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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Helen's Babies, by John Habberton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Helen's Babies
+
+Author: John Habberton
+
+Posting Date: July 9, 2009 [EBook #4281]
+Release Date: July, 2003
+First Posted: December 30, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELEN'S BABIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HELEN'S BABIES
+
+With some account of their ways, innocent, crafty, angelic, impish,
+witching and impulsive; also a partial record of their actions during
+ten days of their existence
+
+By JOHN HABBERTON
+
+
+
+The first cause, so far as it can be determined, of the existence of
+this book may be found in the following letter, written by my only
+married sister, and received by me, Harry Burton, salesman of white
+goods, bachelor, aged twenty-eight, and received just as I was trying
+to decide where I should Spend a fortnight's vacation:--
+
+
+
+"HILLCREST, June 15, 1875.
+
+"DEAR HARRY:--Remembering that you are always complaining that you
+never have a chance to read, and knowing that you won't get it this
+summer, if you spend your vacation among people of your own set, I
+write to ask you to come up here. I admit that I am not wholly
+disinterested in inviting you. The truth is, Tom and I are invited to
+spend a fortnight with my old schoolmate, Alice Wayne, who, you know,
+is the dearest girl in the world, though you DIDN'T obey me and marry
+her before Frank Wayne appeared. Well, we're dying to go, for Alice and
+Frank live in splendid style; but as they haven't included our children
+in their invitation, and have no children of their own, we must leave
+Budge and Toddie at home. I've no doubt they'll be perfectly safe, for
+my girl is a jewel, and devoted to the children, but I would feel a
+great deal easier if there was a man in the house. Besides, there's the
+silver, and burglars are less likely to break into a house where
+there's a savage-looking man. (Never mind about thanking me for the
+compliment.) If YOU'LL only come up, my mind will be completely at
+rest. The children won't give you the slightest trouble; they're the
+best children in the world--everybody says so.
+
+"Tom has plenty of cigars, I know, for the money I should have had for
+a new suit went to pay his cigar-man. He has some new claret, too, that
+HE goes into ecstasies over, though _I_ can't tell it from the vilest
+black ink, except by the color. Our horses are in splendid condition,
+and so is the garden--you see I don't forget your old passion for
+flowers. And, last and best, there never were so many handsome girls at
+Hillcrest as there are among the summer boarders already here; the
+girls you already are acquainted with here will see that you meet all
+the newer acquisitions.
+
+"Reply by telegraph right away.
+
+"Of course you'll say 'Yes.'
+
+"In great haste, your loving
+
+"SISTER HELEN.
+
+P. S. You shall have our own chamber; it catches every breeze, and
+commands the finest views. The children's room communicates with it;
+so, if anything SHOULD happen to the darlings at night, you'd be sure
+to hear them."
+
+
+"Just the thing!" I ejaculated. Five minutes later I had telegraphed
+Helen my acceptance of her invitation, and had mentally selected books
+enough to busy me during a dozen vacations. Without sharing Helen's
+belief that her boys were the best ones in the world, I knew them well
+enough to feel assured that they would not give me any annoyance. There
+were two of them, since Baby Phil died last fall; Budge, the elder, was
+five years of age, and had generally, during my flying visits to Helen,
+worn a shy, serious, meditative, noble face, with great, pure,
+penetrating eyes, that made me almost fear their stare. Tom declared he
+was a born philanthropist or prophet, and Helen made so free with Miss
+Muloch's lines as to sing:--
+
+    "Ah, the day that THOU goest a-wooing,
+    Budgie, my boy!"
+
+Toddie had seen but three summers, and was a happy little know-nothing,
+with a head full of tangled yellow hair, and a very pretty fancy for
+finding out sunbeams and dancing in them. I had long envied Tom his
+horses, his garden, his house and his location, and the idea of
+controlling them for a fortnight was particularly delightful. Tom's
+taste in cigars and claret I had always respected, while the lady
+inhabitants of Hillcrest were, according to my memory, much like those
+of every other suburban village, the fairest of their sex.
+
+Three days later I made the hour and a half trip between New York and
+Hillcrest, and hired a hackman to drive me over to Tom's. Half a mile
+from my brother-in-law's residence, our horses shied violently, and the
+driver, after talking freely to them, turned to me and remarked:--
+
+"That was one of the 'Imps.'"
+
+"What was?" I asked.
+
+"That little cuss that scared the hosses. There he is, now, holdin' up
+that piece of brushwood. 'Twould be just like his cheek, now, to ask me
+to let him ride. Here he comes, runnin'. Wonder where t'other is?--they
+most generally travel together. We call 'em the Imps, about these
+parts, because they're so uncommon likely at mischief. Always skeerin'
+hosses, or chasin' cows, or frightenin' chickens. Nice enough father
+an' mother, too--queer, how young ones do turn out."
+
+As he spoke, the offending youth came panting beside our carriage, and
+in a very dirty sailor-suit, and under a broad-brimmed straw hat, with
+one stocking about his ankle, and two shoes, averaging about two
+buttons each, I recognized my nephew, Budge! About the same time there
+emerged from the bushes by the roadside a smaller boy in a green
+gingham dress, a ruffle which might once have been white, dirty
+stockings, blue slippers worn through at the toes, and an old-fashioned
+straw-turban. Thrusting into the dust of the road a branch from a bush,
+and shouting, "Here's my grass-cutter!" he ran toward us enveloped in a
+"pillar of cloud," which might have served the purpose of Israel in
+Egypt. When he paused and the dust had somewhat subsided, I beheld the
+unmistakable lineaments of the child Toddie!
+
+"They're--my nephews," I gasped.
+
+"What!" exclaimed the driver. "By gracious! I forgot you were going to
+Colonel Lawrence's! I didn't tell anything but the truth about 'em,
+though; they're smart enough, an' good enough, as boys go; but they'll
+never die of the complaint that children has in Sunday-school books."
+
+"Budge," said I, with all the sternness I could command, "do you know
+me?"
+
+The searching eyes of the embryo prophet and philanthropist scanned me
+for a moment, then their owner replied:--
+
+"Yes; you're Uncle Harry. Did you bring us anything?"
+
+"Bring us anything?" echoed Toddie.
+
+"I wish I could have brought you some big whippings," said I, with
+great severity of manner, "for behaving so badly. Get into this
+carriage."
+
+"Come on, Tod," shouted Budge, although Toddie's farther ear was not a
+yard from Budge's mouth. "Uncle Harry's going to take us riding!"
+
+"Going to take us riding!" echoed Toddie, with the air of one in a
+reverie; both the echo and the reverie I soon learned were
+characteristics of Toddie.
+
+As they clambered into the carriage I noticed that each one carried a
+very dirty towel, knotted in the center into what is known as a
+slip-noose knot, drawn very tight. After some moments of disgusted
+contemplation of these rags, without being in the least able to
+comprehend their purpose, I asked Budge what those towels were for.
+
+"They're not towels--they're dollies," promptly answered my nephew.
+
+"Goodness!" I exclaimed. "I should think your mother could buy you
+respectable dolls, and not let you appear in public with those
+loathsome rags."
+
+"We don't like buyed dollies," explained Budge. "These dollies is
+lovely; mine's name is Mary, an' Toddie's is Marfa."
+
+"Marfa?" I queried.
+
+"Yes; don't you know about
+
+    "Marfa and Mary's jus' gone along
+    To ring dem charmin' bells,
+
+that them Jubilee sings about?"
+
+"Oh, Martha, you mean?"
+
+"Yes, Marfa--that's what I say. Toddie's dolly's got brown eyes, an' my
+dolly's got blue eyes."
+
+"I want to shee yours watch," remarked Toddie, snatching at my chain,
+and rolling into my lap.
+
+"Oh--oo--ee, so do I," shouted Budge, hastening to occupy one knee, and
+IN TRANSITU wiping his shoes on my trousers and the skirts of my coat.
+Each imp put an arm about me to steady himself, as I produced my
+three-hundred-dollar time-keeper and showed them the dial.
+
+"I want to see the wheels go round," said Budge.
+
+"Want to shee wheels go wound," echoed Toddie.
+
+"No; I can't open my watch where there's so much dust," I said.
+
+"What for?" inquired Budge.
+
+"Want to shee the wheels go wound," repeated Toddie.
+
+"The dust gets inside the watch and spoils it," I explained.
+
+"Want to shee the wheels go wound," said Toddie, once more.
+
+"I tell you I can't, Toddie," said I, with considerable asperity. "Dust
+spoils watches."
+
+The innocent gray eyes looked up wonderingly, the dirty, but pretty
+lips parted slightly, and Toddie murmured:--
+
+"Want to shee the wheels go wound."
+
+I abruptly closed my watch and put it into my pocket. Instantly
+Toddie's lower lip commenced to turn outward, and continued to do so
+until I seriously feared the bony portion of his chin would be exposed
+to view. Then his lower jaw dropped, and he cried:--
+
+"Ah--h--h--h--h--h--want--to--shee--the wheels--go wou--OUND."
+
+"Charles" (Charles is his baptismal name),--"Charles," I exclaimed with
+some anger, "stop that noise this instant! Do you hear me?"
+
+"Yes--oo--oo--oo--ahoo--ahoo."
+
+"Then stop it."
+
+"Wants to shee--"
+
+"Toddie, I've got some candy in my trunk, but I won't give you a bit if
+you don't stop that infernal noise."
+
+"Well, I wants to shee wheels go wound. Ah--ah--h--h--h--h!"
+
+"Toddie, dear, don't cry so. Here's some ladies coming in a carriage;
+you wouldn't let THEM see you crying, would you? You shall see the
+wheels go round as soon as we get home."
+
+A carriage containing a couple of ladies was rapidly approaching, as
+Toddie again raised his voice.
+
+"Ah--h--h--wants to shee wheels--"
+
+Madly I snatched my watch from my pocket, opened the case, and exposed
+the works to view. The other carriage was meeting ours, and I dropped
+my head to avoid meeting the glance of the unknown occupants, for my
+few moments of contact with my dreadful nephews had made me feel
+inexpressibly unneat. Suddenly the carriage with the ladies stopped. I
+heard my own name spoken, and raising my head quickly (encountering
+Budge's bullet head EN ROUTE to the serious disarrangement of my hat),
+I looked into the other carriage. There, erect, fresh, neat, composed,
+bright-eyed, fair-faced, smiling and observant,--she would have been
+all this, even if the angel of the resurrection had just sounded his
+dreadful trump,--sat Miss Alice Mayton, a lady who, for about a year, I
+had been adoring from afar.
+
+"When did YOU arrive, Mr. Burton?" she asked, "and how long have you
+been officiating as child's companion? You're certainly a happy-looking
+trio--so unconventional. I hate to see children all dressed up and
+stiff as little manikins, when they go out to ride. And you look as if
+you had been having SUCH a good time with them."
+
+"I--I assure you, Miss Mayton," said I, "that my experience has been
+the exact reverse of a pleasant one. If King Herod were yet alive I'd
+volunteer as an executioner, and engage to deliver two interesting
+corpses at a moment's notice."
+
+"You dreadful wretch!" exclaimed the lady. "Mother, let me make you
+acquainted with Mr. Burton,--Helen Lawrence's brother. How is your
+sister, Mr. Burton?"
+
+"I don't know," I replied; "she has gone with her husband on a
+fortnight's visit to Captain and Mrs. Wayne, and I've been silly enough
+to promise to have an eye to the place while they're away."
+
+"Why, how delightful!" exclaimed Miss Mayton. "SUCH horses! SUCH
+flowers! SUCH a cook!"
+
+"And such children," said I, glaring suggestively at the imps, and
+rescuing from Toddie a handkerchief which he had extracted from my
+pocket, and was waving to the breeze.
+
+"Why, they're the best children in the world. Helen told me so the
+first time I met her this season! Children will be children, you know.
+We had three little cousins with us last summer, and I'm sure they made
+me look years older than I really am."
+
+"How young you must be, then, Miss Mayton!" said I. I suppose I looked
+at her as if I meant what I said, for, although she inclined her head
+and said, "Oh, thank you," she didn't seem to turn my compliment off in
+her usual invulnerable style. Nothing happening in the course of
+conversation ever discomposed Alice Mayton for more than a hundred
+seconds, however, so she soon recovered her usual expression and
+self-command, as her next remark fully indicated.
+
+"I believe you arranged the floral decorations at the St. Zephaniah's
+Fair, last winter, Mr. Burton? 'Twas the most tasteful display of the
+season. I don't wish to give any hints, but at Mrs. Clarkson's, where
+we're boarding, there's not a flower in the whole garden. I break the
+Tenth Commandment dreadfully every time I pass Colonel Lawrence's
+garden. Good-by, Mr. Burton."
+
+"Ah, thank you; I shall be delighted. Good-by."
+
+"Of course you'll call," said Miss Mayton, as her carriage
+started,--"it's dreadfully stupid here--no men except on Sundays."
+
+I bowed assent. In the contemplation of all the shy possibilities which
+my short chat with Miss Mayton had suggested, I had quite forgotten my
+dusty clothing and the two living causes thereof. While in Miss
+Mayton's presence the imps had preserved perfect silence, but now their
+tongues were loosened.
+
+"Uncle Harry," said Budge, "do you know how to make whistles?"
+
+"Ucken Hawwy," murmured Toddie, "does you love dat lady?"
+
+"No, Toddie, of course not."
+
+"Then you's baddy man, an' de Lord won't let you go to heaven if you
+don't love peoples."
+
+"Yes, Budge," I answered hastily, "I do know how to make whistles, and
+you shall have one."
+
+"Lord don't like mans what don't love peoples," reiterated Toddie.
+
+"All right, Toddie," said I. "I'll see if I can't please the Lord some
+way. Driver, whip up, won't you? I'm in a hurry to turn these
+youngsters over to the girl, and ask her to drop them into the
+bath-tub."
+
+I found Helen had made every possible arrangement for my comfort. Her
+room commanded exquisite views of mountain-slope and valley, and even
+the fact that the imps' bedroom adjoined mine gave me comfort, for I
+thought of the pleasure of contemplating them while they were asleep,
+and beyond the power of tormenting their deluded uncle.
+
+At the supper-table Budge and Toddie appeared cleanly clothed in their
+rightful faces. Budge seated himself at the table; Toddie pushed back
+his high-chair, climbed into it, and shouted:
+
+"Put my legs under ze tabo."
+
+Rightfully construing this remark as a request to be moved to the
+table, I fulfilled his desire. The girl poured tea for me and milk for
+the children, and retired; and then I remembered, to my dismay, that
+Helen never had a servant in the dining-room except upon grand
+occasions, her idea being that servants retail to their friends the
+cream of the private conversation of the family circle. In principle I
+agreed with her, but the penalty of the practical application, with
+these two little cormorants on my hands, was greater suffering than any
+I had ever been called upon to endure for principle's sake; but there
+was no help for it. I resignedly rapped on the table, bowed my head,
+said, "From what we are about to receive, the Lord make us thankful,"
+and asked Budge whether he ate bread or biscuit.
+
+"Why, we ain't asked no blessin' yet," said he.
+
+"Yes, I did, Budge," said I. "Didn't you hear me?"
+
+"Do you mean what you said just now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, I don't think that was no blessin' at all. Papa never says that
+kind of a blessin'."
+
+"What does papa say, may I ask?" I inquired, with becoming meekness.
+
+"Why, papa says, 'Our Father, we thank thee for this food; mercifully
+remember with us all the hungry and needy to-day, for Christ's sake,
+Amen.' That's what he says."
+
+"It means the same thing, Budge."
+
+"_I_ don't think it does; and Toddie didn't have no time to say HIS
+blessin'. I don't think the Lord'll like it if you do it that way."
+
+"Yes, he will, old boy; he knows what people mean."
+
+"Well, how can he tell what Toddie means if Toddie can't say anything?"
+
+"Wantsh to shay my blessin'," whined Toddie.
+
+It was enough; my single encounter with Toddie had taught me to respect
+the young gentleman's force of character. So again I bowed my head, and
+repeated what Budge had reported as "papa's blessin'," Budge kindly
+prompting me where my memory failed. The moment I began, Toddie
+commenced to jabber rapidly and aloud, and the instant the "Amen" was
+pronounced he raised his head and remarked with evident satisfaction:--
+
+"I shed my blessin' TWO timesh."
+
+And Budge said gravely:--
+
+"NOW I guess we are all right."
+
+The supper was an exquisite one, but the appetites of those dreadful
+children effectually prevented my enjoying the repast. I hastily
+retired, called the girl, and instructed, her to see that the children
+had enough to eat, and were put to bed immediately after; then I lit a
+cigar and strolled into the garden. The roses were just in bloom, the
+air was full of the perfume of honeysuckles, the rhododendrons had not
+disappeared, while I saw promise of the early unfolding of many other
+pet flowers of mine. I confess that I took a careful survey of the
+garden to see how fine a bouquet I might make for Miss Mayton, and was
+so abundantly satisfied with the material before me that I longed to
+begin the work at once, but that it would seem too hasty for true
+gentility. So I paced the paths, my hands behind my back, and my face
+well hidden by fragrant clouds of smoke, and went into wondering and
+reveries. I wondered if there was any sense in the language of flowers,
+of which I had occasionally seen mention made by silly writers; I
+wished I had learned it if it had any meaning; I wondered if Miss
+Mayton understood it. At any rate, I fancied I could arrange flowers to
+the taste of any lady whose face I had ever seen; and for Alice Mayton
+I would make something so superb that her face could not help lighting
+up when she beheld it. I imagined just how her bluish-gray eyes would
+brighten, her cheeks would redden,--not with sentiment, not a bit of
+it; but with genuine pleasure,--how her strong lips would part slightly
+and disclose sweet lines not displayed when she held her features well
+in hand. I--I, a clear-headed, driving, successful salesman of white
+goods--actually wished I might be divested of all nineteenth-century
+abilities and characteristics, and be one of those fairies that only
+silly girls and crazy poets think of, and might, unseen, behold the
+meeting of my flowers with this highly cultivated specimen of the only
+sort of flowers our cities produce. What flower did she most resemble?
+A lily?--no; too--not exactly too bold, but too--too, well, I couldn't
+think of the word, but clearly it wasn't bold. A rose! Certainly, not
+like those glorious but blazing remontants, nor yet like the shy,
+delicate, ethereal tea-roses with their tender suggestions of color.
+Like this perfect Gloire de Dijon, perhaps; strong, vigorous,
+self-asserting, among its more delicate sisterhood; yet shapely,
+perfect in outline and development, exquisite, enchanting in its never
+fully-analyzed tints, yet compelling the admiration of every one, and
+recalling its admirers again and again by the unspoken appeal of its
+own perfection--its unvarying radiance.
+
+"Ah--h--h--h--ee--ee--ee--ee--ee--oo--oo--oo--oo" came from the window
+over my head. Then came a shout of--"Uncle Harry!" in a voice I
+recognized as that of Budge. I made no reply: there are moments when
+the soul is full of utterances unfit to be heard by childish ears.
+"Uncle Har-RAY!" repeated Budge. Then I heard a window-blind open, and
+Budge exclaiming:--
+
+"Uncle Harry, we want you to come and tell us stories."
+
+I turned my eyes upward quickly, and was about to send a savage
+negative in the same direction, when I saw in the window a face unknown
+and yet remembered. Could those great, wistful eyes, that angelic
+mouth, that spiritual expression, belong to my nephew Budge? Yes, it
+must be--certainly that super-celestial nose and those enormous ears
+never belonged to any one else. I turned abruptly, and entered the
+house, and was received at the head of the stairway by two little
+figures in white, the larger of which remarked:--
+
+"We want you tell us stories--papa always does nights."
+
+"Very well, jump into bed--what kind of stories do you like?"
+
+"Oh, 'bout Jonah," said Budge.
+
+"'Bout Jonah," echoed Toddie.
+
+"Well, Jonah was out in the sun one day and a gourd-vine grew up all of
+a sudden, and made it nice and shady for him, and then it all faded as
+quick as it came."
+
+A dead silence prevailed for a moment, and then Budge indignantly
+remarked:--
+
+ "That ain't Jonah a bit--_I_ know 'bout Jonah."
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" said I. "Then maybe you'll be so good as to
+enlighten me?"
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"If you know about Jonah, tell me the story; I'd really enjoy listening
+to it."
+
+"Well," said Budge, "once upon a time the Lord told Jonah to go to
+Nineveh and tell the people they was all bad. But Jonah didn't want to
+go, so he went on a boat that was going to Joppa. And then there was a
+big storm, an' it rained an' blowed and the big waves went as high as a
+house. An' the sailors thought there must be somebody on the boat that
+the Lord didn't like. An' Jonah said he guessed HE was the man. So they
+picked him up and froed him in the ocean, an' I don't think it was well
+for 'em to do that after Jonah told the troof. An' a big whale was
+comin' along, and he was awful hungry, cos the little fishes what he
+likes to eat all went down to the bottom of the ocean when it began to
+storm, and whales can't go to the bottom of the ocean, cos they have to
+come up to breeve, an' little fishes don't. An' Jonah found 'twas all
+dark inside the whale, and there wasn't any fire there, an' it was all
+wet, and he couldn't take off his clothes to dry, cos there wasn't no
+place to hang 'em, an' there wasn't no windows to look out of, nor
+nothin' to eat, nor nothin' nor nothin' nor nothin.' So he asked the
+Lord to let Mm out, an' the Lord was sorry for him, an' he made the
+whale go up close to the land, an' Jonah jumped right out of his mouth,
+an' WASN'T he glad? An' then he went to Nineveh, an' done what the Lord
+told him to, and he ought to have done it in the first place if he had
+known what was good for him."
+
+"Done first payshe, know what's dood for him," asserted Toddie, in
+support of his brother's assertion. "Tell us 'nudder story."
+
+"Oh, no, sing us a song," suggested Budge.
+
+"Shing us shong," echoed Toddie.
+
+I searched my mind for a song, but the only one which came promptly was
+"M'Appari," several bars of which I gave my juvenile audience, when
+Budge interrupted me, saying:--
+
+"I don't think that's a very good song."
+
+"Why not, Budge?"
+
+"Cos I don't. I don't know a word what you're talking 'bout."
+
+"Shing 'bout 'Glory, glory, hallelulyah,'" suggested Toddie, and I
+meekly obeyed. The old air has a wonderful influence over me. I heard
+it in western camp-meetings and negro-cabins when I was a boy; I saw
+the 22d Massachusetts march down Broadway, singing the same air during
+the rush to the front during the early days of the war; I have heard it
+sung by warrior tongues in nearly every Southern State; I heard it
+roared by three hundred good old Hunker Democrats as they escorted New
+York's first colored regiment to their place of embarkation; my old
+brigade sang it softly, but with a swing that was terrible in its
+earnestness, as they lay behind their stacks of arms just before going
+to action; I have heard it played over the grave of many a dead
+comrade; the semi-mutinous--the cavalry became peaceful and patriotic
+again as their band-master played the old air after having asked
+permission to try HIS hand on them; it is the same that burst forth
+spontaneously in our barracks, on that glorious morning when we learned
+that the war was over, and it was sung, with words adapted to the
+occasion, by some good rebel friends of mine, on our first social
+meeting after the war. All these recollections came hurrying into my
+mind as I sang, and probably excited me beyond my knowledge, for Budge
+suddenly remarked:--
+
+"Don't sing that all day, Uncle Harry; you sing so loud, it hurts my
+head."
+
+"Beg your pardon, Budge," said I. "Good-night."
+
+"Why, Uncle Harry, are you going? You didn't hear us say our
+prayers,--papa always does."
+
+"Oh! Well, go ahead."
+
+"You must say yours first," said Budge; "that's the way papa does."
+
+"Very well," said I, and I repeated St. Chrysostom's prayer, from the
+Episcopal service. I had hardly said "Amen," when Budge remarked:--
+
+"My papa don't say any of them things at all; I don't think that's a
+very good prayer."
+
+"Well, you say a good prayer, Budge."
+
+"Allright." Budge shut his eyes, dropped his voice to the most perfect
+tone of supplication, while his face seemed fit for a sleeping angel,
+then he said:--
+
+"Dear Lord, we thank you for lettin' us have a good time to-day, an' we
+hope all the little boys everywhere have had good times too. We pray
+you to take care of us an' everybody else to-night, an' don't let 'em
+have any trouble. Oh, yes, an' Uncle Harry's got some candy in his
+trunk, cos he said so in the carriage,--we thank you for lettin' Uncle
+Harry come to see us, an' we hope he's got LOTS of candy--lots an'
+piles. An' we pray you to take good care of all the poor little boys
+and girls that haven't got any papas an' mammas an' Uncle Harrys an'
+candy an' beds to sleep in. An' take us all to Heaven when we die, for
+Christ's sake. Amen. Now give us the candy, Uncle Harry."
+
+"Hush, Budge; don't Toddie say any prayers?"
+
+"Oh yes; go on, Tod."
+
+Toddie closed his eyes, wriggled, twisted, breathed hard and quick,
+acting generally as if prayers were principally a matter of physical
+exertion. At last he began:--
+
+"Dee Lord, not make me sho bad, an' besh mamma, an' papa, an' Budgie,
+and doppity, [Footnote: Grandmother.] an' both boggies, [Footnote:
+Grandfathers.] an' all good people in dish house, and everybody else,
+an' my dolly. A--a--amen!"
+
+"Now give us the candy," said Budge, with the usual echo from Toddie.
+
+I hastily extracted the candy from my trunk, gave some to each boy, the
+recipients fairly shrieking with delight, and once more said good-night.
+
+"Oh, you didn't give us any pennies," said Budge. "Papa gives us some
+to put in our banks, every nights."
+
+"Well, I haven't got any now--wait until to-morrow."
+
+"Then we want drinks."
+
+"I'll let Maggie bring you drink."
+
+"Want my dolly," murmured Toddie.
+
+I found the knotted towels, took the dirty things up gingerly and threw
+them upon the bed.
