oniously together. The
natural refinement which nothing but home influence can teach, gave
him sweet and simple manners: his mother had cherished an innocent and
loving heart in him; his father had watched over the physical growth of
his boy, and kept the little body straight and strong on wholesome food
and exercise and sleep, while Grandpa March cultivated the little mind
with the tender wisdom of a modern Pythagoras, not tasking it with long,
hard lessons, parrot-learned, but helping it to unfold as naturally and
beautifully as sun and dew help roses bloom. He was not a perfect child,
by any means, but his faults were of the better sort; and being early
taught the secret of self-control, he was not left at the mercy of
appetites and passions, as some poor little mortals are, and then
punished for yielding to the temptations against which they have
no armor. A quiet, quaint boy was Demi, serious, yet cheery, quite
unconscious that he was unusually bright and beautiful, yet quick to see
and love intelligence or beauty in other children. Very fond of books,
and full of lively fancies, born of a strong imagination and a spiritual
nature, these traits made his parents anxious to balance them with
useful knowledge and healthful society, lest they should make him one of
those pale precocious children who amaze and delight a family sometimes,
and fade away like hot-house flowers, because the young soul blooms too
soon, and has not a hearty body to root it firmly in the wholesome soil
of this world.

So Demi was transplanted to Plumfield, and took so kindly to the life
there, that Meg and John and Grandpa felt satisfied that they had done
well. Mixing with other boys brought out the practical side of him,
roused his spirit, and brushed away the pretty cobwebs he was so fond of
spinning in that little brain of his. To be sure, he rather shocked
his mother when he came home, by banging doors, saying "by George"
emphatically, and demanding tall thick boots "that clumped like papa's."
But John rejoiced over him, laughed at his explosive remarks, got the
boots, and said contentedly,

"He is doing well; so let him clump. I want my son to be a manly boy,
and this temporary roughness won't hurt him. We can polish him up by
and by; and as for learning, he will pick that up as pigeons do peas. So
don't hurry him."

Daisy was as sunshiny and charming as ever, with all sorts of
womanlinesses budding in her, for she was like her gentle