u, is the youngest but one
in a flock of thirteen. Some of that beautiful band--" here Mr. Cradlebow
raised a very shaky hand for an instant to his eyes, and although a
fitting occasion for sentiment, I was compelled to think of what Grandpa
Keeler had said about Godfrey Cradlebow's "sprees"--"some of that
beautiful band rest in the graveyard, yonder. Some of them already
know what it is themselves to be parents. Some of them still linger in
the poor old home nest. I see you have here, my Alvin, and my Wallace,
and my youngest, the infant Sophronia. Well, you find them good children,
I dare say. Ah! they have an estimable mother." Again, he lifted his hand
to his eyes. "Mischievous enough, you find them, probably, but
amenable--there it is, amenable--but this lad"--Mr. Cradlebow paused
again, shaking his head with a meaning to which he gravely declined
further expression.

"What is your name?" I inquired of the little boy, hopefully.

"Simmy B.," he answered revengefully in a tone of alarming hoarseness.

"Such colds as that boy has!" exclaimed the paternal Cradlebow. "They're
like all the rest of him--they're phenomenal. There are times when that
boy appears to be nothing but one frightful, perambulating cold! Well,"
he sighed, "and yet it's a strange fact, that the more depraved and
miserable a little devil is, the more his mother'll coddle him.

"Now there's this one and my Lute--Luther Larkin--a good boy, but lacking
all capacity for rest--always lacking the capacity for rest--uneasy, both
of them--always uneasy! but how the mother would give her own rest for
them, and seem to love them the better for it! strange! They have always
been her idols, too. Well, I have captured Simeon and brought him in. I
hope you may keep him. The rest you must learn for yourself. The Lord
help me!" he groaned, as he picked up his cane, with evident physical
pain, and hobbled cut of the room.

Within the school-room, things resumed their customary, Niagara-like
roar, until a lamentable voice rose above the others, and was straightway
followed by another voice in indignant explanation.

"Teacher, can't Simmy B. stop? He's puttin' beans down Amber G.'s neck!"

"Simeon!" I exclaimed, in accents calculated to melt that youthful heart
of stone, and then added; "I will speak with you a few moments alone, at
recess."

Simeon looked no longer helplessly angry as when his father brought him
in. He appeared, on the whole, well pleased, b