+
+"Now want to shee wheels go wound," said Toddie.
+
+I hurried out of the room and slammed the door. I looked at my
+watch--it was half-past eight; I had spent an hour and a half with
+those dreadful children. They WERE funny to be sure--I found myself
+laughing in spite of my indignation. Still, if they were to monopolize
+my time as they had already done, when was I to do my reading? Taking
+Fiske's "Cosmic Philosophy" from my trunk I descended to the back
+parlor, lit a cigar and a student-lamp, and began to read. I had not
+fairly commenced when I heard a patter of small feet, and saw my elder
+nephew before me. There was sorrowful protestation in every line of his
+countenance, as he exclaimed:--
+
+"You didn't say 'Good-by' nor 'God bless you' nor anything."
+
+"Oh--good-by."
+
+"Good-by."
+
+"God bless you."
+
+"God bless you."
+
+Budge seemed waiting for something else. At last he said:--
+
+"Papa says, 'God bless everybody.'"
+
+"Well, God bless everybody."
+
+"God bless everybody," responded Budge, and turned silently and went
+up-stairs.
+
+"Bless your tormenting honest little heart," I said to myself; "if men
+trusted God as you do your papa, how little business there'd be for
+preachers to do."
+
+The night was a perfect one. The pure fresh air, the perfume of the
+flowers, the music of the insect choir in the trees and shrubbery--the
+very season itself seemed to forbid my reading philosophy, so I laid
+Fiske aside, delighted myself with a few rare bits from Paul Hayne's
+new volume of poems, read a few chapters of "One Summer," and finally
+sauntered off to bed. My nephews were slumbering sweetly; it seemed
+impossible that the pure, exquisite, angelic faces before me belonged
+to my tormentors of a few hours before. As I lay on my couch I could
+see the dark shadow and rugged crest of the mountain; above it, the
+silver stars against the blue, and below it the rival lights of the
+fireflies against the dark background formed by the mountain itself. No
+rumbling of wheels tormented me, nor any of the thousand noises that
+fill city air with the spirit of unrest, and I fell into a wonder
+almost indignant that sensible, comfortable, loving beings could live
+in horrible New York, while such delightful rural homes were so near at
+hand. Then Alice Mayton came into my mind, and then a customer; later,
+stars and trademarks, and bouquets, and dirty nephews, and fireflies
+and bad accounts, and railway tickets, and candy and Herbert Spencer,
+mixed themselves confusingly in my mind. Then a vision of a proud
+angel, in the most fashionable attire and a modern carriage, came and
+banished them all by its perfect radiance, and I was sinking in the
+most blissful unconsciousness--
+
+"Ah--h--h--h--h--h--oo--oo--oo--oo--ee--ee--ee--"
+
+"Sh--h--h!" I hissed.
+
+The warning was heeded, and I soon relapsed into oblivion.
+
+"Ah--h--h--h--oo--oo--ee--ee--ee--BE--ee."
+
+"Toddie, do you want uncle to whip you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then lie still."
+
+"Well, Ize lost my dolly, an' I tant find her anywhere."
+
+"Well, I'll find her for you in the morning."
+
+"Oo--oo--ee--I wants my dolly."
+
+"Well, I tell you I'll find her for you in the morning."
+
+"I want her NOW--oo--oo--"
+
+"You can't have her now, so you can go to sleep."
+
+"Oh--oo--oo--oo--ee--"
+
+Springing madly to my feet, I started for the offender's room. I
+encountered a door ajar by the way, my forehead being first to discover
+it. I ground my teeth, lit a candle, and said something--no matter what.
+
+"Oh, you said a bad swear!" ejaculated Toddie. "You won't go to heaven
+when you die."
+
+"Neither will you, if you howl like a little demon all night. Are you
+going to be quiet, now?"
+
+"Yesh, but I wants my dolly."
+
+"_I_ don't know where your dolly is--do you suppose I'm going to search
+this entire house for that confounded dolly?"
+
+"'TAIN'T 'founded. I wants my dolly."
+
+"I don't know where it is; you don't think I stole your dolly, do you?"
+
+"Well, I wants it, in de bed wif me."
+
+"Charles," said I, "when you arise in morning, I hope your doll will be
+found. At present, however, you must be resigned and go to sleep. I'll
+cover you up nicely;" here I began to rearrange the bed-clothing, when
+the fateful dolly, source of all my woes, tumbled out of them. Toddie
+clutched it, his whole face lighting up with affectionate delight, and
+he screamed:--
+
+"Oh, dare is my dee dolly: tum to your own papa, dolly, an' I'll love
+you."
+
+And that ridiculous child was so completely satisfied by his outlay of
+affection that my own indignation gave place to genuine artistic
+pleasure. One CAN tire of even beautiful pictures, though, when he is
+not fully awake, and is holding a candle in a draught of air; so I
+covered my nephews and returned to my own room, where I mused upon the
+contradictoriness of childhood until I fell asleep.
+
+In the morning I was awakened very early by the light streaming in the
+window, the blinds of which I had left open the night before. The air
+was alive with bird-songs, and the eastern sky was flushing with tints
+which no painter's canvas ever caught. But ante-sunrise skies and songs
+are not fit subjects for the continued contemplation of men who read
+until midnight; so I hastily closed the blinds, drew the shade, dropped
+the curtains and lay down again, dreamily thanking heaven that I was to
+fall asleep to such exquisite music. I am sure that I mentally forgave
+all my enemies as I dropped off into a most delicious doze, but the
+sudden realization that a light hand was passing over my cheek roused
+me to savage anger in an instant. I sprang up, and saw Budge shrink
+timidly away from my bedside.
+
+"I was only a-lovin' you, cos you was good, and brought us candy. Papa
+lets us love him whenever we want to--every morning he does."
+
+"As early as this?" demanded I.
+
+"Yes, just as soon as we can see, if we want to."
+
+Poor Tom! I never COULD comprehend why with a good wife, a comfortable
+income, and a clear conscience, he need always look thin and
+worn--worse than he ever did in Virginia woods or Louisiana swamps. But
+now I knew all. And yet, what could one do? That child's eyes and
+voice, and his expression, which exceeded in sweetness that of any of
+the angels I had ever imagined,--that child could coax a man to do more
+self-forgetting deeds than the shortening of his precious
+sleeping-hours amounted to. In fact, he was fast divesting me of my
+rightful sleepiness, so I kissed him and said:--
+
+"Run to bed, now, dear old fellow, and let uncle go to sleep again.
+After breakfast, I'll make you a whistle."
+
+"Oh, will you?" The angel turned into a boy at once. "Yes; now run
+along."
+
+"A LOUD whistle--a real loud one?"
+
+"Yes, but not if you don't go right back to bed."
+
+The sound of little footsteps receded as I turned over and closed my
+eyes. Speedily the bird-song seemed to grow fainter; my thoughts
+dropped to pieces; I seemed to be floating on fleecy clouds, in company
+with hundreds of cherubs with Budge's features and night-drawers--
+
+"Uncle Harry!"
+
+May the Lord forget the prayer I put up just then!
+
+"Uncle Harry!"
+
+"I'll discipline you, my fine little boy," thought I. "Perhaps, if I
+let you shriek your abominable little throat hoarse, you'll learn
+better than to torment your uncle, that was just getting ready to love
+you dearly."
+
+"Uncle Har-RAY!"
+
+"Howl, away, you little imp," thought I. "You've got me wide awake, and
+your lungs may suffer for it." Suddenly I heard, although in sleepy
+tones, and with a lazy drawl, some words which appalled me. The
+murmurer was Toddie:--
+
+"Want--she--wheels--go--wound."
+
+"Budge!" I shouted, in the desperation of my dread lest Toddie, too,
+might wake up, "what DO you want?"
+
+"Uncle Harry!"
+
+"WHAT!"
+
+"Uncle Harry, what kind of wood are you going to make the whistle out
+of?"
+
+"I won't make any at all--I'll cut a big stick and give you a sound
+whipping with it, for not keeping quiet, as I told you to."'
+
+"Why, Uncle Harry, papa don't whip us with sticks--he spanks us."
+
+Heavens! Papa! papa! papa! Was I never to have done with this eternal
+quotation of "papa"? I was horrified to find myself gradually
+conceiving a dire hatred of my excellent brother-in-law. One thing was
+certain, at any rate: sleep was no longer possible; so I hastily
+dressed, and went into the garden. Among the beauty and the fragrance
+of the flowers, and in the delicious morning air, I succeeded in
+regaining my temper, and was delighted, on answering the
+breakfast-bell, two hours later, to have Budge accost me with:--
+
+"Why, Uncle Harry, where was you? We looked all over the house for you,
+and couldn't find a speck of you."
+
+The breakfast was an excellent one. I afterward learned that Helen,
+dear old girl, had herself prepared a bill of fare for every meal I
+should take in the house. As the table talk of myself and nephews was
+not such as could do harm by being repeated, I requested Maggie, the
+servant, to wait upon the children, and I accompanied my request with a
+small treasury note. Relieved, thus, of all responsibility for the
+dreadful appetites of my nephews, I did full justice to the repast, and
+even regarded with some interest and amusement the industry of Budge
+and Toddie with their tiny forks and spoons. They ate rapidly for a
+while, but soon their appetites weakened and their tongues were
+unloosed.
+
+"Ocken Hawwy," remarked Toddie, "daysh an awfoo funny chunt up
+'tairs--awfoo BIG chunt. I show it you after brepspup."
+
+"Toddie's a silly little boy," said Budge; "he always says brepspup for
+brekbux." [Footnote: Breakfast.]
+
+"Oh! What does he mean by chunt, Budge?"
+
+"I GUESS he means trunk," replied my oldest nephew.
+
+Recollections of my childish delight in rummaging an old trunk--it
+seems a century ago that I did it--caused me to smile sympathetically
+at Toddie, to his apparent great delight. How delightful it is to
+strike a sympathetic chord in child-nature, thought I; how quickly the
+infant eye comprehends the look which precedes the verbal expression of
+an idea! Dear Toddie! for years we might sit at one table, careless of
+each other's words, but the casual mention of one of thy delights has
+suddenly brought our souls into that sweetest of all human
+communions--that one which doubtless bound the Master himself to that
+apostle who was otherwise apparently the weakest among the chosen
+twelve. "An awfoo funny chunt" seemed to annihilate suddenly all
+differences of age, condition and experience between the wee boy and
+myself, and--
+
+A direful thought struck me. I dashed up-stairs and into my room. Yes,
+he DID mean my trunk. _I_ could see nothing funny about it--quite the
+contrary. The bond of sympathy between my nephew and myself was
+suddenly broken. Looking at the matter from the comparative distance
+which a few weeks have placed between that day and this, I can see that
+I was unable to consider the scene before me with a calm and
+unprejudiced mind. I am now satisfied that the sudden birth and hasty
+decease of my sympathy with Toddie were striking instances of human
+inconsistency. My soul had gone out to his because he loved to rummage
+in trunks, and because I imagined he loved to see the monument of
+incongruous material which resulted from such an operation; the scene
+before me showed clearly that I had rightly divined my nephew's nature.
+And yet my selfish instincts hastened to obscure my soul's vision, and
+to prevent that joy which should ensue when "Faith is lost in full
+fruition."
+
+My trunk had contained nearly everything, for while a campaigner I had
+learned to reduce packing to an exact science. Now, had there been an
+atom of pride in my composition I might have glorified myself, for it
+certainly seemed as if the heap upon the floor could never have come
+out of a single trunk. Clearly, Toddie was more of a general
+connoisseur than an amateur in packing. The method of his work I
+quickly discerned, and the discovery threw some light upon the size of
+the heap in front of my trunk. A dress-hat and its case, when their
+natural relationship is dissolved, occupy nearly twice as much space as
+before, even if the former contains a blacking-box not usually kept in
+it, and the latter contains a few cigars soaking in bay rum. The same
+might be said of a portable dressing-case and its contents, bought for
+me in Vienna by a brother ex-soldier, and designed by an old
+continental campaigner to be perfection itself. The straps which
+prevented the cover from falling entirely back had been cut, broken or
+parted in some way, and in its hollow lay my dresscoat, tightly rolled
+up. Snatching it up with a violent exclamation, and unrolling it, there
+dropped from it--one of those infernal dolls. At the same time a howl
+was sounded from the doorway.
+
+"You tookted my dolly out of her cradle--I want to wock my
+dolly--oo--oo--oo--ee--ee--ee--"
+
+"You young scoundrel," I screamed--yes, howled, I was so enraged--"I've
+a great mind to cut your throat this minute. What do you mean by
+meddling with my trunk?"
+
+"I--doe--know." Outward turned Toddie's lower lip; I believe the sight
+of it would move a Bengal tiger to pity, but no such thought occurred
+to me just then.
+
+"What made you do it?"
+
+"BE--cause."
+
+"Because what?"
+
+"I--doe--know."
+
+Just then a terrific roar arose from the garden. Looking out, I saw
+Budge with a bleeding finger upon one hand, and my razor in the other;
+he afterward explained he had been making a boat, and that knife was
+bad to him. To apply adhesive plaster to the cut was the work of but a
+minute, and I had barely completed this surgical operation when Tom's
+gardener-coachman appeared and handed me a letter. It was addressed in
+Helen's well-known hand, and read as follows (the passages in brackets
+were my own comments):--
+
+
+"BLOOMDALE, June 21, 1875.
+
+"DEAR HARRY:--I'm very happy in the thought that you are with my
+darling children, and, although I'm having a lovely time here, I often
+wish I was with you. [Ump--so do I.] I want you to know the little
+treasures real well. [Thank you, but I don't think I care to extend the
+acquaintanceship farther than is absolutely necessary.] It seems to me
+so unnatural that relatives know so little of those of their own blood,
+and especially of the innocent little spirits whose existence is almost
+unheeded. [Not when there's unlocked trunks standing about, sis.]
+
+"Now I want to ask a favor of you. When we were boys and girls at home,
+you used to talk perfect oceans about physiognomy, and phrenology, and
+unerring signs of character. I thought it was all nonsense then, but if
+you believe any of it NOW, I wish you'd study the children, and give me
+your well-considered opinion of them. [Perfect demons, ma'am; imps,
+rascals, born to be hung--both of them.]
+
+"I can't get over the feeling that dear Budge is born for something
+grand. [Grand nuisance.] He is sometimes so thoughtful and so absorbed,
+that I almost fear the result of disturbing him; then, he has that
+faculty of perseverance which seems to be the on|y thing some men have
+lacked to make them great. [He certainly has it; he exemplified it
+while I was trying to get to sleep this morning.]
+
+"Toddie is going to make a poet or a musician or an artist. [That's so;
+all abominable scamps take to some artistic pursuit as an excuse for
+loafing.] His fancies take hold of him very strongly. [They do--they
+do; "shee wheels go wound," for instance.] He has not Budgie's sublime
+earnestness, but he doesn't need it; the irresistible force with which
+he is drawn toward whatever is beautiful compensates for the lack.
+[Ah--perhaps that explains his operation with my trunk.] But I want
+your OWN opinion, for I know you make more careful distinction in
+character than I do.
+
+"Delighting myself with the idea that I deserve most of the credit for
+the lots of reading you will have done by this time, and hoping I shall
+soon have a line telling me how my darlings are, I am as ever,
+
+"Your loving sister,
+
+"HELEN."
+
+
+Seldom have I been so roused by a letter as I was by this one, and
+never did I promise myself more genuine pleasure in writing a reply. I
+determined that it should be a masterpiece of analysis and of calm yet
+forcible expression of opinion.
+
+Upon one step, at any rate, I was positively determined. Calling the
+girl, I asked her where the key was that locked the door between my
+room and the children.
+
+"Please, sir, Toddie threw it down the well."
+
+"Is there a locksmith in the village?"
+
+"No, sir; the nearest one is at Paterson."
+
+"Is there a screwdriver in the house?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Bring it to me, and tell the coachman to get ready at once to drive me
+to Paterson."
+
+The screwdriver was brought, and with it I removed the lock, got into
+the carriage, and told the driver to take me to Paterson by the
+hill-road--one of the most beautiful roads in America.
+
+"Paterson!" exclaimed Budge. "Oh, there's a candy-store in that town,
+come on, Toddie."
+
+"Will you?" thought I, snatching the whip and giving the horses a cut.
+"Not if _I_ can help it. The idea of having such a drive spoiled by the
+clatter of SUCH a couple!"
+
+Away went the horses, and up rose a piercing shriek and a terrible
+roar. It seemed that both children must have been mortally hurt, and I
+looked out hastily, only to see Budge and Toddie running after the
+carriage, and crying pitifully. It was too pitiful,--I could not have
+proceeded without them, even if they had been afflicted with small-pox.
+The driver stopped of his own accord,--he seemed to know the children's
+ways and their results,--and I helped Budge and Toddie in, meekly
+hoping that the eye of Providence was upon me, and that so
+self-sacrificing an act would be duly passed to my credit. As we
+reached the hill-road, my kindness to my nephews seemed to assume,
+greater proportions, for the view before me was inexpressibly
+beautiful. The air was perfectly clear, and across two score towns I
+saw the great metropolis itself, the silent city of Greenwood beyond
+it, the bay, the narrows, the sound, the two silvery rivers lying
+between me and the Palisades, and even, across and to the south of
+Brooklyn, the ocean itself. Wonderful effects of light and shadow,
+picturesque masses, composed of detached buildings so far distant that
+they seemed huddled together; grim factories turned to beautiful
+palaces by the dazzling reflection of sunlight from their window-panes;
+great ships seeming in the distance to be toy-boats floating
+idly;--with no sign of life perceptible, the whole scene recalled the
+fairy stories, read in my youthful days, of enchanted cities, and the
+illusion was greatly strengthened by the dragon-like shape of the roof
+of New York's new post-office, lying in the center of everything, and
+seeming to brood over all.
+
+"Uncle Harry!"
+
+Ah, that was what I expected!
+
+"Uncle Harry!"
+
+"Well, Budge?"
+
+"I always think that looks like heaven."
+
+"What does?"
+
+"Why, all that,--from here over to that other sky way back there behind
+everything, I mean. And I think THAT (here he pointed toward what
+probably was a photographer's roof-light)--that place where it's so
+shiny, is where God stays."
+
+Bless the child! The scene had suggested only elfindom to ME, and yet I
+prided myself on my quick sense of artistic effects.
+
+"An' over there where that awful bright LITTLE speck is," continued
+Budge, "that's where dear little brother Phillie is; whenever I look
+over there, I see him putting his hand out."
+
+"Dee 'ittle Phillie went to s'eep in a box and the Lord took him to
+heaven," murmured Toddie, putting together all he had seen and heard of
+death. Then he raised his voice, and exclaimed:--
+
+"Ocken Hawwy, you know what Iz'he goin' do when I be's big man? Iz'he
+goin' to have hosses and tarridge, an' Iz'he goin' to wide over all ze
+chees an' all ze houses, an' all ze world an' evvyfing. An' whole lots
+of little birdies is comin' in my tarridge an' sing songs to me, an'
+you can come too if you want to, an' we'll have ICE-cream an'
+'trawberries, an' see 'ittle fishes swimmin' down in ze water, an'
+we'll get a g'eat big house that's all p'itty on the outshide an' all
+p'itty on the inshide, and it'll all be ours and we'll do just evvyfing
+we want to."
+
+"Toddy, you're an idealist."
+
+"AIN'T a 'dealisht."
+
+"Toddy's a goosey-gander," remarked Budge, with great gravity. "Uncle
+Harry, do you think heaven's as nice as that place over there?"
+
+"Yes, Budge, a great deal nicer."
+
+"Then why don't we die an' go there? I don't want to go on livin'
+forever an' ever. I don't see why we don't die right away; I think
+we've lived enough of days."
+
+"The Lord wants us to live until we get good and strong and smart, and
+do a great deal of good before we die, old fellow--that's why we don't
+die right away."
+
+"Well, I want to see dear little Phillie, an' if the Lord won't let him
+come down here, I think he might let me die an' go to heaven. Little
+Phillie always laughed when I jumped for him. Uncle Harry, angels has
+wings, don't they?"
+
+"Some people think they have, old boy."
+
+"Well, I know they DON'T, cos if Phillie had wings, I know he'd fly
+right down here an' see me. So they don't."
+
+"But maybe he has to go somewhere else, Budge, or maybe he comes and
+you can't see him. We can't see angels with OUR eyes, you know."
+
+"Then what made the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace see one? Their
+eyes was just like ours, wasn't they? I don't care; I want to see dear
+little Phillie AWFUL much. Uncle Harry, if I went to heaven, do you
+know what I'd do?"
+
+"What WOULD you do, Budge?"
+
+"Why, after I saw little Phillie, I'd go right up to the Lord an' give
+him a great big hug."
+
+"What for, Budge?"
+
+"Oh, cos he lets us have nice times, an' gave me my mama an' papa, an'
+Phillie--but he took him away again--an' Toddie, but Toddie's a
+dreadful bad boy sometimes, though."
+
+"Very true, Budge," said I, remembering my trunk and the object of my
+ride.
+
+"Uncle Harry, did you ever see the Lord?"
+
+"No, Budge; he has been very close to me a good many times, but I never
+saw him."
+
+"Well, _I_ have; I see him every time I look up in the sky, and there
+ain't nobody 'with me."
+
+The driver crossed himself and whispered, "He's foriver a-sayin' that,
+an' be the powers, I belave him. Sometimes ye'd think that the howly
+saints thimselves was a-sphak-in' whin that bye gits to goin' on that
+way." It WAS wonderful. Budge's countenance seemed too pure to be of
+the earth as he continued to express his ideas of the better land and
+its denizens. As for Toddie, his tongue was going incessantly, although
+in a tone scarcely audible; but when I chanced to catch his
+expressions, they were so droll and fanciful, that I took him upon my
+lap that I might hear him more distinctly. I even detected myself in
+the act of examining the mental draft of my proposed letter to Helen,
+and of being ashamed of it. But neither Toddie's fancy nor Budge's
+spirituality caused me to forget the principal object of my ride. I
+found a locksmith and left the lock to be fitted with a key; then we
+drove to the Falls. Both boys discharged volleys of questions as we
+stood by the gorge, and the fact that the roar of the falling water
+prevented me from hearing them did not cause them to relax their
+efforts in the least. I walked to the hotel for a cigar, taking the
+children with me. I certainly spent no more than three minutes in
+selecting and lighting a cigar, and asking the barkeeper a few
+questions about the Falls; but when I turned, the children were
+missing, nor could I see them in any direction. Suddenly before my eyes
+arose from the nearer brink of the gorge two yellowish disks, which I
+recognized as the hats of my nephews; then I saw between the disks and
+me two small figures lying upon the ground. I was afraid to shout, for
+fear of scaring them, if they happened to hear me, I bounded across the
+grass, industriously raving and praying by turns. They were lying on
+their stomachs and looking over the edge of the cliff. I approached
+them on tip-toe, threw myself upon the ground, and grasped a foot of
+each child.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Harry!" screamed Budge in my ear, as I dragged him close to
+me, kissing and shaking him alternately, "I hunged over more than
+Toddie did."
+
+"Well, I--I--I--I--I--I--I hunged over a good deal, ANY how," said
+Toddie, in self-defense.
+
+That afternoon I devoted to making a bouquet for Miss Mayton, and a
+most delightful occupation I found it. It was no florist's bouquet,
+composed of only a few kinds of flowers, wired upon sticks, and
+arranged according to geometric pattern. I used many a rare flower, too
+shy of bloom to recommend itself to florists; I combined tints almost
+as numerous as the flowers were, and perfumes to which city bouquets
+are utter strangers. Arranging flowers is a favorite pastime of mine,
+but upon this particular occasion I enjoyed my work more than I had
+ever done before. Not that I was in love with Miss Mayton; a man may
+honestly and strongly admire a handsome, brilliant woman without being
+in love with her; he can delight himself in trying to give her
+pleasure, without feeling it necessary that she shall give him herself
+in return. Since I arrived at years of discretion, I have always smiled
+sarcastically at the mention of the generosity of men who were in love;
+they have seemed to me rather to be asking an immense price for what
+they offered. I had no such feeling toward Miss Mayton. There have been
+heathens who have offered gifts to goddesses out of pure adoration and
+without any idea of ever having the exclusive companionship of their
+favorite divinities. I never offered Miss Mayton any attention which
+did not put me into closer sympathy with these same great-souled old
+Pagans, and with such Christians as follow their good example. With
+each new grace my bouquet took on, my pleasure and satisfaction
+increased at the thought of how SHE would enjoy the completed evidence
+of my taste.
+
+At length it was finished, but my delight suddenly became clouded by
+the dreadful thought, "What will folks say?" Had we been in New York
+instead of Hillcrest, no one but the florist, his messenger, the lady
+and myself would know if I sent a bouquet to Miss Mayton; but in
+Hillcrest, with its several hundred native-born gossips and its
+acquaintance of everybody with everybody else and their affairs, I
+feared talk. Upon the discretion of Mike, the coachman, I could safely
+rely; I had already confidentially conveyed sundry bits of fractional
+currency to him, and informed him of one of the parties at our store
+whose family Mike had known in Old Erin; but every one knew where Mike
+was employed; every one knew--mysterious, unseen and swift are the ways
+of communication in the country!--that I was the only gentleman at
+present residing at Colonel Lawrence's. Ah!--I had it. I had seen in
+one of the library-drawers a small pasteboard box, shaped like a
+band-box--doubtless THAT would hold it. I found the box--it was of just
+the size I needed. I dropped my card into the bottom,--no danger of a
+lady not finding the card accompanying a gift of flowers,--neatly
+fitted the bouquet in the center of the box, and went in search of
+Mike. He winked cheeringly as I explained the nature of his errand, and
+he whispered:--
+
+"I'll do it as clane as a whistle, yer honor. Mistress Clarkson's cook
+an' mesilf understhand each other, an' I'm used to goin' up the back
+way. Dhivil a man can see but the angels, an' they won't tell."
