Page:Mrs. Spring Fragrance - Far - 1912.djvu/329

 sundown and it was very warm. Her mother still slept her afternoon sleep. Hastily seizing the confection, she returned to the babe, her face beaming with benevolence and the desire to do good. She pushed some morsels into the child's mouth. It closed its eyes, wrinkled its nose and gurgled; but its mouth did not seem to Ku Yum to work just as a proper mouth should under such pleasant conditions.

"Behold me! Behold me!" she cried, and herself swallowed the remainder of the cake in two mouthfuls. Ko Ku, however, did not seem to be greatly edified by the example set him. The crumbs remained, half on his tongue and half on the creases of his cheek. He still emitted explosive noises.

Ku Yum sadly surveyed him.

"He doesn't know how to eat. That's why they don't give him anything," she said to herself, and having come to this logical conclusion, she set herself to benefit him in other ways than the one in which she had failed.

She found some worms and ants, which she arranged on leaves and stones, meanwhile keeping up a running commentary on their charms.

"See! This very small brown one—how many legs it has, and how fast it runs. This one is so green that I think its father and mother must have been blades of grass, don't