"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 a.s.sistance 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 b.u.mp 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 a.s.sented, 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 a.s.sisted 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 gra.s.s. 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.sumed 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 l.u.s.trous 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."