+
+"Very well, Mike; here's a dollar for you; you'll find the box on the
+hat-rack in the hall."
+
+Half an hour later, while I sat in my chamber window, reading, I beheld
+Mike, cleanly shaved, dressed and brushed, swinging up the road, with
+my box balanced on one of his enormous hands. With a head full of
+pleasing fancies, I went down to supper. My new friends were unusually
+good. Their ride seemed to have toned down their boisterousness and
+elevated their little souls; their appetites exhibited no diminution of
+force, but they talked but little, and all that they said was smart,
+funny, or startling--so much so that when, after supper, they invited
+me to put them to bed, I gladly accepted the invitation. Toddie
+disappeared somewhere, and came back very disconsolate.
+
+"Can't find my dolly's k'adle," he whined.
+
+"Never mind, old pet," said I, soothingly. "Uncle will ride you on his
+foot."
+
+"But I WANT my dolly's k'adle," said he, piteously rolling out his
+lower lip.
+
+I remembered my experience when Toddie wanted to "shee wheels go
+wound," and I trembled.
+
+"Toddie," said I, in a tone so persuasive that it would be worth
+thousands a year to me, as a salesman, if I could only command it at
+will; "Toddie, don't you want to ride on uncle's back?"
+
+"No: want my dolly's k'adle."
+
+"Don't you want me to tell you a story?"
+
+For a moment Toddie's face indicated a terrible internal conflict
+between old Adam and mother Eve, but curiosity finally overpowered
+natural depravity, and Toddie murmured:--
+
+"Yesh."
+
+"What shall I tell you about?"
+
+"'Bout Nawndeark."
+
+"About WHAT?"
+
+"He means Noah an' the ark," exclaimed Budge.
+
+"Datsh what _I_ shay--Nawndeark," declared Toddie.
+
+"Well," said I, hastily refreshing my memory by picking up the
+Bible,--for Helen, like most people, is pretty sure to forget to pack
+her Bible when she runs away from home for a few days,--"well, once it
+rained forty days and nights, and everybody was drowned from the face
+of the earth excepting Noah, a righteous man, who was saved, with all
+his family, in an ark which the Lord commanded him to build."
+
+"Uncle Harry," said Budge, after contemplating me with open eyes and
+mouth for at least two minutes after I had finished, "do you think
+that's Noah?"
+
+"Certainly, Budge; here's the whole story in the Bible."
+
+"Well, _I_ don't think it's Noah one single bit," said he, with
+increasing emphasis.
+
+"I'm beginning to think we read different Bibles, Budge; but let's hear
+YOUR version."
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Tell ME about Noah, if you know so much about him."
+
+"I will, if you want me to. Once the Lord felt so uncomfortable cos
+folks was bad that he was sorry he ever made anybody, or any world or
+anything. But Noah wasn't bad--the Lord liked him first-rate, so he
+told Noah to build a big ark, and then the Lord would make it rain so
+everybody should be drownded but Noah an' his little boys an' girls,
+an' doggies an' pussies an' mama-cows an' little-boy-cows an'
+little-girl-cows an' hosses an' everything--they'd go in the ark an'
+wouldn't get wetted a bit, when it rained. An' Noah took lots of things
+to eat in the ark--cookies, an' milk, an' oatmeal, an' strawberries,
+an' porgies, an'--oh, yes; an' plum-puddin's an' pumpkin-pies. But Noah
+didn't want everybody to get drownded, so he talked to folks an' said,
+'It's goin' to rain AWFUL pretty soon; you'd better be good, an' then
+the Lord'll let you come into my ark.' An' they jus' said, 'Oh, if it
+rains we'll go in the house till it stops;' an' other folks said, 'WE
+ain't afraid of rain--we've got an umbrella.' An' some more said, they
+wasn't goin' to be afraid of just a rain. But it DID rain though, an'
+folks went in their houses, an' the water came in, an' they went
+up-stairs, an' the water came up there, an' they got on the tops of the
+houses, an' up in big trees, an' up in mountains, an' the water went
+after 'em everywhere an' drownded everybody, only just except Noah and
+the people in the ark. An' it rained forty days an' nights, an' then it
+stopped, an' Noah got out of the ark, an' he and his little boys an'
+girls went wherever they wanted to, and everything in the world was all
+theirs; there wasn't anybody to tell 'em to go home, nor no
+Kindergarten schools to go to, nor no bad boys to fight 'em, nor
+nothin'. Now tell us 'nother story."
+
+I determined that I would not again attempt to repeat portions of the
+Scripture narrative--my experience in that direction had not been
+encouraging. I ventured upon a war story.
+
+"Do you know what the war was?" I asked, by way of reconnoissance.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Budge; "papa was there, an' he's got a sword; don't you
+see it, hangin' up there?"
+
+Yes, I saw it, and the difference between the terrible field where last
+I saw Tom's sword in action, and this quiet room where it now hung,
+forced me into a reverie from which I was aroused by Budge remarking:--
+
+"Ain't you goin' to tell us one?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Budge. One day while the war was going on, there was a whole
+lot of soldiers going along a road, and they were as hungry as they
+could be; they hadn't had anything to eat that day."
+
+"Why didn't they go into the houses, and the people they was hungry?
+That's what _I_ do when I goes along roads."
+
+"Because the people in that country didn't like them; the brothers and
+papas and husbands of those people were soldiers, too; but they didn't
+like the soldiers I told you about first, and they wanted to kill them."
+
+"I don't think they were a bit nice," said Budge, with considerable
+decision.
+
+"Well, the first soldiers wanted to kill THEM, Budge."
+
+"Then they was ALL bad, to want to kill each other."
+
+"Oh, no, they weren't; there were a great many real good men on both
+sides."
+
+Poor Budge looked sadly puzzled, as he had an excellent right to do,
+since the wisest and best men are sorely perplexed by the nature of
+warlike feeling.
+
+"Both parties of soldiers were on horseback," I continued, "and they
+were near each other, and when they saw each other they made their
+horses run fast, and the bugles blew, and the soldiers all took their
+swords out to kill each other with, when just then a little boy, who
+had been out in the woods to pick berries for his mama, tried to run
+across the road, and caught his toe some way, and fell down, and cried.
+Then somebody hallooed 'Halt!' very loud, and all the horses on one
+side stopped, and then somebody else hallooed 'Halt!' and a lot of
+bugles blew, and every horse on the other; side stopped, and one
+soldier jumped off his horse, and picked up the little boy--he was only
+about as big as you, Budge--and tried to comfort him; and then a
+soldier from the other side came up to look at him, and then more
+soldiers came from both sides to look at him; and when he got better
+and walked home, the soldiers all rode away, because they didn't feel
+like fighting just then."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Harry! I think it was an AWFUL good soldier that got off his
+horse to take care of that poor little boy."
+
+"Do you, Budge? Who do you think it was?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+"It was your papa."
+
+"Oh--h--h--h--h!" If Tom could have but seen the expression upon his
+boy's face as he prolonged this exclamation, his loss of one of the
+grandest chances a cavalry officer ever had would not have seemed so
+great to him as it had done for years. He seemed to take in the story
+in all its bearings, and his great eyes grew in depth as they took on
+the far-away look which seemed too earnest for the strength of an
+earthly being to support.
+
+But Toddie,--he who a fond mama thought endowed with art sense,--Toddie
+had throughout my recital the air of a man who was musing on some
+affair of his own, and Budge's exclamation had hardly died away, when
+Toddie commenced to wave aloud an extravaganza wholly his own.
+
+"When _I_ was a soldier," he remarked, very gravely, "I had a coat an'
+a hat on, an' a muff an' a little knake [Footnote: Snake: tippet.]
+wound my neck to keep me warm, an' it wained, an' hailed, an' 'tormed,
+an' I felt bad, so I whallowed a sword an' burned me all down dead."
+
+"And how did you get here?" I asked, with interest proportioned to the
+importance of Toddie's last clause.
+
+"Oh, I got up from the burn-down dead, an' COMED right here. An' I want
+my dolly's k'adle."
+
+Oh persistent little dragon! If you were of age, what a fortune you
+might make in business!
+
+"Uncle Harry, I wish my papa would come home right away," said Budge.
+
+"Why, Budge?"
+
+"I want to love him for bein' so good to that poor little boy in the
+war."
+
+"Ocken Hawwy, I wants my dolly's k'adle, tause my dolly's in it, an' I
+want to shee her;" thus spake Toddie.
+
+"Don't you think the Lord loved my papa awful much for doin' that sweet
+thing, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge.
+
+"Yes, old fellow, I feel sure that he did."
+
+"Lord lovesh my papa vewy much, so I love ze Lord vewy much," remarked
+Toddie. "An' I wants my dolly's k'adle an' my dolly."
+
+"Toddie, I don't know where either of them are--I can't find them
+now--DO wait until morning, then Uncle Harry will look for them."
+
+"I don't see how the Lord can get along in heaven without my papa,
+Uncle Harry," said Budge.
+
+"Lord takesh papa to heaven, an' Budgie an' me, an' we'll go walkin'
+an' see ze Lord, an' play wif ze angels' wings, an' hazh good timsh,
+an' never have to go to bed at all, at all."
+
+Pure hearted little innocents! compared with older people whom we
+endure, how great thy faith and how few thy faults! How superior thy
+love--
+
+A knock at the door interrupted me. "Come in!" I shouted.
+
+In stepped Mike, with an air of the greatest secrecy, handed me a
+letter and the identical box in which I had sent the flowers to Miss
+Mayton. What COULD it mean? I hastily opened the envelope, and at the
+same time Toddie shrieked:--
+
+"Oh, darsh my dolly's k'adle--dare 'tish!" snatched and opened the box,
+and displayed--his doll! My heart sickened, and did NOT regain its
+strength during the perusal of the following note:--
+
+"Miss Mayton herewith returns to Mr. Burton the package which just
+arrived, with his card. She recognizes the contents as a portion of the
+apparent property of one of Burton's nephews, but is unable to
+understand why it should have been sent to her. "June 20, 1875."
+
+"Toddie," I roared, as my younger nephew caressed his loathsome doll,
+and murmured endearing words to it, "where did you get that box?"
+
+"On the hat-wack," replied the youth, with perfect fearlessness; "I
+keeps it in ze book-case djawer, an' somebody took it 'way an' put
+nasty ole flowers in it."
+
+"Where are those flowers?" I demanded.
+
+Toddie looked up with considerable surprise but promptly replied:--
+
+"I froed 'em away--don't want no ole flowers in my dolly's k'adle.
+That's ze way she wocks--see!" And this horrible little destroyer of
+human hopes rolled that box back and forth with the most utter
+unconcern, as he spoke endearing words to the substitute for my
+beautiful bouquet!
+
+To say that I looked at Toddie reprovingly is to express my feelings in
+the most inadequate language, but of language in which to express my
+feelings to Toddie. I could find absolutely none. Within two or three
+short moments I had discovered how very anxious I really was to merit
+Miss Mayton's regard, and how very different was the regard I wanted
+from that which I had previously hoped might be accorded me. It seemed
+too ridiculous to be true that I, who had for years had dozens of
+charming lady acquaintances, and yet had always maintained my common
+sense and self-control; I, who had always considered it unmanly for a
+man to specially interest himself in ANY lady until he had an income of
+five thousand a year; I who had skilfully, and many times, argued, that
+life-attachments, or attempts thereat, which were made without a
+careful preliminary study of the mental characteristics of the partner
+desired, was the most unpardonable folly,--I had transgressed every one
+of my own rules, and, as if to mock me for any pretended wisdom and
+care, my weakness was made known to me by a three-year-old marplot and
+a hideous rag-doll!
+
+That merciful and ennobling dispensation by which Providence enables us
+to temper the severity of our own sufferings by alleviating those of
+others, came soon to my rescue. Under my stern glance Toddie gradually
+lost interest in his doll and its cradle, and began to thrust forth and
+outward his piteous lower lip and to weep copiously.
+
+"Dee Lord, not make me sho bad," he cried through his tears. I doubt
+his having had any very clear idea of what he was saying, or whom he
+was addressing; but had the publican of whose prayer Toddie made so
+fair a paraphrase worn such a face when he offered his famous petition,
+it could not have been denied for a moment. Toddie even retired to a
+corner and hid his face in self-imposed penance.
+
+"Never mind, Toddie," said I, sadly; "you didn't mean to do it, I know."
+
+"I wantsh to love you," sobbed Toddie.
+
+"Well, come here, you poor little fellow," said I, opening my arms, and
+wondering whether 'twas not after contemplation of some such sinner
+that good Bishop Tegner wrote:--
+
+"Depths of love are atonement's depths, for love is atonement"
+
+Toddie came to my arms, shed tears freely upon my shirt-front, and
+finally, after heaving a very long sigh, remarked:--
+
+"Wantsh YOU to love ME"
+
+I complied with his request. Theoretically, I had long believed that
+the higher wisdom of the Creator was most frequently expressed through
+the medium of his most innocent creations. Surely here was a
+confirmation of my theory, for who else had ever practically taught me
+the duty of the injured one toward his offender? I kissed Toddie and
+petted him, and at length succeeded in quieting him; his little face,
+in spite of much dirt and many tear-stains, was upturned with more of
+beauty in it than it ever held when its owner was full of joy; he
+looked earnestly, confidingly, into my eyes, and I congratulated myself
+upon the perfection of my forgiving spirit, when Toddie suddenly
+re-exhibited to me my old unregenerate nature, and the incompleteness
+of my forgiveness, by saying:--
+
+"Kish my dolly, too."
+
+I obeyed. My forgiveness was made complete, but so was my humiliation.
+I abruptly closed our interview. We exchanged "God bless you's,"
+according to Budge's instructions of the previous night, and at least
+one of the participants in this devotional exercise hoped the petitions
+made by the other were distinctly heard. Then I dropped into an
+easy-chair in the library, and fell to thinking. I found myself really
+and seriously troubled by the results of Toddie's operation with my
+bouquet. I might explain the matter to Miss Mayton--I undoubtedly
+could, for she was too sensible a woman to be easily offended merely by
+a ridiculous mistake, caused by a child. But she would laugh at ME--how
+could she help it?--and to be laughed at by Miss Mayton was a something
+the mere thought of which tormented me in a manner that made me fairly
+ashamed of myself. Like every other young man among young men, I had
+been the butt of many a rough joke, and had borne them without wincing;
+it seemed cowardly and contemptible that I should be so sensitive under
+the mere thought of laughter which would probably be heard by no one
+but Miss Mayton herself. But the laughter of a mere acquaintance is
+likely to lessen respect for the person laughed at. Heavens! the
+thought was unendurable! At any rate, I must write an early apology.
+When I was correspondent for the house with which I am now salesman I
+reclaimed many an old customer who had wandered off--certainly I might
+hope by a well-written letter to regain in Miss Mayton's respect
+whatever position I had lost. I hastily drafted a letter, corrected it
+carefully, copied it in due form, and forwarded it by the faithful
+Michael. Then I tried to read, but without the least success. For hours
+I paced the piazza and consumed cigars; when at last I retired it was
+with many ideas, hopes, fears, and fancies which had never before been
+mine. True to my trust, I looked into my nephews' room; there lay the
+boys, in postures more graceful than any which brush or chisel have
+ever reproduced. Toddie, in particular, wore so lovely an expression
+that I could not refrain from kissing him. But I was none the less
+careful to make use of my new key, and to lock my other door also.
+
+The next day was the Sabbath. Believing fully in the binding force and
+worldly wisdom of the Fourth Commandment, so far as it refers to rest,
+I have conscientiously trained myself to sleep two hours later on the
+morning of the holy day than I ever allowed myself to do on business
+days. But having inherited, besides a New England conscience, a New
+England abhorrence of waste, I regularly sit up two hours later on
+Saturday nights than on any others; and the night preceding this
+particular Sabbath was no exception to the rule, as the reader may
+imagine from the foregoing recital. At about 5.30 A. M., however, I
+became conscious that my nephews were not in accord, with me on the
+Sinaitic law. They were not only awake, but were disputing vigorously,
+and, seemingly, very loudly, for I heard their words very distinctly.
+With sleepy condescension I endeavored to ignore these noisy
+irreverents, but I was suddenly moved to a belief in the doctrine of
+vicarious atonement, for a flying body, with more momentum than weight,
+struck me upon the not prominent bridge of my nose, and speedily and
+with unnecessary force accommodated itself to the outline of my eyes.
+After a moment spent in anguish, and in wondering how the missive came
+through closed doors and windows, I discovered that my pain had been
+caused by one of the dolls, which, from its extreme uncleanness, I
+suspected belonged to Toddie; I also discovered that the door between
+the rooms was open.
+
+"Who threw that doll?" I shouted, sternly. There came no response.
+
+"Do you hear?" I roared.
+
+"What is it, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge, with most exquisitely polite
+inflection.
+
+"Who threw that doll?"
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"I say, who threw that doll?"
+
+"Why, nobody did it."
+
+"Toddie, who threw that doll?"
+
+"Budge did," replied Toddie in muffled tones, suggestive of a brotherly
+hand laid forcibly over a pair of small lips.
+
+"Budge, what did you do it for?"
+
+"Why--why--I--because--why, you see--because, why, Toddie froo his
+dolly in my mouth; some of her hair went in, any how, an' I didn't want
+his dolly in my mouth, so I sent it back to him, an' the foot of the
+bed didn't stick up enough, so it went from the door to your
+bed--that's what for."
+
+The explanation seemed to bear marks of genuineness, albiet the pain of
+my eye was not alleviated thereby, while the exertion expended in
+eliciting the information had so thoroughly awakened me that further
+sleep was out of the question. Besides, the open door,--had a burglar
+been in the room? No; my watch and pocketbook were undisturbed. "Budge,
+who opened that door?"
+
+After some hesitation, as if wondering who really did it, Budge
+replied:--
+
+"Me."
+
+"How did you do it?"
+
+"Why, you see we wanted a drink, an' the door was fast, so we got out
+the window on the parazzo roof, an' comed in your window." (Here a
+slight pause.) "An' 'twas fun. An' then we unlocked the door, an' comed
+back."
+
+Then I should be compelled to lock my window-blinds--or theirs, and
+this in the summer season, too! Oh, if Helen could have but passed the
+house as that white-robed procession had filed along the piazza-roof! I
+lay pondering over the vast amount of unused ingenuity that was locked
+up in millions of children, or employed only to work misery among
+unsuspecting adults, when I heard light footfalls at my bedside, and
+saw a small shape with a grave face approach and remark:--
+
+"I wants to come in your bed."
+
+"What for, Toddie?"
+
+"To fwolic; papa always fwolics us Sunday mornin's. Tum, Budgie, Ocken
+Hawwy's doin' to fwolic us."
+
+Budge replied by shrieking with delight, tumbling out of bed, and
+hurrying to that side of my bed not already occupied by Toddie. Then
+those two little savages sounded the onslaught and advanced
+precipitately upon me. Sometimes, during the course of my life, I have
+had day-dreams which I have told to no one. Among these has been
+one--not now so distinct as it was before my four years of
+campaigning--of one day meeting in deadly combat the painted Indian of
+the plains; of listening undismayed to his frightful war-whoop, and of
+exemplifying in my own person the inevitable result of the pale-face's
+superior intelligence. But upon this particular Sunday morning I
+relinquished this idea informally, but forever. Before the advance of
+these diminutive warriors I quailed contemptibly, and their battle-cry
+sent more terror to my soul than that member ever experienced from the
+well-remembered rebel yell. According to Toddie, I was going to
+"fwolic" THEM; but from the first they took the whole business into
+their own little but effective hands. Toddie pronounced my knees,
+collectively a-horsie "bonnie," and bestrode them, laughing gleefully
+at my efforts to unseat him, and holding himself in position by digging
+his pudgy fingers into whatever portions of my anatomy he could most
+easily seize. Budge shouted, "I want a horsie, too!" and seated himself
+upon my chest. "This is the way the horsie goes," explained he, as he
+slowly rocked himself backward and forward. I began to realize how my
+brother-in-law, who had once been a fine gymnast, had become so
+flat-chested. Just then Budge's face assumed a more spirited
+expression, his eyes opened wide and lightened up, and, shouting, "This
+the way the horsie TROTS," he stood upright, threw up his feet, and
+dropped his forty-three avoirdupois pounds forcibly upon my lungs. He
+repeated this operation several times before I fully recovered from the
+shock conveyed by his combined impudence and weight; but pain finally
+brought my senses back, and with a wild plunge I unseated my demoniac
+riders and gained a clear space in the middle of the floor.
+
+"Ah--h--h--h--h--h--h," screamed Toddie, "I wants to wide horshie
+backen."
+
+"Boo--oo--oo--oo--," roared Budge, "I think you're real mean. I don't
+love you at all."
+
+Regardless alike of Toddie's desires, of Budge's opinion, and the
+cessation of his regard, I performed a hasty toilet. Notnwithstanding
+my lost rest, savagely thanked the Lord for Sunday; at church, at
+least, I could be free from my tormentors. At the breakfast-table both
+boys invited themselves to accompany me to the sanctuary, but I
+declined without thanks. To take them might be to assist somewhat in
+teaching them one of the best of habits, but I strongly doubted whether
+the severest Providence would consider it my duty to endure the
+probable consequences of such an attempt. Besides I MIGHT meet Miss
+Mayton. I both hoped and feared I might, and I could not, endure the
+thought of appearing before her with the causes of my pleasant
+REMEMBRANCE. Budge protested and Toddie wept, but I remained firm,
+although I was so willing to gratify their reasonable desires that I
+took them out for a long ante-service walk. While enjoying this little
+trip I delighted the children by killing a snake and spoiling a slender
+cane at the same time, my own sole consolation coming from the
+discovery that the remains of the staff were sufficient to make a cane
+for Budge. While returning to the house and preparing for church I
+entered into a solemn agreement with Budge, who was usually recognized
+as the head of this fraternal partnership. Budge contracted, for
+himself and brother, to make no attempts to enter my room; to refrain
+from fighting; to raise loose dirt only with a shovel, and to convey it
+to its destination by means other than their own hats and aprons; to
+pick no flowers; to open no water-faucets; to refer all disagreements
+to the cook, as arbitrator, and to build no houses of the new books
+which I had stacked upon the library table. In consideration of the
+promised faithful observance of these conditions I agreed that Budge
+should be allowed to come alone to Sabbath school, which convened
+directly after morning service, he to start only after Maggie had
+pronounced him duly cleansed and clothed. As Toddie was daily kept in
+bed from eleven to one, I felt that I might safely worship without
+distracting fears, for Budge could not alone, and in a single hour,
+become guilty of any particular sin. The church at Hillcrest had many
+more seats than members, and as but few summer visitors had yet
+appeared in the town, I was conscious of being industriously stared at
+by the native members of the congregation. This was of itself
+discomfort enough, but not all to which I was destined, for the usher
+conducted me quite near to the altar, and showed me into a pew whose
+only other occupant was Miss Mayton! Of course the lady did not
+recognize me--she was too carefully bred to do anything of the sort in
+church, and I spent ten uncomfortable minutes in mentally abusing the
+customs of good society. The beginning of the service partially ended
+my uneasiness, for I had no hymn-book,--the pew contained none,--so
+Miss Mayton kindly offered me a share in her own. And yet so
+faultlessly perfect and stranger-like was her manner that I wondered
+whether her action might not have been prompted merely by a sense of
+Christian duty; had I been the Khan of Tartary she could not have been
+more polite and frigid. The music to the first hymn was an air I had
+never heard before, so I stumbled miserably through the tenor, although
+Miss Mayton rendered the soprano without a single false note. The
+sermon was longer than I was in the habit of listening to, and I was
+frequently conscious of not listening at all. As for my position and
+appearance, neither ever seemed so insignificant as they did throughout
+the entire service.
+
+The minister reached "And finally, dear brethren," with my earnest
+prayers for a successful and speedy finale. It seemed to me that the
+congregation sympathized with me, for there was a general rustle behind
+me as these words were spoken. It soon became evident, however, that
+the hearers were moved by some other feeling, for I heard a profound
+titter or two behind me. Even Miss Mayton turned her head with more
+alacrity than was consistent with that grace which usually
+characterized her motions, and the minister himself made a pause of
+unusual length. I turned in my seat, and saw my nephew Budge, dressed
+in his best, his head irreverently covered, and his new cane swinging
+in the most stylish manner. He paused at each pew, carefully surveyed
+its occupants, seemed to fail in finding the object of his search, but
+continued his efforts in spite of my endeavors to catch his eye.
+Finally, he recognized a family acquaintance, and to him he unburdened
+his bosom by remarking, in tones easily heard throughout the church:--
+
+"I want to find my uncle."
+
+Just then he caught my eye, smiled rapturously, hurried to me and laid
+his rascally soft cheek confidingly against mine, while an audible
+sensation pervaded the church. What to do or say to him I scarcely
+knew; but my quandary was turned to wonder, as Miss Mayton, her face
+full of ill-repressed mirth, but her eyes full of tenderness, drew the
+little scamp close to her, and Mssed him soundly. At the same instant,
+the minister, not without some little hesitation, said, "Let us pray."
+I hastily bowed my head, glad of a chance to hide my face; but as I
+stole a glance at the cause of this irreligious disturbance, I caught
+Miss Mayton's eye. She was laughing so violently that the contagion was
+unavoidable, and I laughed all the harder as I felt that one
+mischievous boy had undone the mischief caused by another.
+
+After the benediction, Budge was the recipient of a great deal of
+attention, during the confusion of which I embraced the opportunity to
+say to Miss Mayton:--
+
+"Do you still sustain my sister in her opinion of my nephews, Miss
+Mayton?"
+
+"I think they're too funny for anything," replied the lady, with great
+enthusiasm. "I DO wish you would bring them to call upon me. I'm
+longing to see an ORIGINAL young gentleman."
+
+"Thank you," said I. "And I'll have Toddie bring a bouquet by way of
+atonement."
