to sleep where I can't have THEM within reach."

Friday morning they intended to arrive,--blessings on their thoughtful
hearts!--and THIS was Friday. I hurried into the boys' room, and
shouted:--

"Toddie! Budge! who do you think is coming to see you this morning?"

"Who?" asked Budge.

"Organ-grinder?" queried Toddie.

"No, your papa and mamma."

Budge looked like an angel in an instant, but Toddie's eyes twitched a
little, and he mournfully murmured:--

"I fought it wash an organ-grinder."

"O Uncle Harry!" said Budge, springing out of bed in a perfect delirium
of delight, "I believe if my papa an' mamma had stayed away any longer,
I believe I would DIE. I've been SO lonesome for 'em that I haven't
known what to do--I've cried whole pillowsful about it, right here in
the dark."

"Why, my poor old fellow," said I, picking him up and kissing him, "why
didn't you come and tell Uncle Harry, and let him try to comfort you?"

"I COULDN'T," said Budge; "when I gets lonesome, it feels as if my
mouth was all tied up, an' a great big stone was right in here." And
Budge put his hand on his chest.

"If a big'tone wazh inshide of ME," said Toddie, "I'd take it out an'
frow it at the shickens."

"Toddie," said I, "aren't you glad papa an' mamma are coming?"

"Yesh," said Toddie, "I fink it'll be awfoo nish. Mamma always bwings
me candy fen she goes away anyfere."

"Toddie, you're a mercenary wretch."

"AIN'T a mernesary wetch; Izhe Toddie Yawncie."

Toddie made none the less haste in dressing than his brother, however.
Candy was to him what some systems of theology are to their
adherents--not a very lofty motive of action but sweet, and something
he could fully understand; so the energy displayed in getting himself
tangled up in his clothes was something wonderful.

"Stop, boys," said I, "you must have on clean clothes to-day. You don't
want your father and mother to see you all dirty, do you?"

"Of course not," said Budge.

"Oh, Izh I goin' to be djessed up all nicey?" asked Toddie. "Goody!
goody! goody!"

I always thought my sister Helen had an undue amount of vanity, and
here it was reappearing in the second generation.

"An' I wantsh my shoes made all nigger," said Toddie.

"What?"

"Wantsh my shoesh made all nigger wif a bottle-bwush, too," said Toddie.

I looked appealingly at Budge, who answered:--

"He means he wants his shoes blacked, with the polish that's in a
bottle, an' you rub it on