Читать книгу Forty Good-Night Tales - Rose Amy Fyleman - Страница 8
ОглавлениеTHE VAIN TEDDY
There was once a toy Teddy-bear who belonged to a little girl called Peggy. He was very big, almost as big as Peggy herself, and I am sorry to say that he was very vain.
You see, people always said when they saw him, "What a beautiful Teddy-bear!"
Peggy thought there was no one like him in the world. He always wore a blue bow, and she even made a blue silk cap for him, which he wore on the top of his head. It really made him look rather ridiculous, but it had a feather in it, and the vain Teddy thought it suited him beautifully, though he would have preferred pink.
"Pink is really my colour," he said to himself. "I wish Peggy would realize how well I should look in pink."
He grew more and more conceited every day. The other toys didn't like him at all. He used to sit in the corner and never join in their talk. If anyone spoke to him, he just said "Yes" or "No," in a proud voice, and stared at the ceiling.
But he was punished in the end.
One day Peggy's mother bought a packet of pink dye for Peggy's Sunday frock (which had faded very badly in the sun), mixed it in a great big pot, and left it standing on the kitchen table.
The Teddy-bear was sitting on the window-sill just over the table.
"How pretty that dye is!" he thought. "What a lovely colour! If only my cap were that colour, how handsome I should look!"
Then he had an idea. "If I lean over," he thought, "my cap will drop in, and then it will get dyed."
He leaned over.
"Mind! Mind!" sang the canary.
But he took no notice. He leaned over farther and farther. Suddenly—splash! splash! He had fallen right into the pot of dye!
You never saw such a comical sight as he was when they got him out. Pink all over! Peggy still loved him as much as ever, but his appearance was utterly spoiled.
"What a funny Teddy!" people said now. In time he got used to it, but he never really got over it. He was never known to squeak again.