+
+"Do," she replied, as I allowed her to pass from the pew. The word was
+an insignificant one, but it made me happy once more.
+
+"You see, Uncle Harry," exclaimed Budge, as we left the church
+together, "the Sunday-school wasn't open yet, an' I wanted to hear if
+they'd sing again in church; so I came in, an' you wasn't in papa's
+seat, an' I knew you was SOMEwhere, so I LOOKED for you."
+
+"Bless you," thought I, snatching him into my arms as if to hurry him
+into Sabbath school, but really to give him a kiss of grateful
+affection, "you did right--EXACTLY right."
+
+My Sunday dinner was unexceptional in point of quantity and quality,
+and a bottle of my brother-in-law's claret proved to be most excellent;
+yet a certain uneasiness of mind prevented my enjoying the meal as
+thoroughly as under other circumstances I might have done. My
+uneasiness came of a mingled sense of responsibility and ignorance. I
+felt that it was the proper thing for me to see that my nephews spent
+the day with some sense of the requirements and duties of the Sabbath;
+but how I was to bring it about, I hardly knew. The boys, were too
+small to have Bible-lessons administered to them, and they were too
+lively to be kept quiet by any ordinary means. After a great deal of
+thought, I determined to consult the children themselves, and try to
+learn what their parents' custom had been.
+
+"Budge," said I, "what do you do Sundays when your papa and mama are
+home? What do they read to you,--what do they talk about?"
+
+"Oh, they swing us--lots!" said Budge, with brightening eyes.
+
+"An' zey takes us to get jacks," observed Toddie.
+
+"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Budge; "jacks-in-the-pulpit--don't you know?"
+
+"Hum--ye--es; I do remember some such thing in my youthful days. They
+grow where there's plenty of mud, don't they?"
+
+"Yes, an' there's a brook there, an' ferns, an' birch-bark, an' if you
+don't look out you'll tumble into the brook when you go to get birch."
+
+"An' we goes to Hawksnest Rock," piped Toddie, "an' papa carries us up
+on his back when we gets tired."
+
+"An' he makes us whistles," said Budge.
+
+"Budge," said I, rather hastily, "enough. In the language of the poet
+
+    "'These earthly pleasures I resign,'
+
+and I'm rather astonished that your papa hasn't taught you to do
+likewise. Don't he ever read to you?"
+
+"Oh, yes," cried Budge, clapping his hands, as a happy thought struck
+him. "He gets down the Bible--the great BIG Bible, you know--an' we all
+lay on the floor, an' he reads us stories out of it. There's David, an'
+Noah, an' when Christ was a little boy, an' Joseph, an'
+turnbackPharo'sarmyhallelujah--"
+
+"And what?"
+
+"TurnbackPharo'sarmyhallelujah," repeated Budge. "Don't you know how
+Moses held out his cane over the Red Sea, an' the water went way up one
+side, an' way up the other side, and all the Isrulites went across?
+It's just the same thing as DROWNoldPharo'sarmyhallelujah--don't you
+know?"
+
+"Budge," said I, "I suspect you of having heard the Jubilee Singers."
+
+"Oh, and papa and mama sings us all those Jubilee songs--there's 'Swing
+Low,' an' 'Roll Jordan,' an' 'Steal Away,' an' 'My Way's Cloudy,' an'
+'Get on Board, Childuns,' an' lots. An' you can sing us every one of
+'em."
+
+"An' papa takes us in the woods, an' makesh us canes," said Toddie.
+
+"Yes," said Budge, "and where there's new houses buildin', he takes us
+up ladders."
+
+"Has he any way of putting an extension on the afternoon?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know what that is," said Budge, "but he puts an India-rubber
+blanket on the grass, and then we all lie down an' make b'lieve we're
+soldiers asleep. Only sometimes when we wake up papa stays asleep, an'
+mama won't let us wake him. I don't think that's a very nice play."
+
+"Well, I think Bible stories are nicer than anything else, don't you?"
+
+Budge seemed somewhat in doubt. "I think swingin' is nicer," said
+he--"oh, no;--let's get some jacks--I'LL tell you what!--make us
+whistles an' we can blow on 'em while we're goin' to get the jacks.
+Toddie, dear, wouldn't YOU like jacks and whistles?"
+
+"Yesh--an' swingin'--an' birch--an' wantsh to go to Hawksnesh Rock,"
+answered Toddie.
+
+"Let's have Bible stories first," said I. "The Lord mightn't like it if
+you didn't learn anything good to-day."
+
+"Well," said Budge, with the regulation religious-matter-of-duty-face,
+"let's. I guess I like 'bout Joseph best."
+
+"Tell us 'bout Bliaff," suggested Toddie.
+
+"Oh, no, Tod," remonstrated Budge; "Joseph's coat was just as bloody as
+Goliath's head was." Then Budge turned to me and explained that "all
+Tod likes Goliath for is 'cause when his head was cut off it was all
+bloody." And then Toddie--the airy sprite whom his mother described as
+being irresistibly drawn to whatever was beautiful--Toddie glared upon
+me as a butcher's apprentice might stare at a doomed lamb, and
+remarked:--
+
+"Bliaff's head was all bluggy, an' David's sword was all bluggy--bluggy
+as everyfing."
+
+I hastily breathed a small prayer, opened the Bible, turned to the
+story of Joseph, and audibly condensed it as I read:--
+
+"Joseph was a good little boy whose papa loved him very dearly. But his
+brothers didn't like him. And they sold him, to go to Egypt. And he was
+very smart, and told the people what their dreams meant, and he got to
+be a great man. And his brothers went to Egypt to buy corn, and Joseph
+sold them some, and then he let them know who he was. And he sent them
+home to bring their papa to Egypt, and then they all lived there
+together."
+
+"That ain't it," remarked Toddie, with the air of a man who felt
+himself to be unjustly treated. "Is it, Budge?"
+
+"Oh, no," said Budge, "you didn't read it good a bit; I'LL tell you how
+it is. Once there was a little boy named Joseph, an' he had eleven
+budders--they was AWFUL eleven budders. An' his papa gave him a new
+coat, an' his budders hadn't nothin' but their old jackets to wear. An'
+one day he was carryin' 'em their dinner, an' they put him in a deep,
+dark hole, but they didn't put his nice new coat in--they killed a kid,
+an' dipped the coat--just think of doin' that to a nice new coat--they
+dipped it in the kid's blood, an' made it all bloody."
+
+"All bluggy," echoed Toddie, with ferocious emphasis. Budge continued:--
+
+"But there were some Ishmalites comin' along that way, and the awful
+eleven budders took him out of the deep dark hole, an' sold him to the
+Ishmalites, an' they sold him away down in Egypt. An' his poor old papa
+cried, an' cried, 'cause he thought a big lion ate Joseph up; but he
+wasn't ate up a bit; but there wasn't no post-office nor choo-choos,
+[Footnote: railway cars] nor stages in Egypt, an' there wasn't any
+telegraphs, so Joseph couldn't let his papa know where he was; an' he
+got so smart an' so good that the king of Egypt let him sell all the
+corn an' take care of the money; an' one day some men came to buy some
+corn, an' Joseph looked at 'em an' there they was his own budders! An'
+he scared 'em like everything; I'D have SLAPPED 'em all if I'D been
+Joseph, but he just scared 'em, an' then he let 'em know who he was,
+an' he kissed 'em an' he didn't whip 'em, or make 'em go without their
+breakfast, or stand in a corner, nor none of them things; an' then he
+sent 'em back for their papa, an' when he saw his papa comin', he ran
+like everything, and gave him a great big hug and a kiss. Joseph was
+too big to ask his papa if he'd brought him any candy, but he was awful
+glad to see him. An' the king gave Joseph's papa a nice farm, an' they
+all had real good times after that."
+
+"And they dipped the coat in the blood; an' made it all bluggy,"
+reiterated Toddie.
+
+"Uncle Harry," said Budge, "what do you think MY papa would do if he
+thought I was all ate up by a lion? I guess he'd cry AWFUL, don't you?
+Now tell us another story--oh, I'LL tell you--read us 'bout--"
+
+"'Bout Bliaff," interrupted Toddie.
+
+"YOU tell ME about him, Toddie," said I.
+
+"Why," said Toddie, "Bliaff was a brate bid man, an' Dave was brate
+little man, an' Bliaff said, 'Come over here'n an' I'll eat you up,'
+an' Dave said, '_I_ ain't fyaid of you.' So Dave put five little stones
+in a sling an' asked de Lord to help him, an' let ze sling go bang into
+bequeen Bliaff's eyes an' knocked him down dead, an' Dave took Bliaff's
+sword an' sworded Bliaff's head off, an' made it all bluggy, an' Bliaff
+runned away." This short narration was accompanied by more spirited and
+unexpected gestures than Mr. Gough ever puts into a long lecture.
+
+"I don't like 'bout Goliath at all," remarked Budge. "I'D like to hear
+'bout Ferus."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Ferus; don't you know?"
+
+"Never heard of him, Budge."
+
+"Why--y--y--!" exclaimed Budge; "didn't you have no papa when you was a
+little boy?"
+
+"Yes, but he never told me about any one named Ferus; there's no such
+person named in Anthon's Classical Dictionary, either. What sort of a
+man was he?"
+
+"Why, once there was a man, an' his name was Ferus--Offerus, an' he
+went about fightin' for kings, but when any king got afraid of anybody,
+he wouldn't fight for him no more. An' one day he couldn't find no
+kings that wasn't afraid of nobody. An' the people told him the Lord
+was the biggest king in the world, an' he wasn't afraid of nobody or
+nothing. An' he asked 'em where he could find the Lord, and they said
+he was way up in heaven so nobody couldn't see him but the angels, but
+he liked folks to WORK for him instead of fight. So Ferus wanted to
+know what kind of work he could do, an' the people said there was a
+river not far off, where there wasn't no ferry-boats, cos the water run
+so fast, an' they guessed if he'd carry folks across, the Lord would
+like it. So Ferus went there, and he cut him a good, strong cane, an'
+whenever anybody wanted to go across the river he'd carry 'em on his
+back.
+
+"One night he was sittin' in his little house by the fire, and smokin'
+his pipe an' readin' the paper, an' 'twas rainin' an' blowin' an'
+hailin' an' stormin', an' he was so glad there wasn't anybody wantin'
+to go 'cross the river, when he heard somebody call out 'Ferus!' An' he
+looked out the window, but he couldn't see nobody, so he sat down
+again. Then somebody called 'Ferus!' again, and he opened the door
+again, an' there was a little bit of a boy, 'bout as big as Toddie. An'
+Ferus said, 'Hullo, young fellow, does your mother know you're out?'
+An' the little boy said, 'I want to go 'cross the river.'--'Well,' says
+Ferus, 'you're a mighty little fellow to be travelin' alone, but hop
+up.' So the little boy jumped up on Ferus's back, and Ferus walked into
+the water. Oh, my--WASN'T it cold? An' every step he took that little
+boy got heavier, so Ferus nearly tumbled down an' they liked to both
+got drownded. An' when they got across the river Ferus said, 'Well, you
+ARE the heaviest small fry I ever carried,' an' he turned around to
+look at him, an' 'twasn't no little boy at all--'twas a big man--'twas
+Christ. An' Christ said, 'Ferus, I heard you was tryin' to work for me,
+so I thought I'd come down an' see you, an' not let you know who I was.
+An' now you shall have a new name; you shall be called CHRISTofferus,
+cos that means Christ-carrier.' An' everybody called him Christofferus
+after that, an' when he died they called him SAINT Christopher, cos
+Saint is what they called good people when they're dead."
+
+Budge himself had the face of a rapt saint as he told this story, but
+my contemplation of his countenance was suddenly arrested by Toddie,
+who, disapproving of the unexciting nature of his brother's recital,
+had strayed into the garden, investigated a hornet's nest, been stung,
+and set up a piercing shriek. He ran in to me, and as I hastily picked
+him up, he sobbed:--
+
+"Want to be wocked. [Footnote: Rocked.] Want 'Toddie one boy day.'"
+
+I rocked him violently, and petted him tenderly, but again he sobbed:--
+
+"Want 'Toddie one boy day.'"
+
+"What DOES the child mean?" I exclaimed.
+
+"He wants you to sing to him about 'Charley boy one day,'" said Budge.
+"He always wants mamma to sing that when he's hurt, an' then he stops
+crying."
+
+"I don't know it," said I. "Won't 'Roll, Jordan,' do, Toddie?"
+
+"I'LL tell you how it goes," said Budge, and forthwith the youth sang
+the following song, a line at a time, I following him in words and
+air:--
+
+    "Where is my little bastik [Footnote: Basket.] gone?"
+    Said Charley, one boy day;
+    "I guess some little boy or girl
+    Has taken it away.
+
+    "An' kittie, too--where ISH she gone?
+    Oh dear, what shall I do?
+    I wish I could my bastik find,
+    An' little kittie, too.
+
+    "I'll go to mamma's room an' look;
+    Perhaps she may be there;
+    For kittie likes to take a nap
+    In mamma's easy chair.
+
+    "O mamma, mamma, come an' look
+    See what a little heap!
+    Here's kittie in the bastik here,
+    All cuddled down to sleep."
+
+Where the applicability of this poem to my nephew's peculiar trouble
+appeared, I could not see, but as I finished it, his sobs gave place to
+a sigh of relief.
+
+"Toddie," said I, "do you love your Uncle Harry?"
+
+"Esh, I DO love you."
+
+"Then tell me how that ridiculous song comforts you."
+
+"Makes me feel good, an' all nicey," replied Toddie.
+
+"Wouldn't you feel just as good if I sang, 'Plunged in a gulf of dark
+despair'?"
+
+"No, don't like dokdishpairs; if a dokdishpair done anyfing to me, I'd
+knock it right down dead."
+
+With this extremely lucid remark, our conversation on this particular
+subject ended; but I wondered, during a few uneasy moments, whether the
+temporary mental aberration which had once afflicted Helen's
+grandfather and mine was not reappearing in this, his youngest
+descendant. My wondering was cut short by Budge, who remarked, in a
+confident tone:--
+
+"Now, Uncle Harry, we'll have the whistles, I guess."
+
+I acted upon the suggestion, and led the way to the woods. I had not
+had occasion to seek a hickory sapling before for years; not since the
+war, in fact, when I learned how hot a fire small hickory sticks would
+make. I had not sought wood for whistles since--gracious, nearly a
+quarter of a century ago! The dissimilar associations called up by
+these recollections threatened to put me in a frame of mind which might
+have resulted in a bad poem, had not my nephews kept up a lively
+succession of questions such as no one but children can ask. The
+whistles completed, I was marched, with music, to the place where the
+"Jacks" grew. It was just such a place as boys instinctively delight
+in--low, damp, and boggy, with a brook hiding treacherously away under
+overhanging ferns and grasses. The children knew by sight the plant
+which bore the "Jacks," and every discovery was announced by a piercing
+shriek of delight. At first I looked hurriedly toward the brook as each
+yell clove the air; but, as I became accustomed to it, my attention was
+diverted by some exquisite ferns. Suddenly, however, a succession of
+shrieks announced that something was wrong, and across a large fern I
+saw a small face in a great deal of agony. Budge was hurrying to the
+relief of his brother, and was soon as deeply imbedded as Toddie was in
+the rich black mud, at the bottom of the brook. I dashed to the rescue,
+stood astride the brook, and offered a hand to each boy, when a
+treacherous tuft of grass gave way, and, with a glorious splash, I went
+in myself. This accident turned Toddie's sorrow to laughter, but I
+can't say I made light of my misfortune on that account. To fall into
+CLEAN water is not pleasant, even when one is trout-fishing; but to be
+clad in white pants, and suddenly drop nearly knee-deep in the lap of
+mother Earth is quite a different thing. I hastily picked up the
+children, and threw them upon the bank, and then wrathfully strode out
+myself, and tried to shake myself as I have seen a Newfoundland dog do.
+The shake was not a success--it caused my trouser-leg to flap dismally
+about my ankles, and sent the streams of loathsome ooze trickling down
+into my shoes. My hat, of drab felt, had fallen off by the brookside,
+and been plentifully spattered as I got out. I looked at my youngest
+nephew with speechless indignation.
+
+"Uncle Harry," said Budge, "'twas real good of the Lord to let you be
+with us, else Toddie might have been drownded."
+
+"Yes," said I, "and I shouldn't have much--"
+
+"Ocken Hawwy," cried Toddie, running impetuously toward me, pulling me
+down, and patting my cheek with his muddy black hand, "I LOVES you for
+takin' me out de water."
+
+"I accept your apology," said I, "but let's hurry home." There was but
+one residence to pass, and that, thank fortune, was so densely screened
+by shrubbery that the inmates could not see the road. To be sure, we
+were on a favorite driving road, but we could reach home in five
+minutes, and we might dodge into the woods if we heard a carriage
+coming. Ha! There came a carriage already, and we--was there ever a
+sorrier-looking group? There were ladies in the carriage, too--could it
+be--of course it was--did the evil spirit, which guided those children
+always, send an attendant for Miss Mayton before he began operations?
+There she was, anyway--cool, neat, dainty, trying to look collected,
+but severely flushed by the attempt. It was of no use to drop my eyes,
+for she had already recognized me; so I turned to her a face which I
+think must have been just the one--unless more defiant--that I carried
+into two or three cavalry charges.
+
+"You seem to have been having a real good time together," said she,
+with a conventional smile, as the carriage passed. "Remember, you're
+all going to call on me tomorrow afternoon."
+
+Bless the girl! Her heart was as quick as her eyes--almost any other
+young lady would have devoted her entire energy to laughing on such an
+occasion, but SHE took her earliest opportunity to make me feel at
+ease. Such a royal hearted woman deserves to--I caught myself just
+here, with my cheeks growing quite hot under the mud Toddie had put on
+them, and I led our retreat with a more stylish carriage than my
+appearance could possibly have warranted, and then I consigned my
+nephews to the maid with very much the air of an officer turning over a
+large number of prisoners he had captured. I hastily changed my soiled
+clothing for my best--not that I expected to see any one, but because
+of a sudden increase in the degree of respect I felt toward myself.
+When the children were put to bed, and I had no one but my thoughts for
+companions, I spent a delightful hour or two in imagining as possible
+some changes of which I had never dared to think before.
+
+On Monday morning I was in the garden at sunrise. Toddie was to carry
+his expiatory bouquet to Miss Mayton that day, and I proposed that no
+pains should be spared to make his atonement as handsome as possible. I
+canvassed carefully every border, bed, and detached flowering plant
+until I had as accurate an idea of their possibilities as if I had
+inventoried the flowers in pen and ink. This done, I consulted the
+servant as to the unsoiled clothing of my nephews. She laid out their
+entire wardrobe for my inspection, and after a rigid examination of
+everything I selected the suits which the boys were to wear in the
+afternoon. Then I told the girl that the boys were going with me after
+dinner to call on some ladies, and that I desired that she should wash
+and dress them carefully.
+
+"Tell me just what time you'll start, sir, and I'll begin an hour
+beforehand," said she. "That's the only way to be sure that they don't
+disgrace you."
+
+For breakfast we had, among other things, some stewed oysters served in
+soup-plates.
+
+"O Todd," shrieked Budge, "there's the turtle-plates again--oh, AIN'T I
+glad!"
+
+"Oo--ee--turtle pyates," squealed Toddie.
+
+"What on earth do you mean, boys?" I demanded.
+
+"I'll show you," said Budge, jumping down from his chair and bringing
+his plate of oysters cautiously toward me. "Now you just put your head
+down underneath my plate, and look up, and you'll see a turtle."
+
+For a moment I forgot that I was not at a restaurant, and I took the
+plate, held it up, and examined its bottom.
+
+"There!" said Budge, pointing to the trademark, in colors, of the
+makers of the crockery, "don't you see the turtle?"
+
+I abruptly ordered Budge to his seat, unmoved even by Toddie's remark,
+that--
+
+"Dey ish turtles, but dey can't knawl awound like udder turtles."
+
+After breakfast I devoted a great deal of fussy attention to myself.
+Never did my own wardrobe seem so meager and ill-assorted; never did I
+cut myself so many times while shaving; never did I use such
+unsatisfactory shoe-polish. I finally gave up in despair my effort to
+appear genteel, and devoted myself to the bouquet. I cut almost flowers
+enough to dress a church, and then remorselessly excluded every one
+which was in the least particular imperfect. In making the bouquet I
+enjoyed the benefit of my nephews' assistance and counsel and took
+enforced part in conversation which flowers suggested.
+
+"Ocken Hawwy," said Toddie, "ish heaven all like this, wif pretty
+f'owers? Cos I don't see what ze angels ever turns out for if 'tis."
+
+"Uncle Harry," said Budge, "when the leaves all go up and down and
+wriggle around so, are they talking to the wind?"
+
+"I--I guess so, old fellow."
+
+"Who are you making that bouquet for, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge.
+
+"For a lady--for Miss Mayton--that lady that saw us all muddy yesterday
+afternoon," said I.
+
+"Oh, I like her," said Budge. "She looks so nice and pretty--just like
+a cake--just as if she was good to eat--Oh, I just love her, don't YOU?"
+
+"Well, I respect her very highly, Budge."
+
+"'Spect? What does 'spect mean?"
+
+"Why, it means that I think she's a lady--a real pleasant lady-just the
+nicest sort of lady in the world--the sort of person I'd like to see
+every day, and like to see her better than any one else."
+
+"Oh, why, 'spect an' love means just the same thing, don't they, Uncle
+Har--"
+
+"Budge," I exclaimed, somewhat hastily "run ask Maggie for a piece of
+string--quick!"
+
+"All right," said Budge, moving off, "but they DO, don't they?"
+
+At two o'clock I instructed Maggie to dress my nephews, and at three we
+started to make our call. To carry Toddie's bouquet, and hold a hand of
+each boy so as to keep them from darting into the hedges for
+grasshoppers, and the gutters for butterflies, was no easy work, but I
+managed to do it. As we approached Mrs. Clarkson's boarding-house I
+felt my hat was over one ear, and my cravat awry, but there was no
+opportunity to rearrange them, for I saw Alice Mayton on the piazza,
+and felt that she saw me. Handing the bouquet to Toddie, and promising
+him three sticks of candy if he would be careful and not drop it, we
+entered the garden. The moment we were inside the hedge and Toddie saw
+a man going over the lawn with a lawn-mower, he shrieked: "Oh, deresh a
+cutter-grass!" and dropped the bouquet with the carelessness born of
+perfect ecstasy. I snatched it before it reached the ground, dragged
+the offending youth up the walk, saluted Miss Mayton, and told Toddie
+to give the bouquet to the lady. This he succeeded in doing, but as
+Miss Mayton thanked him and stooped to kiss him he wriggled off the
+piazza like a little eel, shouted, "Tum on!" to his brother, and a
+moment later my nephews were following the "cutter-grass" at a
+respectful distance in the rear.
+
+"Those are my sister's best children in the world, Miss Mayton," said I.
+
+"Bless the little darlings!" replied the lady; "I DO love to see
+children enjoying themselves."
+
+"So do I," said I, "when I'm not responsible for their well-being; but
+if the effort I've expended on those boys had been directed toward the
+interests of my employers, those worthy gentlemen would consider me
+invaluable."
+
+Miss Mayton made some witty reply, and we settled to a pleasant chat
+about mutual acquaintances, about books, pictures, music, and the
+gossip of our set. I would cheerfully have discussed Herbert Spencer's
+system, the Assyrian Tablets, or any other dry subject with Miss
+Mayton, and felt that I was richly repaid by the pleasure of seeing
+her. Handsome, intelligent, composed, tastefully dressed, without a
+suspicion of the flirt or the languid woman of fashion about her, she
+awakened to the uttermost every admiring sentiment and every manly
+feeling. But, alas, my enjoyment was probably more than I deserved, so
+it was cut short. There were other ladies boarding at Mrs. Clarkson's,
+and as Miss Mayton truthfully observed at our first meeting, men were
+very scarce at Hillcrest. So the ladies, by the merest accident, of
+course, happened upon the piazza, and each one was presented to me, and
+common civility made it impossible for me to speak to Miss Mayton more
+than once in ten minutes. At any other time and place I should have
+found the meeting of so many ladies a delightful experience, but now--
+
+Suddenly a compound shriek arose from the lawn, and all the ladies
+sprang to their feet. I followed their example, setting my teeth firmly
+and viciously, hoping that whichever nephew had been hurt was BADLY
+hurt. We saw Toddie running towards us with one hand in his mouth,
+while Budge ran beside him, exclaiming:--
+
+"POOR little Toddie! Don't cry! DOES it hurt you awful? Never
+mind--Uncle Harry'll comfort you. Don't cry, Toddie DE-ar!"
+
+Both boys reached the piazza steps, and clambered up, Budge
+exclaiming:--
+
+"O, Uncle Harry, Toddie put his fingers in the little wheels of the
+cutter-grass, an' it turned just the least little biddie, an' it hurted
+him."
+
+But Toddie ran up to me, clasped my legs, and sobbed.
+
+"Sing 'Toddie one boy day.'"
+
+My blood seemed to freeze. I could have choked that dreadful child,
+suffering though he was. I stooped over him, caressed him, promised him
+candy, took out my watch and gave it to him to play with, but he
+returned to his original demand. A lady--the homeliest in the
+party--suggested that she should bind up his hand, and I inwardly
+blessed her, but he reiterated his request for "Toddie one boy day,"
+and sobbed pitifully.
+
+"What DOES he mean?" asked Miss Mayton.
+
+"He wants Uncle Harry to sing, 'Charley boy one day,'" explained Budge;
+"he always wants that song when he's hurt any way."
+
+"Oh, do sing it to him, Mr. Burton," pleaded Miss Mayton; and all the
+other ladies exclaimed, "Oh, do!"
+
+I wrathfully picked him up in my arms, and hummed the air of the
+detested song.
+
+"Sit in a wockin'-chair," sobbed Toddie.
