THE BOOK OF BETTY BARBER.
“I must cut some of them out,” she said, “but I cannot make up my mind which it shall be.”
“You won’t cut me,” shouted the Foxglove.
“Or us,” called the Violets.
Lucy ran across to the tree, picked up her work, rolled it up into a tight, tight ball, and threw it on the ground.
“Well, I never did,” said a girl who was peeping over the garden gate. “Here is quite a new story:
“A queer little girl stood under a tree,
Spoiling her work, so silly was she;
She rolled it up small, and squeezed it up tight,
And said, ‘Stupid work, good-night, good-night.’”
Lucy stamped her foot. “Be quiet, Mary,” she said, “it is easy for you to laugh, you have only three verses.”
“And quite enough, too,” said Mary, walking through the gate, “quite as many as most children can get into their heads. I can’t think how you manage with six, and you’ve so many things to look after, too—foxgloves, violets, rooks, horses and oxen. Why, I find it takes me all my time to keep one lamb in order.”
“But I don’t get on,” said Lucy. “I don’t get on at all with the children. They say that I am too long, and that they are sick of me.”
“Too long, too long! What rubbish,” grumbled an old Spider, who was very busy close by Lucy’s tree, making a most superior parlour for silly flies to walk into. “They'll say I’m too long next, I suppose. You haven’t enough verses, that’s what’s the matter with you. You want more verses and more lines. It takes a great many lines to make a really good web.”
“Cut out two or three verses,” said Mary, taking no notice or the Spider.
“I’ve been trying to do it all the morning,” said Lucy, “and I can’t manage it. I love my flowers, and birds, and beasts, I can’t leave one of them out.”
“I won't leave a single verse out,” growled the Spider.
