The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe (Musaicum Christmas Specials). Amanda M. Douglas

      Amanda M. Douglas

      The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe (Musaicum Christmas Specials)

      Christmas Classic: There's No Place Like Home

      Published by

      Books

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       [email protected]

      2020 OK Publishing

      EAN 4064066385330

      Table of Contents

       Chapter I. Joe's Grand Discovery

       Chapter II. Planning in the Twilight

       Chapter III. A Chance for Flossy

       Chapter IV. The Identical Shoe

       Chapter V. Good Luck for Joe

       Chapter VI. Fortunes and Misfortunes

       Chapter VII. The Old Tumbler, After All

       Chapter VIII. Florence in State

       Chapter IX. Fourth of July

       Chapter X. Which Should She Choose?

       Chapter XI. Out of the Old Home-Nest

       Chapter XII. Joe's Fortune

       Chapter XIII. From Gray Skies to Blue

       Chapter XIV. A Flower-Garden in Doors

       Chapter XV. How Charlie Ran Away

       Chapter XVI. Almost Discouraged

       Chapter XVII. Lost at Sea

       Chapter XVIII. A Song in the Night

       Chapter XIX. In the Old Home-Nest Again

       Chapter XX. Wherein the Old Shoe Becomes Crowded

       Chapter XXI. How the Dreams Came True

       Chapter XXII. Christmastide

       In Remembrance

      OF

      MANY PLEASANT HOURS SPENT AT WOODSIDE,

       This Story

      OF LOVE AND FAITH, OF WORK AND WAITING, AND THE GENTLE

      VIRTUES THAT ARE NONE THE LESS HEROIC FOR

      BLOOMING IN THE CENTRE OF THE HOME CIRCLE,

       IS DEDICATED TO THE HAPPY HOUSEHOLD

      OF

       MR. and MRS. A. C. NEUMANN.

      Chapter I.

       Joe's Grand Discovery

       Table of Contents

      Hal sat trotting Dot on his knee,—poor little weazen-faced Dot, who was just getting over the dregs of the measles, and cross accordingly. By way of accompaniment he sang all the Mother Goose melodies that he could remember. At last he came to,—

      "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe:

       She had so many children she didn't know what to do;

       To some she gave broth without any bread,"—

      and Harry stopped to catch his breath, for the trotting was of the vigorous order.

      "And a thrashing all round, and sent them to bed!"

      finished Joe, thrusting his shaggy head in at the window after the fashion of a great Newfoundland dog.

      Dot answered with a piteous cry,—a sort of prolonged wail, heart-rending indeed.

      "Serve you right," said Joe, going through an imaginary performance with remarkably forcible gestures.

      "For shame, Joe! You were little once yourself, and I dare say cried when you were sick. I always thought it very cruel, that, after being deprived of their supper, they should be"—

      "Thrashed! Give us good strong Saxon for once, Flossy!"

      Flossy was of the ambitious, correct, and sentimental order. She had lovely light curls, and soft white hands when she did not have to work too hard, which she never did of her own free will. She thought it dreadful to be so poor, and aspired to a rather aristocratic ladyhood.

      "I am sorry you were not among them," she replied indignantly. "You're a hard-hearted, cruel boy!"

      "When the thrashings went round? You're a c-r-u-e-l girl!" with a prodigious length of accent. "Why, I get plenty of 'em at school."

      "'Trot, trot, trot. There was an old woman'—what are you laughing at, Joe?" and Hal turned red in the face.

      "I've just made a brilliant discovery. O my poor buttons! remember Flossy's hard labor and many troubles, and do not bust! Why, we're the very children!"

      At this, Joe gave a sudden lurch: you saw his head, and then you saw his heels, and the patch on the knee of his trousers, ripped partly off by an unlucky nail, flapped in the breeze; and he was seated on the window-sill right side up with care, drumming both bare heels into the broken wall. He gave a prolonged whistle of satisfaction, made big eyes at Dot, and then said again,—

      "Yes, we are the very children!"

      "What children? Joe, you are the noisiest boy in Christendom!"

      "Flossy, the old woman who lived in a shoe is Granny, and no mistake! I can prove it logically. Look at this old tumble-down rookery: it is just the shape of a huge shoe, sloping gradually to the toe, which is the shed-end here. It's brown and rusty and cracked and patched: it wants heeling and