om under his blue seamless garment, and
to peep through his pockets, and to reach down around his throat and
dangle about his face, till the little man was nearly smothered.

Then Sandy set him down a moment to rest, and he looked in his face as
he sat there, and it had the same peaceful smile, the same calm
satisfaction as before. The little man now put his head to one side,
shut his pretty brown eyes a little tighter at the corners, and opened
his mouth the least bit in the world, and put out his tongue as if he
was about to sing a hymn.

Then Sandy took him up again. He smiled again sweeter than before. Sandy
tilted him side wise, and shook him again. Then there fell a spoon, then
a pepper-box, and then a small brass candlestick; and at last, as he
rolled him over and shook the other side, there came out a machine
strangely and wonderfully made of whalebone and brass, and hooks and
eyes, that Sandy had never seen before, and did not at all understand,
but supposed was either a fish trap or some new invention for washing
gold.

Then Limber Tim, who had screwed his back up against the palings, and
watched all this with his mouth open, came down, and reaching out with
his thumb and finger, as if they had been a pair of tongs, took the
garments one by one, named them, for he knew them and their owners well,
and laid them silently aside. Then he took Washee-Washee from the hands
of Sandy and stood him up, or tried to stand him up alone. He looked
like a flagstaff with the banner falling loosely around it in an
indolent wind. He held him up by the queue awhile, but he wilted and
sank down gently at his feet, all the time smiling sweetly as before,
all the time looking up with a half-closed eye and half-parted lips, as
though he was enjoying himself perfectly, and would like to laugh, only
that he had too much respect for the present company.

"If I could only shake the lies out of him, mum, as easily as I did this
'ere spoon, and this 'ere candlestick, and this 'ere, this 'ere"--Sandy
had stooped and picked up the articles as he spoke, and now was handing
them to the Widow in triumph.

"Poor little, helpless, pitiful fellow!"

The Widow was looking straight at the celestial, who sat there piled up
in a little bit of a heap, the limpest thing in all the Forks perhaps,
save Limber Tim.

"Let him go, please; let him go. Bring the things and come in. You can
go now, John; but don't do so any more. It is not right."