+
+I obeyed; and then my tormentor remarked:--
+
+"You don't sing the wydes (words),--I wants the wydes."
+
+I sang the words as softly as possible with my lips close to his ear,
+but he roared:--
+
+"Sing louder."
+
+"I don't know any more of it, Toddie," I exclaimed in desperation.
+
+"Oh, I'll tell it all to you, Uncle Harry," said Budge. And there,
+before that audience, and HER, I was obliged to sing that dreadful
+doggerel, line for line, as Budge repeated it. My teeth were set tight,
+my brow grew clammy, and I gazed upon Toddie with terrible thoughts in
+my mind. No one laughed--I grew so desperate that a titter would have
+given relief. At last I heard some one whisper:--
+
+"SEE how he loves him! Poor man!--he's in perfect agony over the little
+fellow."
+
+Had not the song reached its natural end just then, I believe I should
+have tossed my wounded nephew over the piazza rail. As it was, I set
+him upon his feet, announced the necessity of our departure, and began
+to take leave, when Miss Mayton's mother insisted that we should stay
+to dinner.
+
+"For myself, I should be delighted, Mrs. Mayton," said I; "but my
+nephews have hardly learned company manners yet. I'm afraid my sister
+wouldn't forgive me if she heard I had taken them out to dinner."
+
+"Oh, I'll take care of the little dears," said Miss Mayton; "they'll be
+good with ME, I KNOW."
+
+"I couldn't be so unkind as to let you try it, Miss Mayton," I replied.
+But she insisted, and the pleasure of submitting to her will was so
+great that I would have risked even greater mischief. So Miss Mayton
+sat down to dinner with Budge upon one side and Toddie on the other,
+while I was fortunately placed opposite, from which position I could
+indulge in warning winks and frowns. The soup was served. I signaled
+the boys to tuck their napkins under their chins, and then turned to
+speak to the lady on my right. She politely inclined her head toward
+me, but her thoughts seemed elsewhere; following her eyes, I beheld my
+youngest nephew with his plate upraised in both hands, his head on the
+table-cloth, and his eyes turned painfully upward. I dared not speak,
+for fear he would drop the plate. Suddenly he withdrew his head, put on
+an angelic smile, tilted his plate so part of its contents sought
+refuge in the fold of Miss Mayton's dainty, snowy dress, while the
+offender screamed:--
+
+"Oo--ee--!--zha turtle on my pyate!--Budgie, zha turtle on my pyate!"
+
+Budge was about to raise the plate when he caught my eye and desisted.
+Poor Miss Mayton actually looked discomposed for the first time in her
+life, so far as I knew or could imagine. She recovered quickly,
+however, and treated that wretched boy with the most Christian
+forbearance and consideration during the remainder of the meal. When
+the dessert was finished she quickly excused herself, while I removed
+Toddie to a secluded corner of the piazza, and favored him with a
+lecture which caused him to howl pitifully, and compelled me to caress
+him and undo all the good which my rebukes had done. Then he and Budge
+removed themselves to the lawn, while I awaited Miss Mayton's
+reappearance, to offer an apology for Toddie, and to make our adieus.
+It was the custom of the ladies at Mrs. Clarkson's to stroll about the
+lovely rural walks after dinner and until twilight; and on this
+particular evening they departed in twos and threes, leaving me to make
+my apology without witnesses. I was rather sorry they went; it was not
+pleasant to feel that I was principally responsible for my nephews'
+blunder, and to have no opportunity to allay my conscience-pangs by
+conversation. It seemed to me Miss Mayton was forever in appearing; I
+even called up my nephews to have some one to talk to.
+
+Suddenly she appeared, and in an instant I fervently blessed Toddie and
+the soup which the child had sent upon its aimless wanderings. I would
+rather pay the price of a fine dress than try to describe Miss Mayton's
+attire; I can only say that in style, color and ornament it became her
+perfectly, and set off the beauties of a face which I had never before
+thought was more than pleasing and intelligent. Perhaps the anger which
+was excusable after Toddie's graceless caper had something to do with
+putting unusual color into her cheeks, and a brighter sparkle than
+usual in her eyes. Whatever was the cause, she looked queenly, and I
+half imagined that I detected in her face a gleam of satisfaction at
+the involuntary start which her unexpected appearance caused me to
+make. She accepted my apology for Toddie with queenly graciousness, and
+then, instead of proposing that we should follow the other ladies, as a
+moment before I had hoped she would, she dropped into a chair. I
+accepted the invitation; the children should have been in bed half an
+hour before, but my sense of responsibility had departed when Miss
+Mayton appeared. The little scamps were safe until they should perform
+some new and unexpected act of impishness. They retired to one end of
+the piazza, and busied themselves in experiments upon a large
+Newfoundland dog, while I, the happiest man alive, talked to the
+glorious woman before me, and enjoyed the spectacle of her radiant
+beauty. The twilight came and deepened, but imagination prevented the
+vision from fading. With the coming of the darkness and the starlight,
+our voices unconsciously dropped to lower tones, and HER voice seemed
+purest music. And yet we said nothing which all the world might not
+have listened to without suspecting a secret. The ladies returned in
+little groups, but either out of womanly intuition or in answer to my
+unspoken but fervent prayers, passed us and went into the house. I was
+affected by an odd mixture of desperate courage and despicable
+cowardice. I determined to tell her all, yet I shrank from the task
+with more terror than ever befell me in the first steps of a charge.
+
+Suddenly a small shadow came from behind us and stood between us, and
+the voice of Budge remarked:--
+
+"Uncle Harry 'spects you, Miss Mayton."
+
+"Suspects me?--of what, pray?" exclaimed the lady, patting my nephew's
+cheek.
+
+"Budge!" said I--I feel that my voice rose nearly to a scream--"Budge,
+I must beg of you to respect the sanctity of confidential
+communications."
+
+"What is it, Budge?" persisted Miss Mayton; "you know the old adage,
+Mr. Burton: 'Children and fools speak the truth.' Of what does he
+suspect me, Budge?"
+
+"'Tain't SUS-pect at all," said Budge, "it's es-pect."
+
+"Expect?" echoed Miss Mayton.
+
+"No, not 'ex,' it's ES-spect. I know all about it, 'cause I asked him.
+Espect is what folks do when they think you're nice, and like to talk
+to you, and--"
+
+"Respect is what the boy is trying to say, Miss Mayton," I interrupted,
+to prevent what I feared might follow. "Budge has a terrifying faculty
+for asking questions, and the result of some of them, this morning, was
+my endeavor to explain to him the nature of the respect in which
+gentlemen hold ladies."
+
+"Yes," continued Budge, "I know all about it. Only Uncle Harry don't
+say it right. What he calls espect _I_ calls LOVE."
+
+There was an awkward pause--it seemed an age. Another blunder, and all
+on account of those dreadful children. I could think of no possible way
+to turn the conversation; stranger yet, Miss Mayton could not do so
+either. Something MUST be done--I could at least be honest, come what
+would--I would be honest.
+
+"Miss Mayton," said I, hastily, earnestly, but in a very low tone,
+"Budge is a marplot, but he is a truthful interpreter for all that. But
+whatever my fate may be, please do not suspect me of falling suddenly
+into love for a holiday's diversion. My malady is of some months'
+standing. I--"
+
+"I want to talk SOME," observed Budge. "You talk all the whole time.
+I--I--when _I_ loves anybody I kisses them."
+
+Miss Mayton gave a little start, and my thoughts followed each other
+with unimagined rapidity. SHE did not turn the conversation--it could
+not be possible that she COULD not. She was not angry, or she would
+have expressed herself. Could it be that--
+
+I bent over her and acted upon Budge's suggestion. As she displayed no
+resentment, I pressed my lips a second time to her forehead, then she
+raised her head slightly, and I saw, in spite of darkness and shadows,
+that Alice Mayton had surrendered at discretion. Taking her hand and
+straightening myself to my full height, I offered to the Lord mere
+fervent thanks than he ever heard from me in church. Then I heard Budge
+say, "_I_ wants to kiss you, too," and I saw my glorious Alice snatch
+the little scamp into her arms, and treat him with more affection than
+I ever imagined was in her nature. Then she seized Toddie, and gave him
+a few tokens of forgiveness--I dare not think they were of gratitude.
+
+Suddenly two or three ladies came upon the piazza.
+
+"Come, boys," said I. "Then I'll call with the carriage tomorrow at
+three, Miss Mayton. Good evening."
+
+"Good evening," replied the sweetest voice in the world; "I'll be ready
+at three."
+
+"Budge," said I, as soon as we were fairly outside the hedge-gate,
+"what do you like better than anything else in the world?"
+
+"Candy," said Budge, very promptly.
+
+"What next?"
+
+"Oranges."
+
+"What next?"
+
+"Oh, figs, an' raisins, an' dear little kittie-kitties, an' drums, an'
+picture-books, an' little bakin' dishes to make mud-pies in, an'
+turtles, an' little wheelbarrows."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Oh, yes--great big black dogs--an' a goat, an' a wagon for him to draw
+me in."
+
+"Very well, old fellow--you shall have every one of those things
+tomorrow."
+
+"Oh--h--h--h--h!" exclaimed Budge, "I guess you're something like the
+Lord, ain't you?"
+
+"What makes you think so, Budge?"
+
+"Oh, 'cause you can do such lots of things at once. But ain't poor
+little Tod goin' to have noffin'?"
+
+"Yes, everything he wants. What would you like, Toddie?"
+
+"Wants a candy cigar," replied Toddie.
+
+"What else?"
+
+"Don't want NUFFIN' else--don't want to be boddered wif LOTS of fings."
+
+The thoughts which were mine that night--the sense of how glorious a
+thing it is to be a man and be loved--the humility that comes with such
+a victory as I had gained--the rapid alternation of happy thoughts and
+noble resolutions--what man is there who does not know my whole story
+better than I can tell it? I put my nephews to bed; I told them every
+story they asked for; and when Budge, in saying his prayers, said "an'
+bless that nice lady that Uncle Harry 'spects," I interrupted his
+devotions with a hearty hug. The children had been awake so far beyond
+their usual hour for retiring that they dropped asleep without giving
+any special notice of their intention to do so. Asleep, their faces
+were simply angelic. As I stood, candle in hand, gazing gratefully upon
+them, I remembered a sadly neglected duty. I hurried to the library and
+wrote the following to my sister:
+
+
+"HILLCREST, Monday Night.
+
+"DEAR HELEN:--I should have written you before had I been exactly
+certain what to say about your boys. I confess that until now I have
+been blind to some of their virtues, and have imagined I detected an
+occasional fault. But the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see
+clearly that my nephews are angels--positively angels. If I seem to
+speak extravagantly, I beg to refer you to Alice Mayton for collateral
+evidence. Don't come home at all--everything is just as it should
+be--even if you come, I guess I'll invite myself to spend the rest of
+the summer with you; I've changed my mind about its being a bore to
+live out of town and take trains back and forth every day. Ask Tom to
+think over such bits of real estate in your neighborhood as he imagines
+I might like.
+
+"I repeat it, the boys are angels, and Alice Mayton is another, while
+the happiest man in the white goods trade is
+
+"Your affectionate brother
+
+"HARRY."
+
+
+Early next morning I sought the society of my nephews. It was
+absolutely necessary that I should overflow to SOME one--some one who
+was sympathetic and innocent and pure. I longed for my sister--my
+mother, but to SOME one I must talk at once. Budge fulfilled my
+requirements exactly; he was an excellent listener, very sympathetic by
+nature, and quick to respond. Not the wisdom of the most reverend sage
+alive could have been so grateful to my ear as that child's prattle was
+on that delightful morning. As for Toddie--blessed be the law of
+compensation! his faculty of repetition, and of echoing whatever he
+heard said, caused him to murmur "Miff Mayton, Miff Mayton," all
+morning long, and the sound gained in sweetness by its ceaseless
+iteration. To be sure, Budge took early and frequent occasions to
+remind me of my promises of the night before, and Toddie occasionally
+demanded the promised candy cigar; but these very interruptions only
+added joy to my own topic of interest each time it was resumed. The
+filling of Budge's orders occupied two or three hours and all the
+vacant space in the carriage; even then the goat and goat-carriage were
+compelled to follow behind.
+
+The program for the afternoon was arranged to the satisfaction of every
+one. I gave the coachman, Mike, a dollar to harness the goat and teach
+the children to drive him; this left me free to drive off without being
+followed by two small figures and two pitiful howls.
+
+I always believed a horse was infected by the spirit of his driver. My
+dear old four-footed military companions always seemed to perfectly
+comprehend my desires and intentions, and certainly my brother-in-law's
+horses entered into my own spirits on this particular afternoon. They
+stepped proudly, they arched their powerful necks handsomely, their
+feet seemed barely to touch the ground; yet they did not grow restive
+under the bit, nor were they frightened even at a hideous steam
+road-rolling machine which passed us. As I drove up to Mrs. Clarkson's
+door I found that most of the boarders were on the piazza--the memories
+of ladies are usually good at times. Alice immediately appeared,
+composed of course, but more radiant than ever.
+
+"Why, where are the boys?" she exclaimed.
+
+"I was afraid they might annoy your mother," I replied, "so I left them
+behind."
+
+"Oh, mother hardly feels well enough to go today," said she; "she is
+lying down."
+
+"Then we can pick up the boys on the road," said I, for which remark,
+my enchantress, already descending the steps, gave me a look which the
+ladies behind her would have given their best switches to have seen.
+
+We drove off as decorously as if it were Sunday and we were driving to
+church; we industriously pointed out to each other every handsome
+garden and tasteful residence we passed; we met other people driving,
+and conversed fluently upon their horses, carriages and dress. But when
+we reached the edge of the town, and I turned into "Happy Valley," a
+road following the depressions and curves of a long, well-wooded
+valley, in which there was not a single straight line, I turned and
+looked into my darling's face. Her eyes met mine, and, although they
+were full of a happiness which I had never seen in them before, they
+filled with tears, and their dear owner dropped her head on my
+shoulder. What we said on that long drive would not interest the
+reader. I have learned by experience to skip all love talks in novels;
+no matter how delightful the lovers may be. Recalling now our
+conversation, it does not seem to me to have had anything wonderful it
+in. I will only say that if I had been happy on the evening before, my
+happiness now seemed to be sanctified; to be favored with the love and
+confidence of a simple girl scarcely past her childhood is to receive a
+greater honor than court or field can bestow; but even this honor is
+far surpassed by that which comes to a man when a woman of rare
+intelligence, tact and knowledge of society and the world, unburdens
+her heart of all its hopes and fears, and unhesitatingly leaves her
+destiny to be shaped by his love. Women like Alice Mayton do not thus
+give themselves unreservedly away except when their trust is born of
+knowledge as well as affection, and the realization of all this changed
+me on that afternoon from whatever I had been into what I had long
+hoped I might one day be.
+
+But the hours flew rapidly, and I reluctantly turned the horses' heads
+homeward. We had left almost the whole of "Happy Valley" behind us, and
+were approaching residences again.
+
+"Now we must be very proper," said Alice.
+
+"Certainly," I replied, "here's a good--by to happy nonsense for this
+afternoon."
+
+I leaned toward her, and gently placed one arm about her neck; she
+raised her dear face, from which joy and trust had banished every
+indication of caution and reserve, my lips sought hers, when suddenly
+we heard a most unearthly, discordant shriek, which presently separated
+into two, each of which prolonged itself indefinitely. The horses
+started, and Alice--blessed be all frights, now, henceforth, and
+forevermore!--clung tightly to me. The sounds seemed to be approaching
+us, and were accompanied by a lively rattling noise, that seemed to be
+made by something wooden. Suddenly, as we approached a bend of the
+road, I saw my youngest nephew appear from some unknown space, describe
+a parabolic curve in the air, ricochet slightly from an earthy
+protuberance in the road, and make a final stop in the gutter. At the
+same time there appeared, from behind the bend, the goat, then the
+carriage dragging on one side, and lastly, the boy Budge, grasping
+tightly the back of the carriage body, and howling frightfully. A
+direct collision between the carriage and a stone caused Budge to loose
+his hold, while the goat, after taking in the scene, trotted leisurely
+off, and disappeared in a road leading to the house of his late owner.
+
+"Budge," I shouted, "stop that bawling, and come here. Where's Mike?"
+
+"He--boo--hoo--went to--hoo--light his--boo--hoo--hoo--pipe, an' I just
+let the--boo--hoo--whip go against to the goat, an' then he scattooed."
+
+"Nashty old goat scaddooed," said Toddie, in corroboration.
+
+"Well, walk right home, and tell Maggie to wash and dress you," said I.
+
+"O Harry," pleaded Alice, "after they've been in such danger! Come here
+to your own Aunt Alice, Budgie dear,--and you, too, Toddie,--you know
+you said we could pick the boys up on the road, Harry. There,
+there--don't cry--let me wipe the ugly old dirt off you, and kiss the
+face, and make it well."
+
+"Alice," I protested, "don't let those dirty boys clamber all over you
+in that way."
+
+"Silence, sir," said she, with mock dignity; "who gave me my lover, I
+should like to ask?"
+
+So we drove up to the boarding-house with the air of people who had
+been devoting themselves to a couple of very disreputable children, and
+I drove swiftly away again, lest the children should dispel the
+illusion. We soon met Mike, running. The moment he recognized us, he
+shouted:--
+
+"Aye, ye little dhivils,--beggin' yer pardon, Masther Harry, an'
+thankin' the Howly Mither that their good-for-nothin' little bones
+ain't broke to bits. Av they saw a hippypottymus hitched to Pharaoh's
+chariot, they'd think 'emselves jist the byes to take the bossin' av
+it, the spalpeens."
+
+But no number of ordinary hippopotami and chariots could have disturbed
+the heavenly tranquillity of my mind on this most glorious of evenings.
+Even a subtle sense of the fitness of things seemed to overshadow my
+nephews. Perhaps the touch of my enchantress did it; perhaps it came
+only from the natural relapse from great excitement; but no matter what
+the reason was, the fact remains that for the rest of the evening two
+very dirty suits of clothes held two children who gave one some idea of
+how the denizens of Paradise might seem and act. They even ate their
+suppers without indulging in any of the repulsive ways of which they
+had so large an assortment, and they did not surreptitiously remove
+from the table any fragments of bread and butter to leave on the piano,
+in the card-basket, and other places inappropriate to the reception of
+such varieties of abandoned property. They demanded a song after
+supper, but when I sang, "Drink to Me only with Thine Eyes," and "Thou,
+Thou, Reign'st in this Bosom," they stood by with silent tongues and
+appreciative eyes. When they went to bed, I accompanied them by special
+invitation, but they showed no disposition to engage in the usual
+bedtime frolic and miniature pandemonium. Budge, when in bed, closed
+his eyes, folded his hand and prayed:--
+
+"Dear Lord, bless papa an' mamma, an' Toddie, an' Uncle Harry, an'
+everybody else; yes, an' bless just lots that lovely, lovely lady that
+comforted me after the goat was bad to me, an' let her comfort me lots
+of times, for Christ's sake, Amen."
+
+And Toddie wriggled, twisted, breathed heavily, threw his head back,
+and prayed:
+
+"Dee Lord, don't let dat old goat fro me into de gutter on my head
+aden, an' let Ocken Hawwy an' ze pitty lady be dere netst time I dest
+hurted."
+
+Then the good-night salutations were exchanged, and I left the little
+darlings and enjoyed communion with my own thoughts which were as
+peaceful and ecstatic as if the world contained no white goods houses,
+no doubtful customers, no business competition, no politics, gold
+rooms, stock-boards, doubtful banks, political scandals, personal
+iniquity, nor anything which should prevent a short vacation from
+lasting through a long lifetime.
+
+The next morning would have struck terror to the heart of any one but a
+newly accepted lover. Rain was falling fast, and in that steady,
+industrious manner which seemed to assert an intention to stick closely
+to business for the whole day. The sky was covered by one impenetrable
+leaden cloud, water stood in pools in the streets which were soft with
+dust a few hours before; the flowers all hung their heads like
+vagabonds who had been awake all night and were ashamed to face the
+daylight. Even the chickens stood about in dejected attitudes, and
+stray roosters from other poultry-yards found refuge in Tom's coop
+without first being subjected to a trial of strength and skill by Tom's
+game-cock.
+
+But no man in my condition of mind could be easily depressed by bad
+weather. I would rather have been able to drive about under a clear
+sky, or lounge under the trees, or walk to the post-office in the
+afternoon by the road which passed directly in front of Mrs. Clarkson's
+boarding-house; but man should not live for himself alone. In the room
+next mine were slumbering two wee people to whom I owed a great deal,
+who would mourn bitterly when they saw the condition of the skies and
+ground--I would devote myself to the task of making THEM so happy that
+they would forget the absence of sunshine out of doors--I would sit by
+their bedside and have a story ready for them the moment they awoke,
+and put them in such a good humor that they could laugh, with me, at
+cloud and rain.
+
+I began at once to construct a story for their especial benefit; the
+scene was to be a country residence on a rainy day, and the actors two
+little boys who should become uproariously jolly in spite of the
+weather. Like most people not used to story-making, my progress was not
+very rapid; in fact, I had got no farther than the plot indicated above
+when an angry snarl came from the children's room.
+
+"What's the matter, Budge?" I shouted, dressing myself as rapidly as
+possible.
+
+"Ow--oo--ya--ng--um--boc--gaa," was the somewhat complicated response.
+
+"What did you say, Budge?"
+
+"Didn't say noffin'."
+
+"Oh--that's what I thought."
+
+"DIDN'T thought."
+
+"Budge,--Budge,--be good."
+
+"Don't WANT to be good--YA--A--A."
+
+"Let's have some fun, Budge--don't you want to frolic?"
+
+"No; I don't think frolic is nice."
+
+"Don't you want some candy, Budge?"
+
+"No--you ain't GOT no candy, I bleeve."
+
+"Well, you sha'n't have any if you don't stop being so cross."
+
+The only reply to this was a mighty and audible rustling of the bedding
+in the boys' room, followed by a sound strongly resembling that caused
+by a slap; then came a prolonged wail, resembling that of an ungreased
+wagon-wheel.
+
+"What's the matter, Toddie?"
+
+"Budge s'apped me--ah--h--h--h!"
+
+"What made you slap your brother, Budge?"
+
+"I DIDN'T."
+
+"You DID," screamed Toddie.
+
+"I tell you I didn't--you're a naughty, bad boy to tell such lies,
+Toddie."
+
+"What DID you do, Budge?" I asked.
+
+"Why--why--I was--I was turnin' over in bed, an' my hand was out, and
+it tumbled against to Toddie--that's what."
+
+By this time I was dressed and in the boy's room. Both my nephews were
+sitting up in bed, Budge looking as sullen as an old jail-bird, and
+Toddie with tears streaming all over his face.
+
+"Boys," said I, "don't be angry with each other--it isn't right. What
+do you suppose the Lord thinks when he sees you so cross to each other?"
+
+"He don't think noffin'," said Budge; "you don't think he can look
+through a black sky like that, do you?"
+
+"He can look anywhere, Budge, and he feels very unhappy when he sees
+little brothers angry with each other."
+
+"Well, I feel unhappy, too--I wish there wasn't never no old rain, nor
+nothin'."
+
+"Then what would the plants and flowers do for a drink, and where would
+the rivers come from for you to go sailing on?"
+
+"An' wawtoo to mate mud-pies," added Toddie. "You's a naughty boy,
+Buggie;" and here Toddie's tears began to flow afresh.
+
+"I AIN'T a bad boy, an' I don't want no old rain nohow, an' that's all
+about it. An' I don't want to get up, an' Maggie must bring me up my
+breakfast in bed."
+
+"Boo--hoo--oo," wept Toddie, "wants my brepspup in bed too."
+
+"Boys," said I, "now listen. You can't have any breakfast at all unless
+you are up and dressed by the time the bell rings. The rising bell rang
+some time ago. Now dress like good boys, and you shall have some
+breakfast, and then you'll feel a great deal nicer, and then Uncle
+Harry will play with you and tell you stories all day long."
+
+Budge crept reluctantly out of bed and caught up one of his stockings,
+while Toddie again began to cry.
+
+"Toddie," I shouted, "stop that dreadful racket, and dress yourself.
+What are you crying for?"
+
+"Well, I feelsh bad."
+
+"Well, dress yourself, and you'll feel better."
+
+"Wantsh YOU to djesh me."
+
+"Bring me your clothes, then--quick!"
+
+Again the tears flowed copiously. "Don't WANT to bring 'em," said
+Toddie.
+
+"Then come here!" I shouted, dragging him across the room, and
+snatching up his tiny articles of apparel. I had dressed no small
+children since I was rather a small boy myself, and Toddie's clothing
+confused me somewhat. I finally got something on him, when a
+contemptuous laugh from Budge interrupted me.
+
+"How you goin' to put his shirt on under them things?" queried my
+oldest nephew.
+
+"Budge," I retorted, "how are you going to get any breakfast if you
+don't put on something besides that stocking?"
+
+The young man's countenance fell, and just then the breakfast bell
+rang. Budge raised a blank face, hurried to the head of the stairs and
+shouted:--
+
+"Maggie?"
+
+"What is it, Budge?"
+
+"Was--was that the rising-bell or the breakfast-bell?"
+
+"'Twas the breakfast-bell."
+
+There was dead silence for a moment, and then Budge shouted:--
+
+"Well, we'll call that the risin'-bell. You can ring another bell for
+breakfast pretty soon when I get dressed." Then this volunteer adjuster
+of household affairs came calmly back and commenced dressing in good
+earnest, while I labored along with Toddie's wardrobe.
+
+"Where's the button-hook, Budge?" said I.
+
+"It's--I--oh--um--I put it--say, Tod, what did you do with the
+button-hook yesterday?"
+
+"Didn't hazh no button-hook," asserted Toddie.
+
+"Yes, you did; don't you remember how we was a playin' draw teef, an'
+the doctor's dog had the toofache, and I was pullin' his teef with the
+button-hook, an' you was my little boy, an' I gived the toof-puller to
+you to hold for me? Where did you put it?"
