ine shape, he
had been robbed of his coat. The thief had run with it behind the bed,
where he had succeeded in getting into it. The collar enveloped his
ears. The skirts dragged upon the floor. He had buttoned it, to make it
fit better, but there was still room in it for two or three boys. He had
got on his father's spectacles and Fessenden's straw hat. He looked like
a frightful little old misshapen dwarf. And now, rolling up the sleeves
to find his hands, and wrinkling the coat outrageously at every
movement, he advanced from his retreat, and began to dance a
pigeon-wing, amid the convulsive laughter of the girls.

"Oh, my soul! my soul!" cried Bill, his voice inclining again to the
falsetto. "Was there ever such an imp of Satan! Was there ever"--

Here he made a lunge at the offender. Joe attempted to escape, but,
getting his feet entangled in the superabundant coat-skirts, fell,
screaming as if he were about to be killed.

"Good enough for you!" said his mother. "I wish you would get hurt!"

"What you wish that for?" cried the old grandmother, rushing to the
rescue, brandishing a long iron spoon with which she had been stirring
the gruel. "Can't nobody never have no fun in this house? Bless us! what
'ud we do, if 't wa'n't for Joey, to make us laugh and keep our sperits
up? Jest you stan' back now, Bill!--'d ruther you'd strike me 'n see ye
hit that 'ere boy oncet!"

"He must let my things be, then," said Bill, who couldn't see much sport
in the disrespectful use made of his wearing apparel.--"Here, you!
surrender my property!"

"Laws! you be quiet! You'll git yer cut agin. Only jest look at him now,
he's so blessed cunning!"

For Joe, reassured by his grandmother, had stopped screaming, and gone
to tailoring. He sat cross-legged on one of the unlucky coat-skirts, and
pulled the other up on his lap, for his work. Then he got an imaginary
thread, and, putting his fingers together, screwed up his mouth, and
looked over the spectacles, sharpening his sight,--

"Like an old tailor to his needle's eye."

Then he began to stitch, to the infinite disgust of Bill, who was
sensitive touching his vocation.

"I do declare, father! how you can smile, seeing that child carrying on
in this shape, is beyond my comprehension!"

"Joseph!" said Mr. Williams, good-naturedly, "I guess that'll do for
to-night. Come, I want my spectacles."

He had sat down to his book again. He was a slow, thoughtful, easy,
cheerful man,