Little Johnny Stories — As told to June by her dad (that’s me!)

“Little Johnny and his Magic Daddy”

Once upon a time when Little Johnny was about 5, he had a painful thing happen, but his Daddy helped him get through it.

Johnny was trying to build a little house in the back yard of their new house in Valdosta, so he was finding things around the yard to stack up. He found an old concrete block in some bushes at the back of the yard, so he decided to add that to his stack. It was heavy, but he managed to get his arm through it and pick it up. He was struggling along headed for his little house, but he got tired and it slipped out of his arms and landed, smash!, right on his toe!

Aiiee! He cried out and headed for the back door. By the time he got inside, he was crying, and his Mommy came out of the kitchen asking him what happened.

He told her about the block, and showed her his toe, which was bleeding a little and looking pretty banged up.

“Oh! Poor little boy! I’m so sorry!” Mommy said. “Let’s get that fixed up!”

So Mommy put some medicine on his toe and a nice big bandaid, and gave him some water. He was still crying a little and his toe was really hurting when his Daddy came home from work a few minutes later.

“Oh no!” Daddy said when he heard the story. “I bet I can make that toe stop hurting!”

So Daddy showed Johnny his “magic jewel” — a pretty red piece of glass that he got down from a shelf. He gave the glass to Johnny to hold, and told Johnny to squeeze it and then give it back to him. Then he told Johnny he was going to make the jewel disappear.

Daddy put the jewel is his hands and moved them around really fast, put them behind his back and then held his hands out in front of Johnny — and there was no jewel! Johnny was amazed. Then Daddy asked him where he thought the jewel was. When Johnny said he didn’t know, Daddy said, “I bet it’s in your ear!”

We’ll, Johnny didn’t believe that, and he laughed, “No!”

But then Daddy held his hand out and reached up to first one ear and then the other, and then he flashed his hand open in front of Johnny and there it was! The jewel was sitting in Daddy’s hand!

“Hey! How’d you do that!” he asked.

“Magic!” Daddy said!

By then, of course, Johnny had forgotten all about his injured toe, and though it still hurt, he felt so much better about the whole situation that he stopped crying, and he and Daddy had a fun time together talking about magic tricks and all kinda of interesting things!