Bobby and the Big Road  by Maud Lindsay

The Picture‑Book

B OBBY told his mother all about the ox-wagon man's little boy Johnny, who could make whistles for himself, and about his string ball and his flag.

"How would you like to send Johnny something by the ox-wagon man?" asked Mother. "We might make him a picture-book."

Mother could think of the nicest things!

Bobby wanted to begin the picture-book that very day. "What shall we do first?" he asked, dancing up and down with delight.

Mother thought that they had better find pictures for the book first, so she and Bobby got out some old magazines that had been stored away to use for something like this. Bobby remembered hearing Mother say when she put them in the closet: "If we should ever need pictures, we'll know where to find them."

He and Mother looked over every magazine and chose the pictures that they thought Johnny would like best. Then they cut the pictures out. That was hard work because they had to be so careful.

Then they cut the pictures out.

Once Bobby's scissors slipped and cut an ear from a picture rabbit, and once Mother almost snipped a wheel from a picture automobile. After that they took so much pains that not another picture was spoiled.

When the pictures were all cut out, Mother and Bobby pasted them on sheets of gray cardboard. Mother pasted one page, and Bobby another, till all the pictures were pasted. Then Mother fastened the pages together with a blue cord; and the book was ready to send to Johnny.

It was a beautiful book. One page had an elephant in the middle of it and a clown in each corner. That was Bobby's favorite page.

One page was like a flower-garden with red picture roses and blue picture violets all over it. Mother liked that one best. And one page had—what do you think? A picture of Bobby! His father drew it and it was just as much like Bobby, smile and all, as it could be.

Father printed under the picture:

Bobby showed this page to the ox-wagon man when he took the book out to him.

"It is really and truly a picture of me," he said.

"Bless your heart!" said the ox-wagon man, "I'd have known it anywhere."