+
+"I'D no," replied Toddie, putting his hand in his pocket and bringing
+out a sickly-looking toad.
+
+"Feel again," said I, throwing the toad out the window, where it was
+followed by an agonizing shriek from Toddie. Again he felt, and his
+search was rewarded by the tension screw of Helen's sewing-machine.
+Then I attempted some research myself, and speedily found my fingers
+adhering to something of a sticky consistency. I quickly withdrew my
+hand, exclaiming:--
+
+"What nasty stuff HAVE you got in your pocket, Toddie?"
+
+"'Taint nashty' tuff--it's byead an' 'lasses, an' its nice, an' Budge
+an' me hazh little tea-parties in de kicken-coop, an' we eats it, an'
+it's DOVELY."
+
+All this was lucid and disgusting, but utterly unproductive of
+button-hooks, and meanwhile the breakfast was growing cold. I succeeded
+in buttoning Toddie's shoes with my fingers, splitting most of my nails
+in the operation. I had been too busily engaged with Toddie to pay any
+attention to Budge, who I now found about half dressed and trying to
+catch flies on the windowpane. Snatching Toddie, I started for the
+dining-room, when Budge remarked reprovingly:--
+
+"Uncle Harry, YOU wasn't dressed when the bell rang, and YOU oughtn't
+to have any breakfast."
+
+True enough--I was minus collar, cravat, and coat. Hurrying these on,
+and starting again, I was once more arrested:--
+
+"Uncle Harry, must I brush my teeth this morning?"
+
+"No--hurry up--come down without doing anything more, if you like, but
+COME--it'll be dinner-time before we get breakfast."
+
+Then that imp was moved, for the first time that morning, to something
+like good-nature, and he exclaimed with a giggle:--
+
+"My! What big stomachs we'd have when we got done, wouldn't we?"
+
+At the breakfast table Toddie wept again, because I insisted on
+beginning operations before Budge came. Then neither boys knew exactly
+what he wanted. Then Budge managed to upset the contents of his plate
+into his lap, and while I was helping him clear away the debris, Toddie
+improved the opportunity to pour his milk upon his fish, and put
+several spoonfuls of oatmeal porridge into my coffee-cup. I made an
+early excuse to leave the table and turn the children over to Maggie. I
+felt as tired as if I had done a hard day's work, and was somewhat
+appalled at realizing that the day had barely begun. I lit a cigar and
+sat down to Helen's piano. I am not a musician, but even the chords of
+a hand-organ would have seemed sweet music to me on that morning. The
+music-book nearest to my hand was a church hymn-book, and the first air
+my eye struck was "Greenville." I lived once in a town, where, on a
+single day, a pedler disposed of thirty-eight accordeons, each with an
+instruction-book in which this same air under its original name was the
+ONLY air. For years after, a single bar of this air awakened the most
+melancholy reflections in my mind, but now I forgave all my musical
+tormentors as the familiar strains came comfortingly from the
+piano-keys. But suddenly I heard an accompaniment--a sort of reedy
+sound--and, looking around, I saw Toddie again in tears. I stopped
+abruptly and asked:--
+
+"What's the matter NOW, Toddie?"
+
+"Don't want dat old tune; wantsh dancin' tune, so I can dance."
+
+I promptly played "Yankee Doodle," and Toddie began to trot around the
+room with the expression of a man who intended to do his whole duty.
+Then Budge appeared, hugging a bound volume of "St. Nicholas." The
+moment Toddie espied this he stopped dancing and devoted himself anew
+to the task of weeping.
+
+"Toddie," I shouted, springing from the piano-stool, "what do you mean
+by crying at everything? I shall have to put you to bed again, if
+you're going to be such a baby."
+
+"That's the way he ALWAYS does, rainy days," explained Budge.
+
+"Wantsh to see the whay-al what fwollowed Djonah," sobbed Toddie.
+
+"Can't you demand something that's within the range of possibility,
+Toddie?" I mildly asked.
+
+"The whale Toddie means is in this big red book,--I'll find it for
+you," said Budge, turning over the leaves.
+
+Suddenly a rejoicing squeal from Toddie announced that leviathan had
+been found, and I hastened to gaze. He was certainly a dreadful-looking
+animal, but he had an enormous mouth, which Toddie caressed with his
+pudgy little hand, and kissed with tenderness, murmuring as he did so:--
+
+"DEE old whay-al, I loves you. Is Jonah all goneded out of you 'tomach,
+whay-al? I finks 'twas weal mean in Djonah to get froed up when you
+hadn't noffin' else to eat, POOR old whay-al."
+
+"Of COURSE Jonah's gone," said Budge, "he went to heaven long
+ago--pretty soon after he went to Nineveh an' done what the Lord told
+him to do. Now swing us, Uncle Harry."
+
+The swing was on the piazza under cover from the rain; so I obeyed.
+Both boys fought for the right to swing first, and when I decided in
+favor of Budge, Toddie went off weeping, and declaring that he would
+look at his dear whay-al anyhow. A moment later his wail changed to a
+piercing shriek; and running to his assistance, I saw him holding one
+finger tenderly and trampling on a wasp.
+
+"What's the matter, Toddie?"
+
+"Oo--oo--ee--ee--ee--EE--I putted my finger on a waps, and--oo--oo--the
+nasty waps--oo--bited me. An' I don't like wapses a bit, but I likes
+whay-als--oo--ee--ee."
+
+A happy thought struck me. "Why don't you boys make believe that big
+packing-box in your play-room is a whale?" said I.
+
+A compound shriek of delight followed the suggestion, and both boys
+scrambled upstairs, leaving me a free man again. I looked remorsefully
+at the tableful of books which I had brought to read, and had not
+looked at for a week. Even now my remorse did not move me to open
+them--I found myself instead attracted toward Tom's library, and
+conning the titles of novels and volumes of poems. My eye was caught by
+"Initial,"--a love-story which I had always avoided because I had heard
+impressible young ladies rave about it; but now I picked it up and
+dropped into an easy chair. Suddenly I heard Mike the coachman
+shouting:--
+
+"Go away from there, will ye? Ah, ye little spalpeen, it's good for ye
+that yer fahder don't see ye perched up dhere. Go way from dhat, or
+I'll be tellin' yer uncle."
+
+"Don't care for nasty old uncle," piped Toddie's voice.
+
+I laid down my book with a sigh, and went into the garden. Mike saw me
+and shouted:--
+
+"Misther Burthon, will ye look dhere? Did ye's ever see the loike av
+dhat bye?"
+
+Looking up at the play-room window, a long, narrow sort of loop-hole in
+a Gothic gable, I beheld my youngest nephew standing upright on the
+sill.
+
+"Toddie, go in--quick!" I shouted, hurrying under the window to catch
+him in case he fell outward.
+
+"I tan't," squealed Toddie.
+
+"Mike, run up-stairs and snatch him in; Toddie, go on, I tell you!"
+
+"Tell you I TAN'T doe in," repeated Toddie. "ZE bit bots ish ze
+whay-al, an' I'ez Djonah, an' ze whay-al's froed me up, an' I'ze dot to
+'tay up here else ze whay-al 'ill fwallow me aden."
+
+"I won't LET him swallow you. Get in now--hurry," said I.
+
+"Will you give him a penny not to fwallow me no more?" queried Toddie.
+
+"Yes--a whole lot of pennies."
+
+"Aw wight. Whay-al, don't you fwallow me no more, an' zen my Ocken
+Hawwy div you whole lots of pennies. You must be weal dood whay-al now,
+an' then I buys you some tandy wif your pennies, an'--"
+
+Just then two great hands seized Toddie's frock in front, and he
+disappeared with a howl, while I, with the first feeling of faintness I
+had ever experienced, went in search of hammer, nails, and some strips
+of board, to nail on the outside of the window-frame. But boards could
+not be found, so I went up to the play-room and began to knock a piece
+or two off the box which had done duty as whale. A pitiful scream from
+Toddie caused me to stop.
+
+"You're hurtin' my dee old whay-al; you's brakin' his 'tomach all
+open--you's a baddy man--'TOP hurtin' my whay-al, ee--ee--ee," cried my
+nephew.
+
+"I'm not hurting him, Toddie," said I; "I'm making his mouth bigger, so
+he can swallow you easier."
+
+A bright thought came into Toddie's face and shone through his tears.
+"Then he can fwallow Budgie too, an' there'l be two
+Djonahs--ha--ha--ha! Make his mouf so big he can fwallow Mike, an' zen
+mate it 'ittle aden, so Mike tan' det OUT; nashty old Mike!"
+
+I explained that Mike would not come upstairs again, so I was permitted
+to depart after securing the window.
+
+Again I settled myself with book and cigar; there was at least for me
+the extra enjoyment that comes from the sense of pleasure earned by
+honest toil. Pretty soon Budge entered the room. I affected not to
+notice him, but he was not in the least abashed by my neglect.
+
+"Uncle Harry," said he, throwing himself in my lap between my book and
+me, "I don't feel a bit nice."
+
+"What's the matter, old fellow?" I asked. Until he spoke I could have
+boxed his ears with great satisfaction to myself; but there is so much
+genuine feeling in whatever Budge says that he commands respect.
+
+"Oh, I'm tired of playin' with Toddie, an' I feel lonesome. Won't you
+tell me a story?"
+
+"Then what'll poor Toddie do, Budge?"
+
+"Oh, he won't mind--he's got a dead mouse to be Jonah now, so I don't
+have no fun at all. Won't you tell me a story?"
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"Tell me one that I never heard before at all."
+
+"Well, let's see; I guess I'll tell--"
+
+"Ah--ah--ah--ah--ee--ee--ee," sounded afar off, but fatefully. It came
+nearer--it came down the stairway and into the library, accompanied by
+Toddie, who, on spying me, dropped his inarticulate utterance, held up
+both hands, and exclaimed:--
+
+"Djonah bwoke he tay-al!"
+
+True enough; in one hand Toddie held the body of a mouse, and in the
+other that animal's caudal appendage; there was also perceptible,
+though not by the sense of sight, an objectionable odor in the room.
+
+"Toddie," said I, "go throw Jonah into the chicken-coop, and I'll give
+you some candy."
+
+"Me too," shouted Budge, "cos I found the mouse for him."
+
+I made both boys happy with candy, exacted a pledge not to go out in
+the rain, and then, turning them loose on the piazza, returned to my
+book. I had read perhaps half-a-dozen pages when there arose and
+swelled rapidly in volume a scream from Toddie. Madly determined to put
+both boys into chairs, tie them and clap adhesive plaster over their
+mouths, I rushed out upon the piazza.
+
+"Budgie tried to eat my candy," complained Toddie.
+
+"I didn't," said Budge.
+
+"What DID you do?" I demanded.
+
+"I didn't bite it at all--I only wanted to see how it would feel
+between my teeth--that's all."
+
+I felt the corners of my mouth breaking down, and hurried back to the
+library, where I spent a quiet quarter of an hour in pondering over the
+demoralizing influence exerted upon principle by a sense of the
+ludicrous. For some time afterward the boys got along without doing
+anything worse than make a dreadful noise, which caused me to resolve
+to find some method of deadening piazza-floors if _I_ ever owned a
+house in the country. In the occasional intervals of comparative quiet
+I caught snatches of very funny conversation. The boys had coined a
+great many words whose meaning was evident enough but I wonder greatly
+why Tom and Helen had never taught them the proper substitutes.
+
+Among others was the word "deader," whose meaning I could not imagine.
+Budge shouted:--
+
+"O Tod; there comes a deader. See where all them things like rooster's
+tails are a-shakin'?--Well, there's a deader under them."
+
+"Dasth funny," remarked Toddie.
+
+"An' see all the peoples a-comin' along," continued Budge, "THEY know
+'bout the deader, an' they're goin' to see it fixed. Here it comes.
+Hello, deader!"
+
+"Hay-oh, deader," echoed Toddie.
+
+What COULD deader mean?
+
+"Oh, here it is right in front of us," cried Budge, "and AIN'T there
+lots of people? An' two horses to pull the deader--SOME deaders has
+only one."
+
+My curiosity was too much for my weariness; I went to the front window,
+and, peering through, saw--a funeral procession! In a second I was on
+the piazza, with my hands on the children's collars; a second later two
+small boys were on the floor of the hall, the front door was closed,
+and two determined hands covered two threatening little mouths.
+
+When the procession had fairly passed the house I released the boys and
+heard two prolonged howls for my pains. Then I asked Budge if he wasn't
+ashamed to talk that way when a funeral was passing.
+
+"'TWASN'T a funeral," said he. "'Twas only a deader, an' deaders can't
+hear nothin'."
+
+"But the people in the carriages could," said I.
+
+"Well," said he, "they was so glad that the other part of the deader
+had gone to heaven that they didn't care WHAT I said. Ev'rybody's glad
+when the other parts of deaders go to heaven. Papa told me to be glad
+that dear little Phillie was in heaven, an' I WAS, but I do want to see
+him again awful."
+
+"Wantsh to shee Phillie aden awfoo," said Toddie, as I kissed Budge and
+hurried off to the library, unfit just then to administer farther
+instruction or reproof. Of one thing I was very certain--I wished the
+rain would cease falling, so the children could go out of doors, and I
+could get a little rest, and freedom from responsibility. But the skies
+showed no signs of being emptied, the boys were snarling on the
+stairway, and I was losing my temper quite rapidly.
+
+Suddenly I bethought me of one of the delights of my own childish
+days--the making of scrap-books. One of Tom's library drawers held a
+great many Lady's Journals. Of course Helen meant to have them bound,
+but I could easily repurchase the numbers for her; they would cost two
+or three dollars; but peace was cheap at that price. On a high shelf in
+the playroom I had seen some supplementary volumes of "Mercantile
+Agency" reports which would in time reach the rag-bag; there was a
+bottle of mucilage in the library-desk, and the children owned an old
+pair of scissors. Within five minutes I had located two happy children
+on the bath-room floor, taught them to cut out pictures (which
+operation I quickly found they understood as well as I did) and to
+paste them into the extemporized scrap-book. Then I left them,
+recalling something from Newman Hall's address on "The Dignity of
+Labor." Why hadn't I thought before of showing my nephews some way of
+occupying their mind and hands? Who could blame the helpless little
+things for following every prompting of their unguided minds? Had I not
+a hundred times been told, when sent to the wood-pile or the weediest
+part of the garden in my youthful days, that
+
+    "Satan finds some mischief still
+    For idle hands to do?"
+
+"Never again would I blame children for being mischievous when their
+minds were neglected.
+
+I spent a peaceful, pleasant hour over my novel, when I felt that a
+fresh cigar would be acceptable. Going up-stairs in search of one I
+found that Budge had filled the bathtub with water, and was sailing
+boats, that is, hair-brushes. Even this seemed too mild an offense to
+call for a rebuke, so I passed on without disturbing him, and went to
+my own room. I heard Toddie's voice, and having heard from my sister
+that Toddie's conversations with himself were worth listening to, I
+paused outside the door. I heard Toddie softly murmur:--
+
+"Zere, pitty yady, 'tay ZERE. Now, 'ittle boy, I put you wif your
+mudder, tause mudders likes zere 'ittle boys wif zem. An' you sall have
+'ittle sister tudder side of you,--zere. Now, 'ittle boy's an' 'ittle
+girl's mudder, don't you feel happy?--isn't I awfoo good to give you
+your 'ittle tsilderns? You ought to say, 'Fank you, Toddie,--you'se a
+nice, fweet 'ittle djentleman.'"
+
+I peered cautiously--then I entered the room hastily. I didn't say
+anything for a moment, for it was impossible to do justice, impromptu,
+to the subject. Toddie had a progressive mind--if pictorial
+ornamentation was good for old books, why should not similar
+ornamentation be extended to objects more likely to be seen? Such may
+not have been Toddie's line of thought, but his recent operations
+warranted such a supposition. He had cut out a number of pictures, and
+pasted them upon the wall of my room--my sister's darling room, with
+its walls tinted exquisitely in pink. As a member of a hanging
+committee, Toddie would hardly have satisfied taller people, but he had
+arranged the pictures quite regularly, at about the height of his own
+eyes, had favored no one artist more than another, and had hung
+indiscriminately figure pieces, landscapes, and genre pictures. The
+temporary break of wall-line, occasioned by the door communicating with
+his own room, he had overcome by closing the door and carrying a line
+of pictures across its lower panels. Occasionally, a picture fell off
+the wall, but the mucilage remained faithful, and glistened with its
+fervor of devotion. And yet so untouched was I by this artistic
+display, that when I found strength to shout "Toddie!" it was in a tone
+which caused this industrious amateur decorator to start violently, and
+drop his mucilage-bottle, open end first, upon the carpet.
+
+"What will mamma say?" I asked.
+
+Toddie gazed, first blankly and then inquiringly, into my face; finding
+no answer or sympathy there, he burst into tears, and replied:--
+
+"I dunno."
+
+The ringing of the lunch-bell changed Toddie from a tearful cherub into
+a very practical, business-like boy, and shouting "Come on, Budge!" he
+hurried down-stairs, while I tormented myself with wonder as to how I
+could best and most quickly undo the mischief Toddie had done.
+
+I will concede to my nephews the credit of keeping reasonably quiet
+during meals; their tongues doubtless longed to be active in both the
+principal capacities of those useful members, but they had no doubt as
+to how to choose between silence and hunger. The result was a
+reasonably comfortable half-hour. Just as I began to cut a melon, Budge
+broke the silence by exclaiming:--
+
+"O Uncle Harry, we haven't been out to see the goat to-day!"
+
+"Budge," I replied, "I'll carry you out there under an umbrella after
+lunch, and you may play with that goat all the afternoon, if you like."
+
+"Oh, won't that be nice?" exclaimed Budge. "The poor goat! he'll think
+I don't love him a bit, 'cause I haven't been to see him to-day. Does
+goats go to heaven when they die, Uncle Harry?"
+
+"Guess not--they'd make trouble in the golden streets, I'm afraid."
+
+"Oh, dear! then Phillie can't see my goat. I'm so awful sorry," said
+Budge.
+
+"_I_ can see your goat, Budgie," suggested Toddie.
+
+"Huh!" said Budge, very contemptuously. "YOU ain't dead."
+
+"Well, Izhe GOIN' to be dead some day 'an zen your nashty old goat
+sha'n't see me a bit--see how he like ZAT." And Toddie made a ferocious
+attack on a slice of melon nearly as large as himself.
+
+After lunch Toddie was sent to his room to take his afternoon nap, and
+Budge went to the barn on my shoulders. I gave Mike a dollar, with
+instructions to keep Budge in sight, to keep him from teasing the goat,
+and to prevent his being impaled or butted. Then I stretched myself on
+a lounge, and wondered whether only half a day of daylight had elapsed
+since I and the most adorable woman in the world had been so happy
+together. How much happier I would be when next I met her! The very
+torments of this rainy day would make my joy seem all the dearer and
+more intense. I dreamed happily for a few moments with my eyes open,
+and then somehow they closed, without my knowledge. What put into my
+mind the wreck-scene from the play of "David Copperfield," I don't
+know; but there it came, and in my dream I was sitting in the balcony
+at Booth's, and taking a proper interest in the scene, when it occurred
+to me that the thunder had less of reverberation and more woodenness
+than good stage thunder should have. The mental exertion I underwent on
+this subject disturbed the course of my nap, but as wakefulness
+returned, the sound of the poorly simulated thunder did not cease; on
+the contrary, it was just as noisy, and more hopelessly a counterfeit
+than ever. What could the sound be? I stepped through the window to the
+piazza, and the sound was directly over my head. I sprang down the
+terrace and out upon the lawn, looked up, and beheld my youngest nephew
+strutting back and forth on the tin roof of the piazza, holding over
+his head a ragged old parasol. I roared--
+
+"Go in, Toddie--this instant!"
+
+The sound of my voice startled the young man so severely that he lost
+his footing, fell, and began to roll toward the edge and to scream,
+both operations being performed with great rapidity. I ran to catch him
+as he fell, but the outer edge of the water-trough was high enough to
+arrest his progress, though it had no effect in reducing the volume of
+his howls.
+
+"Toddie," I shouted, "lie perfectly still until uncle can get to you.
+Do you hear?"
+
+"Ess, but don't want to lie 'till," came in reply from the roof.
+"'Tan't shee noffin' but sky an' rain."
+
+"Lie still," I reiterated, "or I'll whip you dreadfully." Then I dashed
+up-stairs, removed my shoes, climbed out and rescued Toddie, shook him
+soundly, and then shook myself.
+
+"I wazh only djust pyayin' mamma, an' walkin' in ze yain wif an
+umbayalla," Toddie explained.
+
+I threw him upon his bed and departed. It was plain that neither logic,
+threats, nor the presence of danger could keep this dreadful child from
+doing whatever he chose; what other means of restraint could be
+employed? Although not as religious a man as my good mother could wish,
+I really wondered whether prayer, as a last resort, might not be
+effective. For his good, and my own peace, I would cheerfully have read
+through the whole prayer-book. I could hardly have done it just then,
+though, for Mike solicited an audience at the back door, and reported
+that Budge had given the carriage-sponge to the goat, put handfuls of
+oats into the pump-cylinder, pulled hairs out of the black mare's tail,
+and with a sharp nail drawn pictures on the enamel of the
+carriage-body. Budge made no denial, but looked very much aggrieved,
+and remarked that he couldn't never be happy without somebody having to
+go get bothered; and he wished there wasn't nobody in the world but
+organ-grinders and candy-store men. He followed me into the house,
+flung himself into a chair, put on a look which I imagine Byron wore
+before he was old enough to be malicious, and exclaimed:--
+
+"I don't see what little boys was made for anyhow; if ev'rybody gets
+cross with them, an' don't let 'em do what they want to. I'll bet when
+I get to heaven, the Lord won't be as ugly to me as Mike is,--an' some
+other folks, too. I wish I could die and be buried right away,--me an'
+the goat--an' go to heaven, where we wouldn't be scolded."
+
+Poor little fellow! First I laughed inwardly at his idea of heaven, and
+then I wondered whether my own was very different from it, or any more
+creditable. I had no time to spend even in pious reflection, however.
+Budge was quite wet, his shoes were soaking, and he already had an
+attack of catarrh; so I took him to his room and re-dressed him,
+wondering all the while how much similar duties my own father had had
+to do by me had shortened his life, and how, with such a son as I was,
+he lived as long as he did. The idea that I was in some slight degree
+atoning for my early sins, so filled my thoughts, that I did not at
+first notice the absence of Toddie. When it DID become evident to me
+that my youngest nephew was not in the bed in which I had placed him, I
+went in search of him. He was in none of the chambers, but hearing
+gentle murmurs issue from a long, light closet, I looked in and saw
+Toddie sitting on the floor, and eating the cheese out of a mouse-trap.
+A squeak of my boots betrayed me, and Toddie, equal to the emergency,
+sprang to his feet and exclaimed:--
+
+"I didn't hurt de 'ittle mousie one bittie; I just letted him out, and
+he runded away."
+
+And still it rained. Oh, for a single hour of sunlight, so that the mud
+might be only damp dirt, and the children could play without tormenting
+other people! But it was not to be; slowly, and by the aid of songs,
+stories, an improvised menagerie, in which I personated every animal,
+besides playing ostrich and armadillo, and a great many disagreements,
+the afternoon wore to its close, and my heart slowly lightened. Only an
+hour or two more, and the children would be in bed for the night, and
+then I would enjoy, in unutterable measure, the peaceful hours which
+would be mine. Even now they were inclined to behave themselves; they
+were tired and hungry, and stretched themselves on the floor, to await
+dinner. I embraced the opportunity to return to my book, but I had
+hardly read a page, when a combined crash and scream summoned me to the
+dining-room. On the floor lay Toddie, a great many dishes, a roast leg
+of lamb, several ears of green corn, the butter-dish and its contents,
+and several other misplaced edibles. One thing was quite evident; the
+scalding contents of the gravy-dish had been emptied on Toddie's arm,
+and how severely the poor child might be scalded I did not know. I
+hastily slit open his sleeve from wrist to shoulder, and found the skin
+very red; so, remembering my mother's favorite treatment for scalds and
+burns, I quickly spread the contents of a dish of mashed potato on a
+clean handkerchief, and wound the whole around Toddie's arm as a
+poultice. Then I demanded an explanation.
+
+"I was only djust reatchin for a pieshe of bwed," sobbed Toddie, "an'
+then the bad old tabo beginded to froe all its fings at me, an' tumble
+down bang."
+
+He undoubtedly told the truth as far as he knew it, but reaching over
+tables is a bad habit in small boys, especially when their mothers
+cling to old-fashioned heirlooms of tables, which have folding leaves;
+so I banished Toddie to his room, supperless, to think of what he had
+done. With Budge alone, I had a comfortable dinner off the salvage from
+the wreck caused by Toddie, and then I went up-stairs to see if the
+offender had repented. It was hard to tell, by sight, whether he had or
+not, for his back was to me, as he flattened his nose against the
+window, but I could see that my poultice was gone.
+
+"Where is what uncle put on your arm, Toddie?" I asked.
+
+"I ate it up," said the truthful youth.
+
+"Did you eat the handkerchief, too?"
+
+"No; I froed nashty old handkerchief out the window--don't want dirty
+old handkerchiefs in my nice 'ittle room."
+
+I was so glad that his burn had been slight that I forgave the insult
+to my handkerchief and called up Budge, so that I might at once get
+both boys into bed, and emerge from the bondage in which I had lived
+all day long. But the task was no easy one. Of course my
+brother-in-law, Tom Lawrence, knows better than any other man the
+necessities of his own children, but no children of mine shall ever be
+taught so many methods of imposing upon parental good nature. Their
+program called for stories, songs, moral conversations, frolics, the
+presentation of pennies, the dropping of the same, at long intervals,
+into tin savings banks, followed by a deafening shaking-up of both
+banks; then a prayer must be offered, and no conventional one would be
+tolerated; then the boys performed their own devotions, after which I
+was allowed to depart with an interchange of "God bless you's." As this
+evening I left the room with their innocent benedictions sounding in my
+ears, a sense of personal weakness, induced by the events of the day,
+moved me to fervently respond "Amen!"
