1.1 How Daddy threw his ball under a car
From "When Daddy was a little boy" by A. Raskin
The first tale from a dad to his daughter, written in 1961. Read the introduction below.
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HOW DADDY THREW HIS BALL UNDER A CAR
When Daddy was very little and lived in the little town of Pavlovo-Posad, his parents gave him a beautiful big ball. The ball was just like the sun. No, it was even better than the sun! You could not look at it without squinting. And it was four times as beautiful as the sun, because it was four different colours. The sun is only one colour, and you can't even tell what that is. One side of the ball was as pink as peppermint, the other was as brown as chocolate. The top was as blue as the sky, and the bottom was as green as the grass.
No one in the little town of Pavlovo-Posad had ever seen such a ball before. It had been bought in Moscow. I don't even think there were many balls like it in Moscow. Why, even grown-ups came to see it!
"What a beautiful ball!" they all said.
It really was a lovely ball. And Daddy was very proud of it. The way he strutted about, you'd he had invented the ball himself and had painted it those four colours.
When Daddy went outside to play with his beautiful ball, boys would come running from all directions.
"Oh, what a ball!" they would say. "Let me play with it!"
But Daddy would clutch his ball and say: "No, I won't! It's my ball! Nobody has a ball like this! It was bought in Moscow! Go away! Don't you touch my ball!"
And then the boys said: "You're greedy, that's what you are!"
But Daddy didn't care what they said, he wouldn't let them play with his beautiful ball. He played with it all by himself. But it's not much fun to play ball all by yourself. That's why greedy little Daddy played near the other boys. He wanted to make them jealous.
Then the boys said: "He's greedy. We won't play with him."
And for two whole days they didn't play with him.
On the third day they said: "Your ball isn't bad. It's big and the colours are nice, but if you throw it under a car, it'll burst just like any other ball. So there's nothing for you to be so stuck-up about."
"My ball will never burst!" Daddy said proudly. By then he was so stuck-up you'd think he was painted four colours.
"Yes it will!" the boys teased.
"No it won't!"
"There's a car coming," they said.
"Well? Go on, throw it! Are you scared?"
And little Daddy threw his ball under the car. For a moment they all stood there, waiting. The ball rolled between the front wheels and landed under the right rear wheel. The car jerked, ran over the ball and sped onwards. But there the ball was.
"It didn't burst! It didn't burst!" Daddy shouted as he ran to get it. Just then there was a loud bang! It sounded as if some- one had fired a cannon. It was the ball. It did burst after all.
By the time Daddy came running up to where it had been, all he could see was a dusty rubber rag. There was nothing pretty or lovely about it at all. Then Daddy began to cry.
He ran home, and the boys all laughed and laughed.
"It burst! It burst!" they shouted. "Serves you right, greedy!"
When Daddy came home and said that he had thrown his beautiful new ball under a car all by himself, Grandma, who was little Daddy's mother, scolded1 him. When Grandpa came home from work that evening, little Daddy got another scolding.
Grandpa said: "I'm not scolding you for the ball, but for your recklessness."
And for a long time after, people still wondered how anyone could throw such a beautiful ball like that under a car.
"Only a very silly boy could have done such a thing," they said.
And for a long time after the children teased Daddy: "Hey, where's your new ball?"
But the man who lived next door did not laugh. He asked Daddy to tell him the whole story, from the very beginning.
Then he said: "No, you are not a silly boy."
Daddy was very pleased.
"But you're greedy and you like to boast," he continued. "And that's too bad. Anyone who wants to play ball all by himself will always be the loser. That goes for grown-ups, too. You'll always be sorry if you don't change now."
Then Daddy became very frightened and began to cry. He sobbed that he didn't want to be greedy, that he didn't want to boast. He cried so long and so hard that the neighbour believed him and bought him a new ball. It wasn't as beautiful as the first one, but all the boys in the street played with it. Everyone had a good time, and no one said Daddy was greedy.
THE END
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Certain references and terms in the original text have been replaced keeping in mind that they are not in use today.