o angels have
goat-carriages, Uncle Harry?"

"No, old fellow--they can go about without carriages."

"When _I_ goesh to hebben," said Toddie, rising in bed, "Izhe goin' to
have lots of goat-cawidjes an' Izhe goin' to tate all ze andjels a
widen."

With many other bits of prophecy and celestial description I was
regaled as I completed my toilet, and I hurried out of doors for an
opportunity to think without disturbance. Strolling past the henyard I
saw a meditative turtle, and picking him up and shouting to my nephews
I held the reptile up for their inspection. Their window-blinds flew
open, and a unanimous though not exactly harmonious "Oh!" greeted my
prize.

"Where did you get it, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge.

"Down by the hen-coop."

Budge's eyes opened wide; he seemed to devote a moment to profound
thought, and then he exclaimed:--

"Why, I don't see how the hens COULD lay such a big thing--just put him
in your hat till I come down, will you?"

I dropped the turtle in Budge's wheelbarrow, and made a tour of the
flower-borders. The flowers, always full of suggestion to me, seemed
suddenly to have new charms and powers; they actually impelled me to
try to make rhymes,--me, a steady white-goods salesman! The impulse was
too strong to be resisted, though I must admit that the results were
pitifully meager:--

"As radiant as that matchless rose
Which poet-artists fancy;
As fair as whitest lily-blows,
As modest as the pansy;
As pure as dew which hides within
Aurora's sun-kissed chalice;
As tender as the primrose sweet--
All this, and more, is Alice."

In inflicting this fragment upon the reader, I have not the faintest
idea that he can discover any merit in it; I quote it only that a
subsequent experience of mine may be more intelligible. When I had
composed these wretched lines I became conscious that I had neither
pencil nor paper wherewith to preserve them. Should I lose them--my
first self-constructed poem? Never! This was not the first time in
which I had found it necessary to preserve words by memory alone. So I
repeated my ridiculous lines over and over again, until the eloquent
feeling of which they were the graceless expression inspired me to
accompany my recital with gestures. Six--eight--ten--a dozen--twenty
times I repeated these lines, each time with additional emotion and
gestures, when a thin voice, very near me, remarked:--

"Ocken Hawwy, you does dj