HOPE THE OPTIMIST BEAR

Hope the Optimist Bear was a nice and 

gentle bear.   She loved helping people, 

especially children.   Hope would find 

friends in the hospital and hang out 

with them.   She would play with them, 

dance with them, sing with them, and 

so much more.   Every one of the 

children loved Hope!

Hope worked really hard every day and one day 

a nurse came up to her and asked, “Would you 

like to have a permanent job with a child here?”  

Hope was really happy and said, “Of course!”  

That is when Hope met Sophia. 

Sophia was a little girl who had been in the 

hospital for a long time.   Hope stayed with 

Sophia every day and helped to take care of her 

and make her feel better.  

Hope loved Sophia so much.   She was nice, 

awesome, and hilarious!   They would tell 

jokes to each other, eat together, play 

together and did everything together.   They 

were best friends!

“Hope, I am finally going home!” Sophia 

smiled with glee.   She had been in the 

hospital for what seemed like months and 

now she was finally going home

Hope loved the feel of Sophia’s hands 

as she grasped her tightly and gave her 

a big hug.   Hope and Sophia got into 

the red plastic wagon.    

Sophia was going to see the fish as she 

did most of her healthy days.   This was 

something Hope looked forward to 

during her day too.

Sophia liked looking at the fish as if 

one day she could be just like them-  

swimming around with friends, not 

having to come up to breathe and 

gliding through the water.    Sophia 

pressed her hand on the tank, trying to 

touch the fish one last time. 

Sophia, now tired and ready to go back 

to the room, grabbed Hope’s arm as she 

jumped back into the red wagon. 

Sophia’s parents had been packing all day and it 

seemed as if in a blink of an eye it was time to go.  

Sophia turned to Hope and said, “We are going to 

have so much fun at my house! It is so much bigger 

than this hospital room.” 

Hope said, “I can’t wait to see your house.   I bet we 

are going to have so much fun too.” 

On the way home they played a game of I Spy.   It 

was hard because the car kept moving, so they 

might have passed the object they were trying to 

find!  

When they arrived home, Sophia and 

Hope settled into Sophia’s room.   They 

played all the games they could think 

of.  

They even drew pictures of Sophia’s 

favorite Para fish from the tank at the 

hospital.   It was orange and its body 

glistened like the sun.  

They were tired so they went to bed 

and slept all night. 

From that moment on Sophia and Hope 

were going to be best friends forever. 

Now it is your turn.   You are going to 

be Hope’s best friend and she will love 

you forever!      

The Rabbit and Flower

Hiccup Mouse

Once there was a little mouse named Lucy. She lived in the meadow with her mother and father, and her little brother Harvey. She and Harvey got along very well. They played in the fields, went swimming in the summer, climbed trees, and even had tea parties together. Lucy thought that Harvey was just about the most perfect brother she could have, except for one thing…her had a way of sneaking up on her when she just wasn't expecting it. Why only this morning he had startled her so badly that she had spilled her juice all over the table. Mother had been upset and so had she. In fact, she had been so upset it had given her hiccups and now she couldn't get rid of them! She had tried drinking water, and holding her breath but the Hiccups just wouldn't go away. No matter how hard she tried to get rid of them every few seconds a giant HIC-CUP would burst out of her little self. Maybe my friends will know what to do, she thought. First she went to Skunk's house. "Hello -HIC- Skunk" she said. "Hello. How are you today?" Skunk replied. "I'm -HIC- fine" said Lucy "but -HIC- I have -HIC- the hiccups -HIC- and I can't get -HIC- rid of them!" " I noticed" said Skunk "Perhaps if you stand on your head the Hiccups will fall out" she suggested. "That's what I always do and it works great for me. Toodle Loo!" and she dashed off without another word. So Lucy stood on her head and waited for a very long time. It was very difficult because with every Hiccup she would lose her balance and have to start all over again. While she was doing this Frog hopped up. "What are you doing Lucy?" he asked. Lucy started to tell him but suddenly a really huge Hiccup came out, and Frog said "Oh my, it seems standing on your head has given you the Hiccups. You should try hopping on one foot while patting your tummy" he offered helpfully. "Thank -HIC- you" she said, but when she looked up Frog had already hopped off towards the pond. Hopping on one foot and patting her tummy sounded silly to Lucy but the Hiccups were getting worse and she was willing to try anything if it would make them go away. But no matter how hard she hopped and patted, the Hiccups wouldn't go away. "Oh no!" she said as she began to walk home. "Perhaps I will have Hiccups for the rest of my life. I will be known as the Hiccup Mouse. Maybe I will never be able to go into the library again, the Librarian will surely tell me I am too noisy to be there! And I can forget about ever playing Hide-n-Seek, because everyone will find me!" By now, she was so busy feeling miserable that she hardly noticed where she was going. Just then Harvey jumped out of the berry bushes beside the path holding a large, juicy berry. "Lucy look what I found!" he exclaimed. But Lucy was tired of being surprised by her little brother and she'd had enough. "Harvey, how many times have I told you not to…" she started to say. Then she stopped and a huge smile spread across her face. She realized that her Hiccups were gone! Harvey had surprised her so much that the Hiccups had disappeared. "Oh, Harvey" she said and then she threw her arms around him and gave him a gigantic hug. "Thank you! You cured me of those horrible Hiccups!" she cried. Then she and Harvey went off to share that delicious berry.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

Chapter V

I HAD shut the door to. Then I turned around. and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken -- that is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth bothring about.

  

He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl -- a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes -- just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor -- an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.

I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By and by he says:

"Starchy clothes -- very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, DON'T you?"

"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.

"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say -- can read and write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't? I'LL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey? -- who told you you could?"

 "The widow. She told me."

"The widow, hey? -- and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business?"

"Nobody never told her."

"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here -- you drop that school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what HE is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn't before THEY died. I can't; and here you're a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it -- you hear? Say, lemme hear you read."

I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:

"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son.

He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says:

"What's this?"

"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."

He tore it up, and says:

"I'll give you something better -- I'll give you a cowhide.

He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:

"AIN'T you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor -- and your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you. Why, there ain't no end to your airs -- they say you're rich. Hey? -- how's that?"

"They lie -- that's how. 

"Looky here -- mind how you talk to me; I'm astanding about all I can stand now -- so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money to-morrow -- I want it."

"I hain't got no money."

"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."

"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell you the same." 

"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it."

"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to --"

"It don't make no difference what you want it for -- you just shell it out."

He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that.

Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the law force him.

The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it; said he'd druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business.

That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said HE was satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for HIM.

 When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said he could hug him for them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says:

"Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it. There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more; it's the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die before he'll go back. You mark them words -- don't forget I said them. It's a clean hand now; shake it -- don't be afeard." 

So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge -- made his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it.

The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

Chapter IV

WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics, anyway.

At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she warn't ashamed of me.

  One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.

I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.

I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said:

"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?"

"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"

"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night -- over a hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."

"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all -- nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it to you -- the six thousand and all."  

He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:

"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"

I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take it -- won't you?"

He says:

"Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?"

"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me nothing -- then I won't have to tell no lies."

He studied a while, and then he says:

"Oho-o! I think I see. You want to SELL all your property to me -- not give it. That's the correct idea."

Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:

"There; you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign it."

So I signed it, and left.

Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.

Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hairball was all right. He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hairball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:

"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels hoverin' roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung."

When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap -- his own self!