"ELEMENTARY STORIES FOR REPRODUCTION"
BY L.A. HILL
HELEN'S EYES
Helen's eyes were not very good, so she usually wore glasses. But when she
was seventeen and she began to go out with a young man, she never wore her
glasses when she was with him. When he came to her door to take her out,
she took her glasses off, but when she came home again and he left, she
put them on.
One day her mother said to her, "But, Helen, why do you never wear your
glasses when you're with Jim? He takes you to beautiful places in his car
but you don't see anything."
"Well, mother," said Helen, "I look prettier to Jim when I'm not wearing
my glasses, and he looks better to me too."
A COTTON DRESS
One day Missis Jones went shopping. When her husband came home in the
evening, she began to tell him about a beautiful cotton dress. "I saw it
in the shop this morning," she said, "and..."
"And you want to buy it," said her husband. "How much does it cost?"
"Fifteen pounds."
"Fifteen pounds for a cotton dress?! That is too much!"
But every evening when Mr. Jones came back from work, his wife continued
to speak only about the dress, and at last, after a week, he said, "Oh,
buy the dress! Here's the money."
She was very happy. But the next evening when Mr. Jones came home and
asked, "Have you got the famous dress?" - she said, "No."
"Why not?!" he said.
"Well, it was still in the window of the shop after a week, so I thought
nobody else wanted this dress, so I don't want it either."
MR. JONES AND MR. BROWN
Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown worked in the same office. One day Mr. Jones said
to Mr. Brown, "We are going to have a small party at our house next
Wednesday evening. Will you and your wife come?"
Mr. Brown said, "Thank you very much, that's very kind of you. We are free
that evening, I think. But I'll telephone my wife and ask her. Perhaps she
wants to go somewhere that evening."
So Mr. Brown went to the other room and telephoned. When he came back he
looked very surprised. "What's the matter?" said Mr. Jones. "Did you speak
to your wife?"
"No," answered Mr. Brown. "She wasn't there. My small son answered the
telephone. I said to him, 'Is your mother there, David?' and he answered,
'No, she is not in the house.' 'Where is she then?' I asked. 'She's
somewhere outside.' 'What's she doing?' 'She's looking for me!'"
"INTERMEDIATE STORIES FOR REPRODUCTION"
BY L.A. HILL
JOHN'S HAIR
John liked to wear his hair very long. Some of his friends thought that it
looked like a girl's hair. But they never made jokes about it, because
John was a big strong young man, and he didn't think jokes about his hair
funny.
John always went to the barber's twice a month to have his hair cut and
washed. One day the barber said to him, "Oh, why don't you let me cut most
of this hair off to make your head tidy? Nobody would recognize you if I
did that, I'm sure!" John said nothing for a few seconds and then he said:
"Perhaps you're right. But I'm sure that nobody would recognize you either,
if you did that to my hair."
ON SATURDAY MORNINGS
On Saturday mornings our cinema shows films for children. One such morning
an old man took his grandchildren to the cinema. At the door there was the
list of the prices of tickets, but he couldn't see any price for tickets
for adults for Saturday mornings. The only price which was shown for that
time was for children's tickets. So he asked the lady who was selling the
tickets how much it was for adults.
"Adults?" she said. "No, we don't have prices for tickets for adults for
our Saturday morning films. Any adult who is brave enough to go in there
to see films like that, with hundreds of all those children, can go in
free!"