In that chair,
then, the little boy would sit coiled up as nearly into a ball as might
be, like a young bird or a rabbit in its nest, staring at the wheel, and
listening with two ears and one heart to its song and the old woman's
tale both at once.
[Illustration: "WILLIE LIKED MRS WILSON'S STORIES BETTER THAN HER SUGAR
CANDY."]
One sultry summer afternoon, his mother not being very well and having
gone to lie down, his father being out, as he so often was, upon
Scramble the old horse, and Tibby, their only servant, being busy with
the ironing, Willie ran off to Widow Wilson's, and was soon curled up
in the chair, like a little Hindoo idol that had grown weary of sitting
upright, and had tumbled itself into a corner.
Now, before he came, the old woman had been thinking about him, and
wishing very much that he would come; turning over also in her mind, as
she spun, all her stock of stories, in the hope of finding in some nook
or other one she had not yet told him; for although he had not yet begun
to grow tired even of those he knew best, it was a special treat to have
a new one; for by this time Mrs Wilson's store was all but exhausted,
and a new one turned up very rarely.
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