m. But Miss Jessamine did. Steadying her voice, as best she might,
she read on; and the old soldier stood bareheaded to hear that first
Roll of the Dead at Waterloo, which began with the Duke of Brunswick and
ended with Ensign Brown.[5] Five-and-thirty British Captains fell asleep
that day on the Bed of Honor, and the Black Captain slept among them.

* * * * *

There are killed and wounded by war of whom no returns reach Downing
Street.

Three days later, the Captain's wife had joined him, and Miss Jessamine
was kneeling by the cradle of their orphan son, a purple-red morsel of
humanity with conspicuously golden hair.

"Will he live, Doctor?"

"Live? God bless my soul, ma'am. Look at him! The young Jackanapes!"

CHAPTER II

And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old Nurse.
--LONGFELLOW

The Gray Goose remembered quite well the year that Jackanapes began to
walk, for it was the year that the speckled hen for the first time in
all her motherly life got out of patience when she was sitting. She had
been rather proud of the eggs,--they were unusually large,--but she
never felt quite comfortable on them, and whether it was because she
used to get cramp and go off the nest, or because the season was bad, or
what, she never could tell; but every egg was addled but one, and the
one that did hatch gave her more trouble than any chick she had ever
reared.

It was a fine, downy, bright yellow little thing, but it had a monstrous
big nose and feet, and such an ungainly walk as she knew no other
instance of in her well-bred and high-stepping family. And as to
behavior, it was not that it was either quarrelsome or moping, but
simply unlike the rest. When the other chicks hopped and cheeped on the
Green about their mother's feet, this solitary yellow brat went waddling
off on its own responsibility, and do or cluck what the speckled hen
would, it went to play in the pond.

It was off one day as usual, and the hen was fussing and fuming after
it, when the Postman, going to deliver a letter at Miss Jessamine's
door, was nearly knocked over by the good lady herself, who, bursting
out of the house with her cap just off and her bonnet just not on, fell
into his arms, crying,--

"Baby! Baby! Jackanapes! Jackanapes!"

If the Postman loved anything on earth, he loved the Captain's
yellow-haired child; so, propping Miss Jessamine ag