An Old-Fashioned Story

Presently they came to the quiet little place on the beach to which they both always loved to come. They had been here many times with their mammas, but this time it was all quite different. They both felt so important.

Somehow they managed to get their tent put up. It was quite a big job for such little people, but they felt they must do it all properly.

The tent fixed, they both thought it must be time to have something to eat. So they opened the all-important lunch basket and began to take out all the little packages they had put in it so carefully just an hour or so before.

How good everything tasted! so much better than a dinner at home! Really they had never had such a lovely meal before. If their mothers could have seen them eating the plain bread and butter as if it were sugar cookies, they would have been quite surprised. Perhaps they would have decided to have that for dinner every day!

How quickly the lunch basket was emptied! There didn't seem to be half enough in it. Doris and Kathleen were so hungry that they ate up everything they had brought; there wasn't even a crumb left.

Then they played games and told stories to each other. Soon the afternoon passed and the time came to pack up. Down came the tent, the blanket was folded up, and the empty lunch basket slung over Doris' shoulder. Then they started for home.

"Haven't we had a lovely time?" said Kathleen.

"Haven't we!" said Doris. "And only yesterday we said we wouldn't speak to each other any more."

"I'm so glad we made up," said Kathleen.

"So am I," said Doris.

Just then they turned the corner of the road, and there, right in front of them, were two mammas standing at the gate of Kathleen's house.

"We're so glad you've come back safely," they said. "We were just coming to look for you.


Then there were hugs and kisses, a welcome supper, a bedtime story, and a trip upstairs to dreamland.

*This was one of my favorite childhood stories.  It came from an original "Bedtime Stories" book by Arthur Maxwell.  I had a modern set of the "Bedtime Stories" of my own, but I enjoyed my mother's childhood set because of the old-fashioned pictures and un-edited stories.