Now, don’t worry, if you please. I know I did promise to tell about
Bawly and the soldier hat, and I’m going to do it. But Susie’s and
Jennie’s play party has something to do with the hat, so I had to start
off with them.

While they were playing in the woods, having a fine time, Bawly No-Tail,
the frog boy, was at home in his house, making a big soldier hat out of
paper. I suppose you children have often made them, and also have played
at having a parade with wooden swords and guns. If you haven’t done so,
please get your papa to make you a soldier hat.

Well, finally Bawly’s hat was finished, and he put a feather in it, just
as Yankee Doodle did, only Bawly didn’t look like macaroni.

“Now, I’ll go out and see if I can find the boys and we’ll pretend
there’s a war, and a battle, and shooting and all that,” went on the
frog chap, who loved to do exciting things. So Bawly hopped out, and
Grandpa Croaker, who was asleep in the rocking chair didn’t hear him go.
Anyhow, I don’t believe the old gentleman frog would have cared, for
Bawly’s papa was at work in the wallpaper factory and his mamma had gone
to the five and ten cent store to buy a new dishpan that didn’t have a
hole in it. As for the other frog boy, Bawly’s brother Bully, he had
gone after an ice cream cone, I think, or maybe a chocolate candy.

On Bawly hopped, but he didn’t meet any of his friends. He had on his
big, paper soldier hat, with the feather sticking out of the top, and
Bawly also had a wooden gun, painted black, to make it look real, and he
had a sword made out of a stick, all silvered over with paint to make it
look like steel.