Once the Play Angel came into a nursery where four little children sat on the floor with sad and troubled faces.

“What is the matter, children?” asked the Play Angel.

“We wanted to have a great feast,” said the child whose nursery it was.

“Yes, that would be delightful,” said the Play Angel.

“But there is only one cooky!” said the child whose nursery it was.

“And it is a very small cooky!” said his little cousin.

“Not big enough for me!” said the child whose nursery it was.

The other two children said nothing, but they looked at the cooky with big round eyes, and their mouths went up in the middle and down at the sides.

decoration27decoration

“Well,” said the Play Angel, “let us have the feast just the same. I think we can manage it.”

She broke the cooky into four pieces, and gave one piece to the littlest child.
Angel on floor with children

“See,” she said. “This is a roast chicken. It is just as brown and crisp as it can be. There is cranberry sauce on one side, and on the other a little mountain of mashed potato. It must be a volcano, it smokes so. Do you see?”

decoration28decoration

“Yes,” said the littlest child, and his mouth went down in the middle and up at the corners.

The Play Angel gave a piece to the next child.

“Here,” she said, “is a little pie. Outside, as you see, it is brown and crusty, and inside it is all chicken, and ham, and jelly, and hard-boiled eggs. Did you ever see such a pie?”

“No, I never did,” said the child.

“Now here,” said the Angel to the third child, “is a round cake. The frosting is half an inch thick, and inside there are chopped nuts and raisins. It is the prettiest cake I ever saw, and the best.”

“So it is,” said the third child.

Then the Angel gave the last piece to the child whose nursery it was.

“My dear,” she said, “just look! Here is an ice-cream rabbit. He is snowy white outside, with eyes of red sugar; see his long ears, and his little tail. Inside, I think you will find he is pink.

“Now, when I clap my hands and count one, two,decoration29decoration three, you must eat the feast all up. One—two,—three!”

So the children ate the feast all up.

“There,” said the Angel, “did you ever see such a grand feast?”

“No, we never did!” said all the four children together.

“And there are some crumbs left over,” said the Angel. “Come, and we will give them to the brother birds.”

“But you didn’t have any,” said the child whose nursery it was.

“Oh, yes!” said the Angel, “I had it all.”

—Laura E. Richards.
Small service is true service while it lasts.
Of humblest friends, bright creature, scorn not one.
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.
—William Wordsworth.