KIDDIES FROLICS
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JULIA'S HAPPY VISITS

BY JOSEPHINE LAWRENCE

JULIA was five years old when she went visit-
ing for the first time. She went to see her
cousins, Bobby and Kitty, for a week, and
just as soon as the three cousins were acquainted,
Bobby and Kitty made a discovery.

Julia didn't like to play with other children!

Bobby and Kitty always had "half the neigh-
borhood" in to play in their yard. Their mother
said so.

"Julia isn't sociable," complained Kitty sadly.

"Why of course she is—only she isn't used to
playing with so many children," said Kitty's
mother. "You must help her to have a good
time."


Now across the road from Bobby and Kitty
lived a little boy named Harry. He had a birth-
day party, soon after Julia came visiting. She
went with Kitty and Bobby. Harry's favorite
game was Blindman's Buff, and they played
that most of the afternoon. He tied a handker-
chief over his eyes and he tried to catch the other
boys and girls. When he caught Julia she had to
wear the handkerchief and try to catch the
others.

And, do you know, she thought that was a
lovely game and she almost cried when the party
was over and she had to go home.

The next morning Kitty brought out her jump-
ing rope and showed Julia how to skip rope.
They skipped all the way to the store on an
errand and then they skipped across the
meadows to the house where Kitty's grandma


lived. She gave them milk and cookies and told
them she had jumped rope when she was a little
girl.

Bobby didn't jump rope—he said that was
girls' fun—but he loved to roll hoops. He had
two hoops and he loaned one to Julia and they
rolled those hoops up hill and down for one
whole afternoon. Bobby could keep his hoop
rolling for a long time without stopping and
Julia soon learned to do it, too.

"Come out and see the see saw I've made
for you," said Bobby one morning.

Julia followed him out to the meadow behind
the house and there was a large log left from a
tree that had been cut down. Bobby put a long
plank across this and told Julia to sit down on
one end.


"Hold fast" he cried, seating himself on the
other end of the plank.

"Ow!" Julia cried as she felt herself rising in
the air. "Ow! Stop it, Bobby! I'll fall off!"

But she didn't, and in a few minutes she forgot
to be afraid. It was great fun to ride up and
down through the air and Julia was sorry when
some boy friends of Bobby's came and asked
him to play with them.

"We're going to have a game of leap frog,
down the lane." David Brown, one of the boys,
explained.

Julia wanted to see them play, so she tagged
along and hung over the fence bars while the
boys ran and jumped over each other's backs.

"You do have more fun, if you all play to-
gether," Julia said to Kitty that night.


Julia went home when she had stayed a week,
but in the fall Bobby and Kitty came to visit
her. They arrived on Hallowe'en and Julia had
a party that night. They played in the kitchen
because water wouldn't hurt the floor and they
had to have a tub of water when they ducked
for apples.

That was the merriest party! Big black cats
decorated the kitchen shelf and apples hung on
strings roasted near the hearth fire. Bobby had
a jack knife and he made the pumpkin lantern.
He carved two eyes, a nose and a mouth, and
when a candle was lighted and stuck inside it,
you should have seen the funny face it made!

Bobby and Kitty went to visit Julia's kinder-
garten the next day. Since they were visitors,
the teacher said they might choose the game
they wished the class to play.


"Let's play 'Drop the Handkerchief," sug-
gested Kitty.

Julia liked this game, too, and so did the other
children. Bobby started first with the hand-
kerchief, but each one had a chance to carry it
and drop it behind someone else before the game
was ended.

When Bobby and Kitty went home, they said
that Julia must come again to see them, as soon
as the spring flowers blossomed in the woods.
It seemed a long time to wait, but at last the
winter was over and one day a letter came
addressed to Julia.

"C-o-m-e h-e-l-p u-s m-a-k-e M-a-y b-a-s-
k-e-t-s," Kitty had printed.

Julia thought this sounded lovely and as soon
as she reached her cousin's house she was ready
with a question.


"What are May baskets?" she asked.

Bobby and Kitty promised to show her.
Together they picked enough flowers to fill
three pretty baskets. Bobby gave his to his
mother, Kitty said she would hang hers on her
grandmother's door and Julia took hers to
David Brown's house and hung it on his door
knob. She knew he was sick and couldn't get
out to pick any flowers for himself.

"A May basket is a surprise," Julia told the
other little girls in her kindergarten," and it is
the nicest kind of a surprise, too."



Scanned by Deidre Johnson for her Josephine Lawrence website; please do not use on other sites without permission

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