Johnnie Jones and the Cookie

One day, when Johnnie Jones was a wee little boy, only three years old, Mother came home from down town.  Johnnie Jones ran to meet her.  “Mother dear, didn’t you bring me something?” he asked.

“Yes, indeed,” answered Mother, and she gave him something tied up in a paper bag.  “Be careful,” she told him, “or it will break.”

So Johnnie Jones was careful as he untied the string and opened the bag.  When he saw what was inside he was glad he had not broken it, for it was a round yellow cookie with a hole in the centre.

“Thank you, Mother,” said Johnnie Jones, and he rolled on his back and kicked up his heels, which meant that he was happy.  Then he sat up and began to eat his cookie.  It was very good, and tasted as if it had molasses in it, Johnnie Jones said.  But by and by, after he had been taking a great many bites, there wasn’t any of the cookie left in his hand, because he had eaten it, every bit.  Johnnie Jones looked at his hand where the cookie had been, and then he began to cry.

“Oh, dear me,” exclaimed Mother, “what is troubling my little boy?”

“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.”

“If you could eat it,” Mother answered, “it would soon be gone, so the picture is better unless you are hungry.”

And Johnnie Jones thought so too.

After that day he never again cried for a cookie when he had eaten it, nor for a toy when he had destroyed it, because he had discovered that crying could never bring back what was gone.

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When Johnnie Jones Was Lost