e a fine little nub of a nose?
Do you see anything about him to make his mother cry?"

The doctor looked critically at the czar, who returned his gaze with
stolid indifference.

"I never saw a more perfect nub on any nose," he answered honestly.
"He's a fine big boy, and his mother should be proud of him."

"There now, what did I tell you!" Pearlie cried delightedly, nodding
her head at an imaginary audience.

"That's what I always say to his mother, but she's so tuk up with
pictures of pretty kids with big eyes and curly hair, she don't seem to
be able to get used to him. She never says his nose is a pug, but she
says it's 'different,' and his voice is not what she wanted. He cries
lumpy, I know, but his goos are all right. The kid in the book she is
readin' could say 'Daddy-dinger' before he was as old as the czar is,
and it's awful hard on her. You see, he can't pat-a-cake, or
this-little-pig-went-to-market, or wave a bye-bye or nothin'. I never
told her what Danny could do when he was this age. But I am workin'
hard to get him to say 'Daddy-dinger.' She has her heart set on that.
Well, I must go on now."

The doctor lifted his hat, and the imperial carriage moved on.

She had gone a short distance when she remembered something:

"I'll let you know when he says it, doc!" she shouted.

"All right, don't forget," he smiled back.

When Pearlie turned the next corner she met Maudie Ducker. Maudie
Ducker had on a new plaid dress with velvet trimming, and Maudie knew
it.

"Is that your Sunday dress," she asked Pearl, looking critically at
Pearlie's faded little brown winsey.

"My, no!" Pearlie answered cheerfully. "This is just my morning dress.
I wear my blue satting in the afternoon, and on Sundays, my purple
velvet with the watter-plait, and basque-yoke of tartaric plaid,
garnished with lace. Yours is a nice little plain dress. That stuff
fades though; ma lined a quilt for the boys' bed with it and it faded
gray."

Maudie Ducker was a "perfect little lady." Her mother often said so;
Maudie could not bear to sit near a child in school who had on a dirty
pinafore or ragged clothes, and the number of days that she could wear
a pinafore without its showing one trace of stain was simply wonderful!
Maudie had two dolls which she never played with. They were propped up
against the legs of the parlour table. Maudie could play the "Java
March" and "Mary's Pet Waltz" on the piano. She always spoke in a
hushed vox