"I want my cookie," cried Johnnie Jones.

"Where is your cookie?" asked Mother.

"I ate it," said Johnnie Jones.

"If you have eaten it, then it is all gone," Mother told him.

"But I want it! I want my cookie!" wailed Johnnie Jones.

"To-morrow I'll buy you another just like it," Mother promised.

"I don't want another just like it, I want my own cookie with a hole in
the middle," and the tears came faster and faster.

"But, little boy," Mother said, "nobody in all the world, nor Father nor
Mother nor Johnnie Jones, can eat a cookie and yet have it."

Johnnie Jones continued to cry, so Mother brought him some brown paper,
a pair of scissors, and a pencil.

"See here, dear," she said, "I can't give you the cookie you ate, but
you may make a picture that will look very much like it."

Then Johnnie Jones ceased crying, and Mother showed him how to fold and
cut the paper until it was like the cookie, with a hole in the centre.
They pasted it on cardboard and placed it upon the mantel.

"Thank you, Mother," said Johnnie Jones, "but I don't like it so well as
my real cookie because I can't eat it."