Page 232 - LITTLE WOMEN

Little Women

cried Sallie, as Fred ended his rigmarole, in which he had
jumbled together pell-mell nautical phrases and facts out of
one of his favorite books. ‘Well, they went to the bottom,
and a nice mermaid welcomed them, but was much

grieved on finding the box of headless knights, and kindly
pickled them in brine, hoping to discover the mystery
about them, for being a woman, she was curious. By-and-
by a diver came down, and the mermaid said, ‘I’ll give
you a box of pearls if you can take it up, ‘ for she wanted
to restore the poor things to life, and couldn’t raise the
heavy load herself. So the diver hoisted it up, and was
much disappointed on opening it to find no pearls. He left
it in a great lonely field, where it was found by a..’
‘Little goose girl, who kept a hundred fat geese in the
field,’ said Amy, when Sallie’s invention gave out. ‘The
little girl was sorry for them, and asked an old woman
what she should do to help them. ‘Your geese will tell
you, they know everything.’ said the old woman. So she
asked what she should use for new heads, since the old
ones were lost, and all the geese opened their hundred
mouths and screamed..’
‘‘Cabbages!’’ continued Laurie promptly. ‘‘Just the
thing, ‘ said the girl, and ran to get twelve fine ones from
her garden. She put them on, the knights revived at once,

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