So the next day, when Robbie was away at school, Grandma Fales went to work to make a drum for him in a way she had thought of. She found a wooden box that was light but strong, and about the right size.
She put some straps of red cloth around it to make it look gay. Then she fastened a long strap to it so that Robbie could hang it on his neck. For the drum-sticks she found some spokes that had been broken out of an old wheel.
When Robbie came home and saw what Grandma had done for him he was quite delighted.
"Why, this is a first-rate drum!" he exclaimed. "And it did n't cost a cent, either. I did n't think you could make any thing so good," and he thanked her over and over. He hung the box on his neck, and beat a lively rub-a-dub on the ends.
He liked the sticks very much, because they were so round and smooth. The homemade drum was greatly admired by the school-boys. Each one of them took his turn at playing on it; and they all agreed, that if it did not look just like a real drum, it did make a splendid noise.
Robbie said he was sure that he enjoyed it as much as he should if it had cost several dollars; and Grandma was very glad that she had been able to make him so happy.
```The biggest and grandest that ever was seen.
```For I am quite sure it is fit for the Queen."
```And tied a true lover's knot under her chin;
```With all of them fastened in place with a pin.
```And strutted about for a while in the park;
```And blew them both up in the sky, like a spark.=
|Karl and Christina were little German children. It was summer when they came to live in the house by the bridge. As soon as they were settled in their new home they began to go to school. The road that led to the school went by Farmer Grün's orchard. The trees in the orchard were full of apples. Karl and Christina would look at them when they were going past, and they longed to have some of them to eat.
"You must never go into the orchard," their mother said; "but if any of the apples should fall into the road, it would not be wrong for you to pick them up."
There was one tree that stood nearer the roadside wall than the others did, and it had bright red pippins on it. The children called this their tree, and every time they went by it they would say, "Pretty pippins, please to fall into the road."