E-text prepared by Gretchen Phillips,
The Internet Archive Children's Library,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(www.pgdp.net)
KERNEL COB
AND
LITTLE MISS
SWEETCLOVER
Written by
GEORGE MITCHEL
Illustrated by
TONY SARG
1918
P. F. Volland Company
Chicago, U.S.A
To Ursula, Dordie, Hutch and Bob
And children the wide world over,
I dedicate brave Kernel Cob
And dear Little Miss Sweetclover.
CHAPTER I
Jackie was a little boy and he had a little sister named Peggs, andthey lived with their Aunt who was very old, maybe thirty-two.
And it was so very long since she had been a little girl, that shequite forgot that children need toys to play with and all that.
So poor little Jackie and Peggs had no soldiers or dolls but couldonly play at make-believe all day long.
They lived in a little white house nearly all covered withhoneysuckle, and a little white fence with a little white gate in itran all about and at the back of the little white house was a littlegarden with beautiful flowers growing in it.
And once, when they were making pies in the garden, Peggs began to cryand Jackie ran and put his arms about her, for he loved his littlePeggs very dearly; and he said to her:
"What's the matter, Peggsie? Did a spider bite you?"
"No," says Peggs, "it didn't."
"Was it a naughty worm?"
"No," says Peggs, "it wasn't."
"Well, what was it?" says Jackie.
"It weren't anything that bit me, only I want a doll," and away shecried again.
"Huh!" says Jackie, "that's nothing. You don't want a doll any mor'n Iwant a soldier," and he sat down beside her and began to cry, too.
And after they had cried for a long time, maybe four hours or two,they stopped.
"I tell you what!" says Jackie.
"What?" says Peggs, drying her eyes on her pinafore.
"If no one will give us a soldier"...
"But I don't want a soldier," says Peggs. "I want a doll."
"Let's make one," says Jackie.
"That's a good way," says Peggs.
"You bet," says Jackie, and he slapped one of his legs the way sailorsdo in tales of the sea.
"What'll we make it of?" asked Peggs.
"Things," says Jackie. "Goodie!" says Peggs.
And they went in search of the things they would make the dolls of.And pretty soon, Peggs made the most wonderful doll of flowers thatever a child could see.
The head was of Sweetclover, the dress was a purple morning-gloryturned upside-down so it looked like a bodice and a skirt, and it wastied to the head so that they wouldn't come apart. And perched on thetop of the head was a little bonnet, only it wasn't re