+
+Mothers of American boys, accept from me a tribute of respect, which no
+words can fitly express--of wonder greater than any of the great things
+of the world ever inspired--of adoration as earnest and devout as the
+Catholic pays to the Virgin. In a single day, I, a strong man, with
+nothing else to occupy my mind, am reduced to physical and mental
+worthlessness by the necessities of two boys not overmischievous or
+bad. And you--Heaven only knows how--have unbroken weeks, months,
+years, yes, lifetimes of just such experiences, and with them the
+burden of household cares, of physical ills and depressions, of mental
+anxieties that pierce your hearts with as many sorrows as grieved the
+Holy Mother of old. Compared with thy endurance, that of the young man,
+the athlete, is as weakness; the secret of thy nerves, wonderful even
+in their weakness, is as great as that of the power of the winds. To
+display decision, thy opportunities are more frequent than those of the
+greatest statesman; thy heroism laughs into insignificance that of fort
+and field; thou art trained in a school of diplomacy such as the most
+experienced court cannot furnish. Do scoffers say thou canst not hold
+the reins of government? Easier is it to rule a band of savages than to
+be the successful autocrat of thy little kingdom. Compared with the
+ways of men, even thy failures are full of glory. Be thy faults what
+they may, thy one great, mysterious, unapproachable success places
+thee, in desert, far above warrior, rabbi or priest.
+
+The foregoing soliloquy passed through my mind as I lay upon the bed
+where I had thrown myself after leaving the children's room. Whatever
+else attempted to affect me mentally found my mind a blank until the
+next morning, when I awoke to realize that I had dropped asleep just
+where I fell, and that I had spent nearly twelve hours lying across a
+bed in an uncomfortable position, and without removing my daily attire.
+My next impression was that quite a bulky letter had been pushed under
+my chamber-door. Could it be that my darling--I hastily seized the
+envelope and found it addressed in my sister's writing, and promising a
+more voluminous letter than that lady had ever before honored me with.
+I opened it, dropping an enclosure which doubtless was a list of
+necessities which I would please pack, etc., and read as follows:--
+
+
+"JULY 1, 1875.
+
+"MY DEAR OLD BROTHER:--WOULDN'T I like to give you the warmest of
+sisterly hugs? I can't believe it, and yet I'm in ecstasies over it. To
+think that you should have got that perfection of a girl, who has
+declined so many great catches--YOU, my sober, business-like,
+unromantic big brother--oh, it's too wonderful! But now I think of it,
+you're just the people for each other. I'd like to say that it's just
+what I'd always longed for, and that I invited you to Hillcrest to
+bring it about; but the trouble with such a story would be that it
+wouldn't have a word of truth in it. You always DID have a faculty of
+doing just what you pleased, and what nobody ever expected you to do,
+but now you've exceeded yourself.
+
+"And to think that my little darlings played an important part in
+bringing it all about! I shall take the credit for THAT, for if it
+hadn't been for me, who would have helped you, sir? I shall expect you
+to remember both of them handsomely at Christmas.
+
+"I don't believe I'm guilty of a breach of confidence in sending the
+enclosed, which I have just received from my sister-in-law that is to
+be. It will tell you some causes of your success of which you, with a
+man's conceit, haven't imagined for a minute, and it will tell you,
+too, of a maiden's first and natural fear under such circumstances,--a
+fear which I know that you, with your honest, generous heart, will
+hasten to dispel. As you're a man, you're quite likely to be too stupid
+to read what's written between the lines; so I'd better tell you that
+Alice's fear is that in letting herself go so easily she may have
+seemed to lack proper reserve and self-respect. You don't need to be
+told that no woman alive has more of these very qualities.
+
+"Bless your dear old heart, Harry,--you deserve to be shaken to death
+if you're not the happiest man alive. I MUST hurry home and see you
+both with my own eyes, and learn to believe that all this wonderful
+glorious thing has come to pass. Give Alice a sister's kiss from me (if
+you know how to give more than one kind), and give my cherubs a hundred
+each from the mother that wants to see them so much.
+
+"With love and congratulations,
+
+"HELEN."
+
+
+The other letter, which I opened with considerable reverence and more
+delight, ran as follows:--
+
+
+"HILLCREST, June 29, 1875.
+
+"DEAR FRIEND HELEN:--Something has happened, and I am very happy, but I
+am more than a little troubled over it, too, and as you are one of the
+persons nearly concerned, I am going to confess to you as soon as
+possible. Harry--your brother, I mean--will be sure to tell you very
+soon, if he hasn't done so already, and I want to make all possible
+haste to solemnly assure you that _I_ hadn't the slightest idea of such
+a thing coming to pass, and I didn't do the slightest thing to bring it
+about.
+
+"I always thought your brother was a splendid fellow, and have never
+been afraid to express my mind about him, when there was no one but
+girls to listen. But out here I've somehow learned to admire him more
+than ever. I cheerfully acquit HIM of intentionally doing anything to
+create a favorable impression; if his several appearances before me
+HAVE been studied, he is certainly the most original being I ever heard
+of. Your children are angels--you've told me so yourself, and I've my
+own very distinct impression on the subject, but they DON'T study to
+save their uncle's appearance. The figures that unfortunate man has cut
+several times--well, I won't try to describe them on paper, for fear he
+might some day see a scrap of it, and take offense. But he always seems
+to be patient with them, and devoted to them, and I haven't been able
+to keep from seeing that a man who could be so lovable with thoughtless
+and unreasonable children must be perfectly adorable to the woman he
+loved, if she were a woman at all. Still, I hadn't the faintest idea
+that I would be the fortunate woman. At last THE day came, but I was in
+blissful ignorance of what was to happen. Your little Charley hurt
+himself, and insisted upon Har--your brother singing an odd song to
+him; and just when the young gentleman was doing the elegant to a dozen
+of us ladies at once, too! If you COULD have seen his face!--it was too
+funny, until he got over his annoyance, and began to feel properly
+sorry for the little fellow--then he seemed all at once to be all
+tenderness and heart, and I DID wish for a moment that
+conventionalities didn't exist, and I might tell him that he was a
+model. Then your youngest playfully spilt a plate of soup on my dress
+(don't be worried--'twas only a common muslin, and 'twill wash). Of
+course I had to change it, and as I retired the happy thought struck me
+that I'd make so elaborate a toilet that I wouldn't finish in time to
+join the other ladies for the usual evening walk; consequence, I would
+have a chance to monopolize a gentleman for half an hour or more--a
+chance which, no thanks to the gentlemen who don't come to Hillcrest,
+no lady here has had this season. Every time I peered through the
+blinds to see if the other girls had started, I could see HIM, looking
+so distressed, and brooding over those two children as if he was their
+mother, and he seemed so good. He seemed pleased to see ME when I
+appeared, and coming from such a man, the implied compliment was fully
+appreciated; everything he said to me seemed a little more worth
+hearing than if it had come from any man not so good. Then suddenly
+your eldest insisted on retailing the result of a conversation he had
+had with his uncle, and the upshot was that Harry declared himself; he
+wasn't romantic a bit, but he was real straightforward and manly, while
+I was so completely taken aback that I couldn't think of a thing to
+say. Then the impudent fellow kissed me, and I lost my tongue worse
+than ever. If I had known anything of his feelings beforehand, I should
+have been prepared to behave more properly; but--O Helen, I'm so glad I
+DIDN'T know! I should be the happiest being that ever lived, if I
+wasn't afraid that you and your husband might think that I had given
+myself away too hastily. As to other people, we will see that they
+don't know a word about it for months to come.
+
+"DO write that I was not to blame, and make believe accept me as a
+sister, because I CAN'T offer to give Harry up to any one else you may
+have picked out for him.
+
+"Your sincere friend,
+
+"ALICE MAYTON."
+
+
+Was there ever so delightful a reveille? All the boyishness in me
+seemed suddenly to come to the surface, and instead of saying and doing
+the decorous things which novelists' heroes do under similar
+circumstances, I shouted "Hurrah!" and danced into the children's room
+so violently that Budge sat up in bed, and regarded me with reproving
+eyes, while Toddie burst into a happy laugh, and volunteered as a
+partner in the dance. Then I realized that the rain was over, and the
+sun was shining--I could take Alice out for another drive, and until
+then the children could take care of themselves. I remembered suddenly,
+and with a sharp pang, that my vacation was nearly at an end, and I
+found myself consuming with impatience to know how much longer Alice
+would remain at Hillcrest. It would be cruel to wish her in the city
+before the end of August, yet I--
+
+"Uncle Harry," said Budge, "my papa says 'tisn't nice for folks to sit
+down and go to thinkin' before they've brushed their hair
+mornin's--that's what he tells ME."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Budge," said I, springing up in some confusion; "I
+was thinking over a matter of a great deal of importance."
+
+"What was it--my goat?"
+
+"No--of course not. Don't be silly, Budge."
+
+"Well, I think about him a good deal, an' I don't think it's silly a
+bit. I hope he'll go to heaven when he dies. Do angels have
+goat-carriages, Uncle Harry?"
+
+"No, old fellow--they can go about without carriages."
+
+"When _I_ goesh to hebben," said Toddie, rising in bed, "Izhe goin' to
+have lots of goat-cawidjes an' Izhe goin' to tate all ze andjels a
+widen."
+
+With many other bits of prophecy and celestial description I was
+regaled as I completed my toilet, and I hurried out of doors for an
+opportunity to think without disturbance. Strolling past the henyard I
+saw a meditative turtle, and picking him up and shouting to my nephews
+I held the reptile up for their inspection. Their window-blinds flew
+open, and a unanimous though not exactly harmonious "Oh!" greeted my
+prize.
+
+"Where did you get it, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge.
+
+"Down by the hen-coop."
+
+Budge's eyes opened wide; he seemed to devote a moment to profound
+thought, and then he exclaimed:--
+
+"Why, I don't see how the hens COULD lay such a big thing--just put him
+in your hat till I come down, will you?"
+
+I dropped the turtle in Budge's wheelbarrow, and made a tour of the
+flower-borders. The flowers, always full of suggestion to me, seemed
+suddenly to have new charms and powers; they actually impelled me to
+try to make rhymes,--me, a steady white-goods salesman! The impulse was
+too strong to be resisted, though I must admit that the results were
+pitifully meager:--
+
+    "As radiant as that matchless rose
+      Which poet-artists fancy;
+    As fair as whitest lily-blows,
+      As modest as the pansy;
+    As pure as dew which hides within
+      Aurora's sun-kissed chalice;
+    As tender as the primrose sweet--
+      All this, and more, is Alice."
+
+In inflicting this fragment upon the reader, I have not the faintest
+idea that he can discover any merit in it; I quote it only that a
+subsequent experience of mine may be more intelligible. When I had
+composed these wretched lines I became conscious that I had neither
+pencil nor paper wherewith to preserve them. Should I lose them--my
+first self-constructed poem? Never! This was not the first time in
+which I had found it necessary to preserve words by memory alone. So I
+repeated my ridiculous lines over and over again, until the eloquent
+feeling of which they were the graceless expression inspired me to
+accompany my recital with gestures. Six--eight--ten--a dozen--twenty
+times I repeated these lines, each time with additional emotion and
+gestures, when a thin voice, very near me, remarked:--
+
+"Ocken Hawwy, you does djust as if you was swimmin'."
+
+Turning, I beheld my nephew Toddie--how long he had been behind me I
+had no idea. He looked earnestly into my eyes and then remarked:--
+
+"Ocken Hawwy, your faysh is wed, djust like a wosy-posy."
+
+"Let's go right in to breakfast, Toddie," said I aloud, as I grumbled
+to myself about the faculty of observation which Tom's children seemed
+to have.
+
+Immediately after breakfast I despatched Mike with a note to Alice,
+informing her that I would be glad to drive her to the Falls in the
+afternoon calling for her at two. Then I placed myself unreservedly at
+the disposal of the boys for the morning, it being distinctly
+understood that they must not expect to see me between lunch and
+dinner. I was first instructed to harness the goat, which order I
+obeyed, and I afterward watched that grave animal as he drew my nephews
+up and down the carriage-road, his countenance as demure as if he had
+no idea of suddenly departing when my back should be turned. The wheels
+of the goat carriage uttered the most heartrending noises I had ever
+heard from ungreased axle; so I persuaded the boys to dismount, and
+submit to the temporary unharnessing of the goat, while I should
+lubricate the axles. Half an hour of dirty work sufficed, with such
+assistance as I gained from juvenile advice, to accomplish the task
+properly; then I put the horned steed into the shafts, Budge cracked
+the whip, the carriage moved off without noise, and Toddie began to
+weep bitterly.
+
+"Cawwidge is all bwoke," said he; "WHEELSH DON'T SING A BITTIE NO
+MORE," while Budge remarked:--
+
+"I think the carriage sounds kind o' lonesome now, don't you, Uncle
+Harry?"
+
+"Uncle Harry," asked Budge, a little later in the morning, "do you know
+what makes the thunder?"
+
+"Yes, Budge--when two clouds go bump into each other they make a good
+deal of noise, and they call it thunder."
+
+"That ain't it at all," said Budge. "When it thundered yesterday it was
+because the Lord was riding along through the sky and the wheels of his
+carriage made an awful noise, an' that was the thunder."
+
+"Don't like nashty old 'funder," remarked Toddie. "It goesh into our
+cellar an' makesh all ze milk sour--Maggie said so. An' so I can't hazh
+no nice white tea for my brepspup."
+
+"I should think you'd like the Lord to go a ridin', Toddie, with all
+the angels running after him," said Budge, "even if the thunder DOES
+make the milk sour. And 'tis so splendid to SEE the thunder bang."
+
+"How do you see it, Budge?" I asked.
+
+"Why, don't you know when the thunder bangs, and then you see an awful
+bright place in the sky?--that's where the Lord's carriage gives an
+awful pound, and makes little cracks through the floor of heaven, an'
+we see right in. But what's the reason we can't ever see anybody
+through the cracks, Uncle Harry?"
+
+"I don't know--old fellow,--I guess it's because it isn't cracks in
+heaven that look so bright,--it's a kind of fire that the Lord makes up
+in the clouds. You'll know all about it when you get bigger."
+
+"Well, I'll feel awful sorry if 'tain't anything but fire. Do you know
+that funny song my papa sings 'bout:--
+
+    "'Roarin' thunders, lightenin's blazes,
+    Shout the great Creator's praises?'"
+
+I don't know zactly what it means, but I think it's kind o' splendid,
+don't you?"
+
+I DID know the old song; I had heard it in a Western camp-meeting, when
+scarcely older than Budge, and it left upon my mind just the effect it
+seemed to have done on his. I blessed his sympathetic young heart, and
+snatched him into my arms. Instantly he became all boy again.
+
+"Uncle Harry," he shouted, "you crawl on your hands and knees and play
+you was a horse, and I'll ride on your back."
+
+"No, thank you, Budge, not on the dirt."
+
+"Then let's play menagerie, an' you be all the animals."
+
+To this proposition I assented, and after hiding ourselves in one of
+the retired angles of the house, so that no one could know who was
+guilty of disturbing the peace by such dire noises, the performance
+commenced. I was by turns a bear, a lion, a zebra, an elephant, dogs of
+various kinds, and a cat. As I personated the latter-named animals,
+Toddie echoed my voice.
+
+"Miauw! Miauw!" said he, "dat's what cats saysh when they goesh down
+wells."
+
+"Faith, an' it's him that knows," remarked Mike, who had invited
+himself to a free seat in the menagerie, and assisted in the applause
+which had greeted each personation.
+
+"Would ye belave it, Misther Harry, dhat young dhivil got out the front
+door one mornin' afore sunroise, all in his little noight-gown, an'
+wint over to the doctor's an' picked up a kitten lyin' on the kitchen
+door-mat, an' throwed it down dhe well. The docthor wasn't home, but
+the missis saw him, an' her heart was dhat tindher that she hurried out
+and throwed boords down for dhe poor little baste to stand on, an' let
+down a hoe on a sthring, an' whin she got dhe poor little dhing out,
+she was dhat faint that she dhrapped on dhe grass. An' it cost Mr.
+Lawrence nigh onto thirty dollars to have dhe docthor's well claned
+out."
+
+"Yes," said Toddie, who had listened carefully to Mike's recital, "an'
+kitty-kitty said, 'Miauw! Miauw!' when she goed down ze well. An' Mish
+Doctor sed, 'Bad boy--go home--don't never tum to my housh no
+more,'--dat's what she said to me. Now be some more animals, Ocken
+Hawwy. Can't you be a whay-al?"
+
+"Whales don't make a noise, Toddie; they only splash about in the
+water."
+
+"Zen grop in the cistern an' 'plash, can't you?"
+
+Lunch-time, and after it the time for Toddie to take his nap. Poor
+Budge was bereft of a playmate, for the doctor's little girl was sick;
+so he quietly followed me about with a wistful face, that almost
+persuaded me to take him with me on my drive--OUR drive. Had he
+grumbled, I would have felt less uncomfortable; but there's nothing so
+touching and overpowering to either gods or men as the spectacle of
+mute resignation. At last, to my great relief, he opened his mouth.
+
+"Uncle Harry," said he, "do you 'spose folks ever get lonesome in
+heaven?"
+
+"I guess not, Budge."
+
+"Do little boy-angels' papas an' mammas go off visitin', an' stay so
+long?"
+
+"I don't exactly know, Budge, but if they do, the little boy-angels
+have plenty of other little boy-angels to play with, so they can't very
+well be lonesome."
+
+"Well, I don't b'leeve they could make ME happy, when I wanted to see
+my papa an' mamma. When I haven't got anybody to play with, then I want
+papa an' mamma SO bad--so bad as if I would die if I didn't see 'em
+right away."
+
+I was shaving, and only half-done, but I hastily wiped off my face,
+dropped into a rocking-chair, took the forlorn little boy into my arms,
+and kissed him, caressed him, sympathized with him, and devoted myself
+entirely to the task and pleasure of comforting him. His sober little
+face gradually assumed a happier appearance; his lips parted in such
+lines as no old master ever put upon angel lips; his eyes from being
+dim and hopeless, grew warm and lustrous and melting. At last he said:--
+
+"Uncle Harry, I'm EVER so happy now. An' can't Mike go around with me
+and the goat all the time you're away riding? An' bring us home some
+candy, an' marbles--oh, yes--an' a new dog."
+
+Anxious as I was to hurry off to meet my engagement, I was rather
+disgusted as I unseated Budge and returned to my razor. So long as he
+was lonesome and I was his only hope, words couldn't express his
+devotion, but the moment he had, through my efforts, regained his
+spirits, his only use for me was to ask further favors. Yet in trying
+the poor boy, judicially, the evidence was more dangerous to humanity
+in general than to Budge; it threw a great deal of light upon my own
+peculiar theological puzzles, and almost convinced me that my duty was
+to preach a new gospel.
+
+As I drove up to the steps of Mrs. Clarkson's boarding-house it seemed
+to me a month had elapsed since last I was there, and this apparent
+lapse of time was all that prevented my ascribing to miraculous
+agencies the wonderful and delightful change that Alice's countenance
+had undergone in two short days. Composure, quickness of perception,
+the ability to guard one's self, are indications of character which are
+particularly in place in the countenance of a young lady in society,
+but when, without losing these, the face takes on the radiance born of
+love and trust, the effect is indescribably charming--especially to the
+eyes of the man who causes the change. Longer, more out-of-the-way
+roads between Hillcrest and the Falls I venture to say were never known
+than I drove over that afternoon, and my happy companion, who in other
+days I had imagined might one day, by her decision, alertness and force
+exceed the exploits of Lady Baker or Miss Tinne, never once asked if I
+was sure we were on the right road. Only a single cloud came over her
+brow, and of this I soon learned the cause.
+
+"Harry," said she, pressing closer to my side, and taking an appealing
+tone, "do you love me well enough to endure something unpleasant for my
+sake?"
+
+My answer was not verbally expressed, but its purport seemed to be
+understood and accepted, for Alice continued:--
+
+"I wouldn't undo a bit of what's happened--I'm the happiest, proudest
+woman in the world. But we HAVE been very hasty, for people who have
+been mere acquaintances. And mother is dreadfully opposed to such
+affairs--she is of the old style, you know."
+
+"It was all my fault," said I. "I'll apologize promptly and handsomely.
+The time and agony which I didn't consume in laying siege to your heart
+I'll devote to the task of gaining your mother's good graces."
+
+The look I received in reply to this remark would have richly repaid me
+had my task been to conciliate as many mothers-in-law as Brigham Young
+possesses. But her smile faded as she said:--
+
+"You don't know what a task you have before you. Mother has a very
+tender heart, but it's thoroughly fenced in by proprieties. In her day
+and set, courtship was a very slow, stately affair, and mother believes
+it the proper way now; so do I, but I admit possible exceptions, and
+mother doesn't. I'm afraid she won't be patient if she knows the whole
+truth, yet I can't bear to keep it from her. I'm her only child, you
+know."
+
+"DON'T keep it from her," said I, "unless for some reason of your own.
+Let me tell the whole story, take all the responsibility, and accept
+the penalties, if there are any. Your mother is right in principle, if
+there IS a certain delightful exception that we know of."
+
+"My only fear is for YOU," said my darling, nestling closer to me. "She
+comes of a family that can display most glorious indignation when
+there's a good excuse for it, and I can't bear to think of YOU being
+the cause of such an outbreak."
+
+"I've faced the ugliest of guns in honor of one form of love, little
+girl," I replied, "and I could do even more for the sentiment for which
+YOU'RE to blame. And for my own sake, I'd rather endure anything than a
+sense of having deceived any one, especially the mother of such a
+daughter. Besides, you're her dearest treasure, and she has a right to
+know of even the least thing that in any way concerns you."
+
+"And you're a noble fellow, and--" Whatever other sentiment my
+companion failed to put into words was impulsively and eloquently
+communicated by her dear eyes.
+
+But oh, what a cowardly heart your dear cheek rested upon an instant
+later, fair Alice! Not for the first time in my life did I shrink and
+tremble at the realization of what duty imperatively required--not for
+the first time did I go through a harder battle than was ever fought
+with sword and cannon, and a battle with greater possibilities of
+danger than the field ever offered. I won it, as a man must do in such
+fights, if he deserves to live; but I could not help feeling
+considerably sobered on our homeward drive.
+
+We neared the house, and I had an insane fancy that instead of driving
+two horses I was astride of one, with spurs at my heels and a saber at
+my side.
+
+"Let me talk to her NOW, Alice, won't you? Delays are only cowardly."
+
+A slight trembling at my side,--an instant of silence that seemed an
+hour, yet within which I could count but six footfalls, and Alice
+replied:--
+
+"Yes; if the parlor happens to be empty, I'll ask her if she won't go
+in and see you a moment." Then there came a look full of tenderness,
+wonder, painful solicitude, and then two dear eyes filled with tears.
+
+"We're nearly there, darling," said I, with a reassuring embrace.
+
+"Yes, and you sha'n't be the only hero," said she, straightening
+herself proudly, and looking a fit model for a Cenobia.
+
+As we passed from behind a clump of evergreens which hid the house from
+our view, I involuntarily exclaimed, "Gracious!" Upon the piazza stood
+Mrs. Mayton; at her side stood my two nephews, as dirty in face, in
+clothing, as I had ever seen them. I don't know but that for a moment I
+freely forgave them, for their presence might grant me the respite
+which a sense of duty would not allow me to take.
+
+"Wezhe comed up to wide home wif you," exclaimed Toddie, as Mrs. Mayton
+greeted me with an odd mixture of courtesy, curiosity and humor. Alice
+led the way into the parlor whispered to her mother, and commenced to
+make a rapid exit, when Mrs. Mayton called her back, and motioned her
+to a chair. Alice and I exchanged sidelong glances.
+
+"Alice says you wish to speak with me, Mr. Burton," said she. "I wonder
+whether the subject is one upon which I have this afternoon received a
+minute verbal account from the elder Master Lawrence."
+
+"If you refer to an apparently unwarrantable intrusion upon your family
+circle, Mrs.--"
+
+"I do, sir," replied the old lady. "Between the statements made by that
+child, and the hitherto unaccountable change in my daughter's looks
+during two or three days, I think I have got at the truth of the
+matter. If the offender were any one else, I should be inclined to be
+severe; but we mothers of only daughters are apt to have a pretty
+distinct idea of the merits of young men, and--"
+
+The old lady dropped her head; I sprang to my feet, seized her hand,
+and reverently kissed it; then Mrs. Mayton, whose only son had died
+fifteen years before, raised her head and adopted me in the manner
+peculiar to mothers, while Alice burst into tears and kissed us both.
+
+A few moments later, as three happy people were occupying conventional
+attitudes, and trying to compose faces which should bear the inspection
+of whoever might happen into the parlor, Mrs. Mayton observed:--
+
+"My children, between us this matter is understood, but I must caution
+you against acting in such a way as to make the engagement public at
+once."
+
+"Trust me for that," hastily exclaimed Alice.
+
+"And me," said I.
+
+"I have no doubt of the intentions and discretion of either of you,"
+resumed Mrs. Mayton, "but you cannot possibly be too cautious." Here a
+loud laugh from the shrubbery under the windows drowned Mrs. Mayton's
+voice for a moment, but she continued: "Servants, children,"--here she
+smiled, and I dropped my head--"persons you may chance to meet--"
+
+Again the laugh broke forth under the window.
+
+"What CAN those girls be laughing at?" exclaimed Alice, moving toward
+the window, followed by her mother and me.
+
+Seated in a semicircle on the grass were most of the ladies boarding at
+Mrs. Clarkson's, and in front of them stood Toddie, in that high state
+of excitement to which sympathetic applause always raises him.
