de of light and heat. But his mother bent tenderly over him.

"Not yet, my child; it is not time for you to bear the heat of the
day. A little shade is good for you. Let me cover you. It is too
soon for you to be sunburned."

When the plumping afternoon showers came down, refreshing leaf and
root of every plant, Tom shrank from the precipitate inundation.

"Mother, I'm all wet. I want to come in out of the rain."

But the mother knew what was good for him. So she held him out
bravely while the streaming drops washed him; and she taught him
how to draw in the moisture which she gathered for his nourishment.

In late August a change began to come over his complexion. His
verdant brilliancy was "sicklied o'er with a pale cast of thought,"
whitish, yellowish, nondescript. A foolish human mother would have
been alarmed and would have hurried to the medicine closet for a
remedy for biliousness. Not so Tom's wise parent. She knew that the
time had come for him to grow red. She let him have his own way now
about being out in the sunshine. She even thrust him gently forth
into the full light, withdrawing the shelter that she had cast
around him. Slowly, gradually, but surely the bright crimson hue
spread over him, until the illumination was complete, and the
mother felt that he was the most beautiful of her children--not the
largest, but round and plump and firm and glowing red as a ruby.

Then the mother-heart knew that the perils of life were near at
hand for Little Red Tom. Many of his brothers had already been torn
from her by the cruel hand of fate and had disappeared into the
unknown.

"Where have they gone to?" wondered Tom. But his mother could not
tell him. All that she could do was to warn him of the unseen
dangers that surrounded him, and prepare him to meet them.

"Listen, my child, and do as I tell you. When you hear a step on
the garden path, that means danger; and when a thing with wings
flies around me and comes near to you, that means danger too. But I
will teach you how to avoid it. I will give you three signs.

"The first sign is a rustling noise that I will make when a bird
comes near to you. That means _droop_. Let yourself down behind the
wire netting that I lean on, and then the bird will be afraid to
come close enough to peck at you. The second sign is a t