Little Me Too walked to the right, then to the left, along the sidewalk in front of the house.

As he walked he sang with all his might about the ocean, and the summer time, and any other pleasant thing that came into his head.

He made it up as he went along, and grew quite out of breath at last, and had to stop.

Just as he had got his breath and was meaning to begin all over again, he saw something very small and yellow on the edge of the walk.

Then he began to sing the song of whatever it might be that was so small and yellow.

This is what he sang:—

When he said “Yes!” he stooped down and dug a hole in the ground in the dooryard with his fingers.

Then he put the kernel of corn in the hole and covered it over with dirt.

Afterwards he stood up and sang at the top of his voice, “Now I guess it will grow!”

Of course it grew!

After a few days it poked itself up through the earth to make Little Me Too remember. For Little Me Too had forgotten all about it.

When he saw it poking its head up through the grass, he didn’t remember even then that it was the kernel of corn.

It had changed.

When he put it into the ground and covered it with dirt, it was yellow and hard.

Now it was green and soft. It looked somewhat like the rest of the grass,—but not just like it, or Little Me Too wouldn’t have noticed it.

When he saw it he said, “There’s a grass that wants to be different. Perhaps it’s the grandfather grass.”

He let it alone, and he got the man with the lawn mower to let it alone. That gave it a good chance to grow.

It grew just as fast as it could, and as soon as it was big enough it showed Little Me Too that it was no grandfather grass, but a cornstalk.

The man with the lawn mower said so.

Then it was that Little Me Too remembered. When he remembered, he said, “Yes, it grew.”

When it had grown to be taller than Little Me Too, people walking along the sidewalk would look at it, and say, “What a fine garden!”

The mother said, “I am glad it is something that can’t find its way into the nursery.”

Little Me Too it was who first saw the ear of corn growing on the stalk.

He showed it to some people, and there were others who saw it without having it shown to them.

Each of them asked for a bite from it when it should be ripe.

Little Me Too said “yes,” to them all.

When he had said “yes” to thirty-one people, his mother said, “Don’t say ‘yes’ to any more people; you won’t have corn enough for them all.”

Little Me Too promised not to say “yes” again, but sometimes he forgot, and by the time the corn was ripe he had said “yes” to fifty people.

But he had plenty of corn, for it was an ear of pop corn.

After it was popped over the nursery fire it filled a big, big bowl.

—Julia Dalrymple.