When this nice lunch was over, Annie's mother said, "My little darling, I am going to New York to buy a chest of tea, and hire a cook, besides taking a trunk which belongs to a friend. You must keep house for me, dear; and if any company comes, behave very politely to them, and take off their bonnets, and talk to them, and ask them to stay till I come home."
"So ilken Annie will, mamma," she answered; "but I'll tell them they mustn't pull off their shoes and stockings and paddle in the lake, saying, 'quack,' and making believe they are a duck, like brother did. I'll tell them that's naughty, won't I?"
"Yes," said the good mamma, laughing, "tell them what brother did. That will amuse them very much, dear; and when I come home, I will give you a dozen kisses and a pretty new book."
Oh, how Annie's blue eyes sparkled at this! for, would you believe it, she could read! Yes, read! and only four years old! It did not seem to have hurt her; for she was just as round, and plump, and rosy as possible. She learned her letters, nobody knows how--from the tops of newspapers; and the reading came so easy, that instead of having to learn in that pretty little school book called, "Reading without tears," Annie seemed always to have on a ticklesome apron, which turned all her lessons into "reading with laughing;" and it was such a funny business, and Annie grew so fat and bright under it, that her mother did not feel worried; but I advise all the rest of you, little darlings, if you don't like learning to read quite as well as bread and butter and raspberry jam, to put it off till your dear little heads and bodies have had at least two years more of play, and frolic, and tumbling about like kittens. You like that advice, don't you?
So Annie helped her mother to dress. She ran to the closet, brought out a green bandbox, and raising the cover, lifted up her mother's bonnet; then she opened one of the bureau drawers, and got her a pair of new kid gloves, and shut the drawer again. "Oh!" cried she, with a little laugh, "I forgot to take out a clean hankfun--too bad!" By this funny word she meant "pocket handkerchief."
So she ran back to the bureau, opened the drawer, and took a "hankfun" from a pile in the corner; and then her mother was quite ready.