The Little Colonel's Holidays

NOW ring your merriest tune, ye silver bells of the magic caldron. 'Tis / a birthday feast that awakes your chiming, so make your key-note joy. / And now if the little princes and princesses will thrust their curious / fingers into the steam as the water bubbles again, it will take them far / away from the Cuckoo's Nest. They will see the village of Plainsville, / Kansas, and the little brown house where the Ware family lived.

The day that the Little Colonel's letter reached Joyce was Holland's / tenth birthday. One would not have dreamed that there was a party of ten / boys in the parlour that bright September afternoon, for the shutters / were closed, and every blind tightly drawn. Jack had darkened the room / to give them a magic lantern exhibition, while Joyce was spreading the / table under an apple-tree in the side yard. Mary, her funny little / braids with their big bows of blue ribbon continually bobbing over her / shoulders, was helping to carry out the curious dishes from the house / that had taken all morning to prepare.