ance much resembling a
shawl, sometimes red, sometimes blue, often plaid, and, strange to say,
they frequently change skins with one another. On their heads they have
a horn very like a stiff brown paper lamp-lighter. Wings of the same
substance flap upon their shoulders when they fly; this is never very
far from the ground, as they usually fall with violence if they attempt
any lofty flights. They browse over the earth, but can sit up and eat
like the squirrel. Their favorite nourishment is the seed-cake; apples
also are freely taken, and sometimes raw carrots are nibbled when food
is scarce. They live in dens, where they have a sort of nest, much like
a clothes-basket, in which the little Brops play till their wings are
grown. These singular animals quarrel at times, and it is on these
occasions that they burst into human speech, call each other names, cry,
scold, and sometimes tear off horns and skin, declaring fiercely that
they "won't play." The few privileged persons who have studied them are
inclined to think them a remarkable mixture of the monkey, the sphinx,
the roc, and the queer creatures seen by the famous Peter Wilkins.

This game was a great favorite, and the younger children beguiled many
a rainy afternoon flapping or creeping about the nursery, acting like
little bedlamites and being as merry as little grigs. To be sure, it was
rather hard upon clothes, particularly trouser-knees, and jacket-elbows;
but Mrs. Bhaer only said, as she patched and darned,

"We do things just as foolish, and not half so harmless. If I could
get as much happiness out of it as the little dears do, I'd be a Brop
myself."

Nat's favorite amusements were working in his garden, and sitting in the
willow-tree with his violin, for that green nest was a fairy world to
him, and there he loved to perch, making music like a happy bird. The
lads called him "Old Chirper," because he was always humming, whistling,
or fiddling, and they often stopped a minute in their work or play to
listen to the soft tones of the violin, which seemed to lead a little
orchestra of summer sounds. The birds appeared to regard him as one of
themselves, and fearlessly sat on the fence or lit among the boughs to
watch him with their quick bright eyes. The robins in the apple-tree
near by evidently considered him a friend, for the father bird hunted
insects close beside him, and the little mother brooded as confidingly
over her blue eggs as if the boy was only