+
+"Say it again," said one of the ladies.
+
+Toddie put on an expression of profound wisdom, made violent gestures
+with both hands and repeated the following, with frequent
+gesticulations:--
+
+    "Azh wadiant azh ze matchless wose
+      Zat poeck-artuss fanshy;
+    Azh fair azh whituss lily-blowzh;
+      Azh moduss azh a panzhy;
+    Azh pure azh dew zat hides wiffin
+     Awwahwah's sun-tissed tsallish;
+    Azh tender azh ze pwimwose fweet
+      All zish, and moah, izh Alish."
+
+I gasped for breath.
+
+"Who taught you all that, Toddie?" asked one of the ladies.
+
+"Nobody didn't taught me--I lyned [Footnote: learned] it."
+
+"When did you learn it?"
+
+"Lyned it zish mornin'. Ocken Hawwy said it over, an' over, an' over,
+djust yots of timezh, out in ze garden."
+
+The ladies all exchanged glances--my lady readers will understand just
+how, and I assure gentlemen that I did not find their glances at all
+hard to read. Alice looked at me inquiringly, and she now tells me that
+I blushed sheepishly and guiltily. Poor Mrs. Mayton staggered to a
+chair, and exclaimed:--
+
+"Too late! too late!"
+
+Considering their recent achievements, Toddie and Budge were a very
+modest couple as I drove them home that evening. Budge even made some
+attempt at apologizing for their appearance, saying that they couldn't
+find Maggie, and COULDN'T wait any longer; but I assured him that no
+apology was necessary. I was in such excellent spirits that my feeling
+became contagious; and we sang songs, told stories, and played
+ridiculous games most of the evening, paying but little attention to
+the dinner that was set for us.
+
+"Uncle Harry," said Budge, suddenly, "do you know we haven't ever
+sung,--'Drown old Pharaoh's Army Hallelujah,' since you've been here?
+Let's do it now." "All right, old fellow." I knew the song--such as
+there was of it--and its chorus, as EVERY one does who ever heard the
+Jubilee Singers render it; but I scarcely understood the meaning of the
+preparations which Budge made. He drew a large rocking-chair into the
+middle of the room, and exclaimed:--
+
+"There, Uncle Harry--you sit down. Come along, Tod--you sit on that
+knee, and I'll sit on this. Lift up both hands, Tod, like I do. Now
+we're all ready, Uncle Harry."
+
+I sang the first line,--
+
+"When Israel was in bondage, they cried unto de Lord," without any
+assistance, but the boys came in powerfully on the refrain, beating
+time simultaneously with their four fists upon my chest. I cannot think
+it strange that I suddenly ceased singing, but the boys viewed my
+action from a different standpoint.
+
+"What makes you stop, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge.
+
+"Because you hurt me badly, my boy; you mustn't do that again."
+
+"Why, I guess you ain't very strong; that's the way we do to papa, an'
+it don't hurt HIM."
+
+Poor Tom! No wonder he grows flat--chested.
+
+"Guesh you's a ky--baby," suggested Toddie.
+
+This imputation I bore with meekness, but ventured to remark that it
+was bed-time. After allowing a few moments for the usual expressions of
+dissent, I staggered up--stairs with Toddie in my arms, and Budge on my
+back, both boys roaring in refrain of the negro hymn:--
+
+"I'm a rolling through an Unfriendly World."
+
+The offer of a stick of candy to whichever boy was first undressed,
+caused some lively disrobing, after which each boy received the prize.
+Budge bit a large piece, wedged it between his cheek and his teeth,
+closed his eyes, folded his hands on his breast, and prayed:--
+
+"Dear Lord, bless papa an' mamma, an' Toddie an' me, an' that turtle
+Uncle Harry found: and bless that lovely lady Uncle Harry goes riding
+with an' make 'em take me too, an' bless that nice old lady with white
+hair, that cried, and said I was a smart boy. Amen."
+
+Toddie sighed as he drew his stick of candy from his lips; then he shut
+his eyes and remarked:
+
+"Dee Lord, blesh Toddie, an' make him good boy, an' blesh zem ladies
+zat told me to say it aden;" the particular "it" referred to being well
+understood by at least three adults of my acquaintances.
+
+The course of Budge's interview with Mrs. Mayton was afterward related
+by that lady, as follows:--She was sitting in her own room (which was
+on the parlor-floor, and in the rear of the house), and was leisurely
+reading "Fated to be Free," when she accidentally dropped her glasses.
+Stooping to pick them up, she became aware that she was not alone. A
+small, very dirty, but good-featured boy stood before her, his hands
+behind his back, and an inquiring look in his eyes.
+
+"Run away, little boy," said she. "Don't you know it isn't polite to
+enter rooms without knocking?"
+
+"I'm lookin' for my uncle," said Budge, in most melodious accents, "an'
+the other ladies said you would know when he would come back."
+
+"I'm afraid they were making fun of you--or me," said the old lady, a
+little severely. "I don't know anything about little boys' uncles. Now
+run away, and don't disturb me any more."
+
+"Well," continued Budge, "they said your little girl went with him, and
+you'd know when SHE would come back."
+
+"I haven't any little girl," said the old lady, her indignation, at a
+supposed joke, threatening to overcome her dignity. "Now, go away."
+
+"She isn't a VERY little girl," said Budge, honestly anxious to
+conciliate; "that is, she's bigger'n _I_ am, but they said you was her
+mother, an' so she's you're little girl, isn't she? _I_ think she's
+lovely, too."
+
+"Do you mean Miss Mayton?" asked the lady, thinking she had a possible
+clue to the cause of Budge's anxiety.
+
+"Oh, yes--that's her name--I couldn't think of it," eagerly replied
+Budge. "An' ain't she AWFUL nice?--_I_ KNOW she is!"
+
+"Your judgment is quite correct, considering your age," said Mrs.
+Mayton, exhibiting more interest in Budge than she had heretofore done.
+"But what makes you think she is nice? You are rather younger than her
+male admirers usually are."
+
+"Why, my Uncle Harry told me so," replied Budge, "an' HE knows
+EVERYthing."
+
+Mrs. Mayton grew vigilant at once, and dropped her book.
+
+"Who IS your Uncle Harry, little boy?"
+
+"He's Uncle Harry; don't you know him? He can make nicer whistles than
+my papa can. An' he found a turtle--"
+
+"Who is your papa?" interrupted the lady.
+
+"Why, he's papa--I thought everybody knew who HE was."
+
+"What is your name?" asked Mrs. Mayton.
+
+"John Burton Lawrence," promptly answered Budge.
+
+Mrs. Mayton wrinkled her brows for a moment, and finally asked:--
+
+"Is Mr. Burton the uncle you are looking for?"
+
+"I don't know any Mr. Burton," said Budge, a little dazed; "uncle is
+mamma's brother, an' he's been livin' at our house ever since mamma an'
+papa went off visitin', an' he goes ridin' in our carriage, an'--"
+
+"Humph!" remarked the lady, with so much emphasis that Budge ceased
+talking. A moment later she said:--
+
+"I didn't mean to interrupt you, little boy; go on."
+
+"An' he rides with just the loveliest lady that ever was. HE thinks so,
+an' _I_ KNOW she is. An' he 'spects her."
+
+"What?" exclaimed the old lady.
+
+"--'Spects her, I say--that's what HE says. _I_ say 'spects means just
+what _I_ call LOVE. Cos if it don't, what makes him give her hugs and
+kisses?"
+
+Mrs. Mayton caught her breath, and did not reply for a moment. At last
+she said:--
+
+"How do you know he--gives her hugs and kisses?"
+
+"Cos I saw him, the day Toddie hurt his finger in the grass-cutter. An'
+he was so happy that be bought me a goat-carriage next morning--I'll
+show it to you if you come down to our stable, an' I'll show you the
+goat too. An' he bought--"
+
+Just here Budge stopped, for Mrs. Mayton put her handkerchief to her
+eyes. Two or three moments later she felt a light touch on her knee,
+and, wiping her eyes, saw Budge looking sympathetically into her face.
+
+"I'm awful sorry you feel bad," said he.
+
+"Are you 'fraid to have your little girl ridin' so long?"
+
+"Yes!" exclaimed Mrs. Mayton, with great decision.
+
+"Well, you needn't be," said Budge, "for Uncle Harry's awful careful
+an' smart."
+
+"He ought to be ashamed of himself!" exclaimed the lady.
+
+"I guess he is, then," said Budge, "cos he's ev'rything he ought to be.
+He's awful careful. T'other day, when the goat ran away, an' Toddie an'
+me got in the carriage with them, he held on to her tight, so she
+couldn't fall out."
+
+Mrs. Mayton brought her foot down with a violent stamp.
+
+"I know you'd 'spect HIM, if you knew how nice he was," continued
+Budge. "He sings awful funny songs, an' tells splendid stories."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed the angry mother.
+
+"They ain't no nonsense at all," said Budge. "I don't think it's nice
+for to say that, when his stories are always about Joseph, an' Abraham,
+an' Moses, an' when Jesus was a little boy, an' the Hebrew children,
+an' lots of people that the Lord loved. An' he's awful 'fectionate,
+too."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," said Mrs. Mayton.
+
+"When we says our prayers we prays for the nice lady what he 'spects,
+an' he likes us to do it," continued Budge.
+
+"How do you know?" demanded Mrs. Mayton.
+
+"Cos he always kisses us when we do it, an' that's what my papa does
+when he likes what we pray."
+
+Mrs. Mayton's mind became absorbed in earnest thought, but Budge had
+not said all that was in his heart.
+
+"An' when Toddie or me tumbles down an' hurts ourselves, 'tain't no
+matter what Uncle Harry's doin' he runs right out an' picks us up an'
+comforts us. He froed away a cigar the other day, he was in such a
+hurry when a wasp stung me, an' Toddie picked the cigar up and ate it,
+an' it made him AWFUL sick."
+
+The last-named incident did not affect Mrs. Mayton deeply, perhaps on
+the score of inapplicability to the question before her. Budge went
+on:--
+
+"An' wasn't he good to me today? Just cos I was forlorn, cos I hadn't
+nobody to play with, an' wanted to die an' go to heaven, he stopped
+shavin', so as to comfort me."
+
+Mrs. Mayton had been thinking rapidly and seriously, and her heart had
+relented somewhat toward the principal offender.
+
+"Suppose," said she, "that I don't let my little girl go riding with
+him any more?"
+
+"Then," said Budge, "I know he'll be awful, awful unhappy, an' I'll be
+awful sorry for him, cos nice folks oughtn't to be made unhappy."
+
+"Suppose, then, that I DO let her go," said Mrs. Mayton.
+
+"Then I'll give you a whole stomachful of kisses for being so good to
+my uncle," said Budge. And assuming that the latter course would be the
+one adopted by Mrs. Mayton, Budge climbed into her lap and began at
+once to make payment.
+
+"Bless your dear little heart!" exclaimed Mrs. Mayton; "you're of the
+same blood, and it IS good, if it IS rather hasty."
+
+As I arose the next morning, I found a letter under my door.
+Disappointed that it was not addressed in Alice's writing, I was
+nevertheless glad to get a word from my sister, particularly as the
+letter ran as follows:--
+
+
+"JULY 1, 1875.
+
+"DEAR OLD BROTHER,--I've been recalling a fortnight's experience WE
+once had of courtship in a boarding-house, and I've determined to cut
+short our visit here, hurry home, and give you and Alice a chance or
+two to see each other in parlors where there won't be a likelihood of
+the dozen or two interruptions you must suffer each evening now. Tom
+agrees with me, like the obedient old darling that he is; so please
+have the carriage at Hillcrest station for us at 11:40 Friday morning.
+Invite Alice and her mother for me to dine with us Sunday,--we'll bring
+them home from church with us.
+
+"Lovingly, your sister, HELEN.
+
+"P. S. Of course you'll have my darlings in the carriage to receive me.
+
+"P. P. S. WOULD it annoy you to move into the best guest-chamber?--I
+can't bear to sleep where I can't have THEM within reach."
+
+
+Friday morning they intended to arrive,--blessings on their thoughtful
+hearts!--and THIS was Friday. I hurried into the boys' room, and
+shouted:--
+
+"Toddie! Budge! who do you think is coming to see you this morning?"
+
+"Who?" asked Budge.
+
+"Organ-grinder?" queried Toddie.
+
+"No, your papa and mamma."
+
+Budge looked like an angel in an instant, but Toddie's eyes twitched a
+little, and he mournfully murmured:--
+
+"I fought it wash an organ-grinder."
+
+"O Uncle Harry!" said Budge, springing out of bed in a perfect delirium
+of delight, "I believe if my papa an' mamma had stayed away any longer,
+I believe I would DIE. I've been SO lonesome for 'em that I haven't
+known what to do--I've cried whole pillowsful about it, right here in
+the dark."
+
+"Why, my poor old fellow," said I, picking him up and kissing him, "why
+didn't you come and tell Uncle Harry, and let him try to comfort you?"
+
+"I COULDN'T," said Budge; "when I gets lonesome, it feels as if my
+mouth was all tied up, an' a great big stone was right in here." And
+Budge put his hand on his chest.
+
+"If a big'tone wazh inshide of ME," said Toddie, "I'd take it out an'
+frow it at the shickens."
+
+"Toddie," said I, "aren't you glad papa an' mamma are coming?"
+
+"Yesh," said Toddie, "I fink it'll be awfoo nish. Mamma always bwings
+me candy fen she goes away anyfere."
+
+"Toddie, you're a mercenary wretch."
+
+"AIN'T a mernesary wetch; Izhe Toddie Yawncie."
+
+Toddie made none the less haste in dressing than his brother, however.
+Candy was to him what some systems of theology are to their
+adherents--not a very lofty motive of action but sweet, and something
+he could fully understand; so the energy displayed in getting himself
+tangled up in his clothes was something wonderful.
+
+"Stop, boys," said I, "you must have on clean clothes to-day. You don't
+want your father and mother to see you all dirty, do you?"
+
+"Of course not," said Budge.
+
+"Oh, Izh I goin' to be djessed up all nicey?" asked Toddie. "Goody!
+goody! goody!"
+
+I always thought my sister Helen had an undue amount of vanity, and
+here it was reappearing in the second generation.
+
+"An' I wantsh my shoes made all nigger," said Toddie.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Wantsh my shoesh made all nigger wif a bottle-bwush, too," said Toddie.
+
+I looked appealingly at Budge, who answered:--
+
+"He means he wants his shoes blacked, with the polish that's in a
+bottle, an' you rub it on with a brush."
+
+"An' I wantsh a thath on," continued Toddie.
+
+"Sash, he means," said Budge. "He's awful proud."
+
+"An' Ize doin' to wear my takker-hat," said Toddie. "An' my wed djuvs."
+
+"That's his tassel-hat an' his red gloves," continued the interpreter.
+
+"Toddie, you can't wear gloves such hot days as these," said I.
+
+A look of inquiry was speedily followed by Toddie's own unmistakable
+preparations for weeping; and as I did not want his eyes dimmed when
+his mother looked into them I hastily exclaimed:--
+
+"Put them on, then--put on the mantle of rude Boreas, if you choose;
+but don't go to crying."
+
+"Don't want no mantle-o'-wude-bawyusses," declared Toddie, following me
+phonetically, "wantsh my own pitty cozhesh, an' nobody eshesh."
+
+"O Uncle Harry!" exclaimed Budge, "I want to bring mamma home in my
+goat-carriage!"
+
+"The goat isn't strong enough, Budge, to draw mamma and you."
+
+"Well, then, let me drive down to the depot just to SHOW papa an' mamma
+I've got a goat-carriage--I'm sure mamma would be very unhappy when she
+found out I had one, and she hadn't seen it first thing."
+
+"Well, I guess you may follow me down, Budge, but you must drive very
+carefully."
+
+"Oh, yes--I wouldn't get us hurt when mamma was coming, for ANYthing."
+"Now, boys," said I, "I want you to stay in the house and play this
+morning. If you go out of doors you'll get yourselves dirty."
+
+"I guess the sun'll be disappointed if it don't have us to look at,"
+suggested Budge.
+
+"Never mind," said I, "the sun's old enough to have learned to be
+patient."
+
+Breakfast over, the boys moved reluctantly away to the play-room, while
+I inspected the house and grounds pretty closely, to see that
+everything should at least fail to do my management discredit. A dollar
+given to Mike and another to Maggie were of material assistance in this
+work, so I felt free to adorn the parlors and Helen's chamber with
+flowers. As I went into the latter room I heard some one at the
+wash-stand, which was in the alcove, and on looking I saw Toddie
+drinking the last of the contents of a goblet which contained a
+dark-colored mixture.
+
+"Ize takin' black medshin," said Toddie; "I likes black medshin awfoo
+muts."
+
+"What do you make it of?" I asked, with some sympathy, and tracing
+parental influence again. When Helen and I were children we spent hours
+in soaking liquorice in water and administering it as medicine.
+
+"Makesh it out of shoda mitsture," said Toddie.
+
+This was another medicine of our childhood days, but one prepared
+according to physician's prescription, and not beneficial when taken ad
+libitum. As I took the vial--a two-ounce one--I asked:--
+
+"How much did you take, Toddie?"
+
+"Took whole bottoo full--twas nysh," said he.
+
+Suddenly the label caught my eye--it read PAREGORIC. In a second I had
+snatched a shawl, wrapped Toddie in it, tucked him under my arm, and
+was on my way to the barn. In a moment more I was on one of the horses
+and galloping furiously to the village, with Toddie under one arm, his
+yellow curls streaming in the breeze. People came out and stared as
+they did at John Gilpin, while one old farmer whom I met turned his
+team about, whipped up furiously, and followed me, shouting "Stop
+thief!" I afterward learned that he took me to be one of the abductors
+of Charley Ross, with the lost child under my arm, and that visions of
+the $20,000 reward floated before his eyes. In front of an apothecary's
+I brought the horse suddenly upon his haunches, and dashed in,
+exclaiming:--
+
+"Give this child a strong emetic--quick. He's swallowed poison!"
+
+The apothecary hurried to his prescription-desk, while a
+motherly-looking Irish woman upon whom he had been waiting, exclaimed,
+"Holy Mither! I'll run an' fetch Father O'Kelley," and hurried out.
+Meanwhile Toddie, upon whom the medicine had not commenced to take
+effect, had seized the apothecary's cat by the tail, which operation
+resulted in a considerable vocal protest from that animal.
+
+The experiences of the next few moments were more pronounced and
+revolutionary than pleasing to relate in detail. It is sufficient to
+say that Toddie's weight was materially diminished, and that his
+complexion was temporarily pallid. Father O'Kelley arrived at a brisk
+run, and was honestly glad to find that his services were not required,
+although I assured him that if Catholic baptism and a sprinkling of
+holy water would improve Toddie's character, I thought there was excuse
+for several applications. We rode quietly back to the house, and while
+I was asking Maggie to try to coax Toddie into taking a nap, I heard
+the patient remark to his brother:--
+
+"Budgie, down to the village I was a whay-al. I didn't froe up Djonah,
+but I froed up a whole floor full of uvver fings." During the hour
+which passed before it was time to start for the depot, my sole
+attention was devoted to keeping the children from soiling their
+clothes; but my success was so little, that I lost my temper entirely.
+First they insisted upon playing on a part of the lawn which the sun
+had not yet reached. Then, while I had gone into the house for a match
+to light my cigar, Toddie had gone with his damp shoes into the middle
+of the road, where the dust was ankle deep. Then they got upon their
+hands and knees on the piazza and played bear. Each one wanted to pick
+a bouquet for his mother, and Toddie took the precaution to smell every
+flower he approached--an operation which caused him to get his nose
+covered with lily-pollen, so that he looked like a badly used
+prize-fighter. In one of their spasms of inaction, Budge asked:--
+
+"What makes some of the men in church have no hair on the tops of their
+heads, Uncle Harry?"
+
+"Because," said I, pausing long enough to shake Toddie for trying to
+get my watch out of my pocket, "because they have bad little boys to
+bother them all the time, so their hair drops out."
+
+"I dess MY hairs is a-goin' to drop out pitty soon, then," remarked
+Toddie, with an injured air.
+
+"Harness the horses, Mike," I shouted.
+
+"An' the goat, too," added Budge.
+
+Five minutes later I was seated in the carriage, or rather in Tom's
+two-seated open wagon. "Mike," I shouted, "I forgot to tell Maggie to
+have some lunch ready for the folks when they get here--run, tell her,
+quick, won't you?"
+
+"Oye, oye, sur," said Mike, and off he went.
+
+"Are you all ready, boys?" I asked.
+
+"In a minute," said Budge; "soon as I fix this. Now," he continued,
+getting into his seat, and taking the reins and whip, "go ahead."
+
+"Wait a moment, Budge--put down that whip, and don't touch the goat
+with it once on the way. I'm going to drive very slowly--there's plenty
+of time, and all you need to do is to hold your reins."
+
+"All right," said Budge, "but I like to look like mans when I drive."
+
+"You may do that when somebody can run beside you. Now!"
+
+The horses started at a gentle trot, and the goat followed very
+closely. When within a minute of the depot, however, the train swept
+in. I had intended to be on the platform to meet Tom and Helen, but my
+watch was evidently slow. I gave the horses the whip, looked behind and
+saw the boys were close upon me, and I was so near the platform when I
+turned my head that nothing but the sharpest of turns saved me from a
+severe accident. The noble animals saw the danger as quickly as I did,
+however, and turned in marvelously small space; as they did so, I heard
+two hard thumps upon the wooden wall of the little depot, heard also
+two frightful howls, saw both my nephews considerably mixed up on the
+platform, while the driver of the Bloom-Park stage growled in my ear:--
+
+"What in thunder did you let 'em hitch that goat to your axle-tree for?"
+
+I looked, and saw the man spoke with just cause. How the goat's head
+and shoulders had maintained their normal connection during the last
+minute of my drive, I leave for naturalists to explain. I had no time
+to meditate on the matter just then, for the train had stopped.
+Fortunately the children had struck on their heads, and the
+Lawrence-Burton skull is a marvel of solidity. I set them upon their
+feet, brushed them off with my hands, promised them all the candy they
+could eat for a week, wiped their eyes, and hurried them to the other
+side of the depot. Budge rushed at Tom, exclaiming:--
+
+"See my goat, papa!"
+
+Helen opened her arms, and Toddie threw himself into them, sobbing:--
+
+"Mam--MA! shing 'Toddie one-boy-day!'"
+
+How uncomfortable a man CAN feel in the society of a dearly-loved
+sister and an incomparable brother-in-law I never imagined until that
+short drive. Helen was somewhat concerned about the children, but she
+found time to look at me with so much of sympathy, humor, affection,
+and condescension that I really felt relieved when we reached the
+house. I hastily retired to my own room, but before I had shut the door
+Helen was with me, and her arms were about my neck; before the dear old
+girl removed them we had grown far nearer to each other than we had
+ever been before.
+
+And how gloriously the rest of the day passed off. We had a delightful
+little lunch, and Tom brought up a bottle of Roederer, and Helen didn't
+remonstrate when he insisted on its being drank from her finest
+glasses, and there were toasts drank to "Her" and "Her Mother," and to
+the Benedict that was to be. And then Helen proposed "the makers of the
+match--Budge and Toddie!" which was honored with bumpers. The gentlemen
+toasted did not respond, but they stared so curiously that I sprang
+from my chair and kissed them soundly, upon which Tom and Helen
+exchanged significant glances.
+
+Then Helen walked down to Mrs. Clarkson's boarding-house, all for the
+purpose of showing a lady there with a skirt to make over just how she
+had seen a similar garment rearranged exquisitely. And Alice strolled
+down to the gate with her to say good-by; and they had so much to talk
+about that Helen walked Alice nearly to our house, and then insisted on
+her coming the rest of the way so she might be driven home. And then
+Mike was sent back with a note to say to Mrs. Mayton that her daughter
+had been prevailed upon to stay to evening dinner, but would be sent
+home under capable escort. And after dinner was over and the children
+put to bed, Tom groaned that he MUST attend a road-board meeting, and
+Helen begged us to excuse her just a minute while she ran into the
+doctor's to ask how poor Mrs. Brown had been doing, and she consumed
+three hours and twenty-five minutes in asking, bless her sympathetic
+soul!
+
+The dreaded ending of my vacation did not cause me as many pangs as I
+had expected. Helen wanted to know one evening why, if her poor, dear
+Tom could go back and forth to the city to business every day, her lazy
+big brother couldn't go back and forth to Hillcrest daily, if she were
+to want him as a boarder for the remainder of the season. Although I
+had for years inveighed against the folly of cultivated people leaving
+the city to find residences, Helen's argument was unanswerable and I
+submitted. I did even more; I purchased a lovely bit of ground (though
+the deed stands in Tom's name for the present), and Tom has brought up
+several plans of cottage-houses, and every evening they are spread on
+the dining-room table, and there gather round them four people, among
+whom are a white-goods salesman, and a young lady with the brightest of
+eyes and cheeks full of roses and lilies. This latter-named personage
+has her own opinions of the merits of all plans suggested, and insisted
+that whatever plan IS adopted MUST have a lovely room to be set apart
+as the exclusive property of Helen's boys. Young as these gentlemen are
+I find frequent occasions to be frightfully jealous of them, but they
+are unmoved by either my frowns or persuasions--artifice alone is able
+to prevent their monopolizing the time of an adorable being of whose
+society I cannot possibly have too much. She insists that when the
+ceremony takes place in December, they shall officiate as groomsmen,
+and I have not the slightest doubt that she will carry her point. In
+fact, I confess to frequent affectionate advances toward them myself,
+and when I retire without first seeking their room and putting a
+grateful kiss upon their unconscious lips, my conscience upbraids me
+with base ingratitude. To think I might yet be a hopeless bachelor had
+it not been for them, is to overflow with thankfulness to the giver of
+HELEN'S BABIES.
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Helen's Babies, by John Habberton
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