more he saw why his mother had wanted him to think, before their next talk. As he pi...

When Tiny and Johnny had measles, as they had so many things, together, one spring, they were both left rather weak and good-for-nothing, so Mr. Leslie, after a good deal of hun...

“Now, Miss Ann,” said Johnny, taking charge of the meeting, and quite forgetting to ask “if she would mind telling,” “we want you to please tell us how you manage always to seem...

It was a bright, fresh Saturday afternoon in October, and Johnny, who had found it a little hard to settle down into school habits again, after the boundless freedom of the vaca...

“It must have been most beautiful,” said Tiny, “I wonder if it looked at all like that?” and she pointed to a large, bright star, which seemed quite alone in the sky, for the su...

He had remarked, early in the spring, that when he was really rich, when he had five or six millions of dollars, he was going to build a city in the form of a very large circle,...

They wrote to Mr. Thorpe. Of course they did! They promised the moss and roots, and told him how glad they were that the people had been pleased with what they sent, and would h...