—JOHN AND FRANCES.‘

Chapter I. The Adventure.

Mama was going to wake up Frances and her brother. Frances was six years old and a half, and was nearly seven, and the little brother was five years old. First of all Mama went and tickled the toes of Frances, but she would not stir, so she went to the little brother John, and pulled his hair five times, because he was five years old, he only opened one eye, then he shut both his eyes tight, and pretended to be asleep, so she pulled his covers off his bed, so by that time he jumped out of bed and began to dress quickly. The moment that he had got his clothes on he said" What about Frances? " Then Mama said " I will just go to wake her up. " When she heard these words, she jumped out of bed swiftly. As soon as the children had put their clothes on, they took their breakfast. Then they went with Brown Chocalat, the dog and the sheep. They took a lunch with them because they were going to stay all day long to look after the sheep all the time, so they had to have a lunch.

The grass was so green, the sky was so blue, the tree trunks so brown,
and every thing was as more as the colour, as that of that it used to be.
White Lamb a beautiful clean white sheep was a favoroute of them all.

- 1 -

When they began to go home they had to count the sheep to see that none
were missing. There were thirteen sheep. So John began to count them.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve."
No that could not be it. He began to count again. No that was always
twelve. He knew then that it was the old black sheep that was missing.
Suddenly they looked in a hole and there was the old black sheep, with two
little lambs.

## CHAPTER II.
### THE AVALANCHE.

When the children went up in the mountains, to look after the flock,
to look after them, they saw all the sky getting blacker and blacker,
until Frances suddenly said "Its raining in Territet". John looked.
He saw the sky full of mist, and very black clouds, gathering about the
sky. Suddenly he felt a drop of rain. "It is going to rain here in
a minute." he said. "Oh, what shall we do, what shall we do" sobbed
Frances. "Get wet to the skin I guess" said John. Frances bounded
away, to find a shelter. Suddenly she came to an old cave that any
French person might have hidden in when the Romans conquered Switzerland.

- 2 -

So she called " John " and John, and the sheep all came bounding up the hill. When the storm was over, they came out. Even though the sky was blue and clear, crash followed crash. " The avalanche " gasped Frances as they came down.

There was a lot of snow so the children had to go carefully.

## CHAPTER III.

### A WET DAY.

little

When the children woke up, in the morning, in their loft, up in the farm, their little window, was open as it always was open instead of seeing the pleasant blue sky, they saw a grey ugly sky, with great black clouds rolling about, and they saw the rain. Flashes of lightning lightened up the loft, and they could hear great claps of thunder in the distance. They could get up as early as they wanted and they could go to bed as late as they wanted. They could even get up and dress in the middle of the night so John said " Let us get up " and Frances said " We cannot go out and romp in the fields,

- 3 -

so we shall have to stay home and play indoor games. " But John said
" Well that doesn't matter ". So they jumped up. They were so poor that
they could not get pajamas and nightdresses, so they were their clothes.
When they got up, Frances went at a party of dolls. John went to get
his toy train out. Frances gave him some small dolls, and he put them
in the train. John took the little dolls for the train, and Frances took
all the big dolls and put them on, toy chairs for her tea party.

Suddenly the rain stopped, and John said "Oh, let's go and play
outdoor games and ride our ponies, I expect they are only without us,
and the rain has stopped."

## Chapter IV.

### CHRISTMAS EVE.

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. " shouted the child," Today we will do the Christmas, today we shall trim the Christmas tree. " " Oh John don't make such a noise, I was in the middle of a nice happy dream and suddenly I woke up and heard a noisy boy or girl shouting, I don't know what it was boy or girl. I thought that it couldn't be you my brother John, so please do stop and I will give you an extra Christmas present at Christmas. We are going down to buy two cows for myself and if you stop

- 4 -

screaming like that I will give one of them to you, and you will get an-
other big cupfull of nice clean white fresh milk. You shall go with the
where ever you go if you stop screaming the wholeplace down, and you shall
get thirsty, because you can milk the cow." But John never stopped scream-
ing. Presently their mother woke up and heard the screams, when she came
in she asked who had done it all, and Frances said " He woke me up, I
thought that he was dying and then I knew that know little rat could
possibly bite him because this loft is so clean oh so very clean. "

She pulled him to her little cabin and took her hard ivory hair
brush and spanked him for an hour. When he went back to his loft a-
gain he felt very sore and hot,

- 5 -