Anytime Tales Read Online Free PDF Page A

quite right! Look, you should play it
this
way!”
    And then she would make the children play quite a different way, a way they didn’t want to play at all!
    “Don’t interfere!” they would say at last. “Go away, Ina!”
    “Well, I only wanted to put you right,” Ina would say, and then off she would go in a huff.
    If she saw a little girl sewing she would go at once to see what she was doing. Then she would say, “Oh, you are making an overall for your doll, I see. Well, you are doing it wrong. You should sew it like
this!”
    And she would take the sewing from the little girl’s hand and make her sew it quite differently. It
was
so tiresome of Ina!
    The other children got very tired of her. “Here comes Interfering Ina!” they would say as soon as they saw her coming. “Hallo, Ina. Are you going to poke your nose into our games again? Well, go away.”
    But do you suppose that cured Ina of her tiresome ways? Not a bit! She simply loved to interfere with everything, and she was so curious about everybody and what they were doing that she was for ever poking her nose here, there and everywhere!
    Now one day she was walking home alone from school. The other children wouldn’t walk with her because she had interfered in a fine new game they had made up that morning and had spoilt it for them. So there was Ina, walking home by herself, feeling very cross indeed.
    She came to a field and heard somebody laughing. It was such a funny high little laugh that Ina stopped to see who it could be. She climbed on the gate and peeped into the field. And there she saw a most surprising sight.
    She saw four little brownie-men playing leapfrog! They were having a fine game, and were shouting and laughing in little bird-like voices. Ina watched them for a while and then she called to them.
    “You know, that’s not the right way to play leapfrog! You want to bend down with your back to the others, not with your front. Look, I’ll show you!”
    She climbed over the gate and jumped down into the field. She ran to the surprised brownies. She took hold of one of them and bent him down. He stood up again angrily.
    “How dare you push me about!” he cried, in a voice like a thrush’s, clear and high. “Go away, you interfering little girl!”
    “But I’m only trying to show you how to play leapfrog properly!” said Ina crossly. “Bend down!”
    She tried to bend the brownie over again, but he pushed her away and slapped her fingers.
    “We play leapfrog the brownie way, not
your
way!” he said, “Brothers, who is this bad-mannered child?”
    One of the brownies looked closely at Ina. Then he laughed. “I’ve heard of her!” he said. “It’s Interfering Ina! She pokes her silly little nose into everything and makes herself such a nuisance!”
    “Oh, she does, does she?” said the first brownie, glaring at Ina. “Well, every time she interferes in future and pokes her nose into other people’s business her nose will get longer! Ha ha! That will be funny!”
    He jumped high into the air, turned head over heels, and sprang right over the hedge. The others followed, and Ina was left alone in the field, a little frightened and very cross.
    She went home. “Silly little fellows!” she said, feeling her pretty little nose. “As if anything they said would come true!”
    She had her dinner, and then she went out to play in the garden. She heard the little boy next door talking to his rabbit as he cleaned out its hutch.
    Ina stood on a box and looked over the wall. “Jimmy,” she said, “you shouldn’t clean out a hutch that way. You should have the clean hay ready before you take out the old hay. You should …’

    Jimmy stared up at her—and then he stared again. Something funny had happened to Ina’s nice little nose. It had grown quite an inch longer,
    “What have you done to your nose, Ina?” asked Jimmy in surprise. “It does look funny!”
    Ina felt her nose in alarm. Gracious! It did feel long! She