r Uncle Harry?"

"Esh, I DO love you."

"Then tell me how that ridiculous song comforts you."

"Makes me feel good, an' all nicey," replied Toddie.

"Wouldn't you feel just as good if I sang, 'Plunged in a gulf of dark
despair'?"

"No, don't like dokdishpairs; if a dokdishpair done anyfing to me, I'd
knock it right down dead."

With this extremely lucid remark, our conversation on this particular
subject ended; but I wondered, during a few uneasy moments, whether the
temporary mental aberration which had once afflicted Helen's
grandfather and mine was not reappearing in this, his youngest
descendant. My wondering was cut short by Budge, who remarked, in a
confident tone:--

"Now, Uncle Harry, we'll have the whistles, I guess."

I acted upon the suggestion, and led the way to the woods. I had not
had occasion to seek a hickory sapling before for years; not since the
war, in fact, when I learned how hot a fire small hickory sticks would
make. I had not sought wood for whistles since--gracious, nearly a
quarter of a century ago! The dissimilar associations called up by
these recollections threatened to put me in a frame of mind which might
have resulted in a bad poem, had not my nephews kept up a lively
succession of questions such as no one but children can ask. The
whistles completed, I was marched, with music, to the place where the
"Jacks" grew. It was just such a place as boys instinctively delight
in--low, damp, and boggy, with a brook hiding treacherously away under
overhanging ferns and grasses. The children knew by sight the plant
which bore the "Jacks," and every discovery was announced by a piercing
shriek of delight. At first I looked hurriedly toward the brook as each
yell clove the air; but, as I became accustomed to it, my attention was
diverted by some exquisite ferns. Suddenly, however, a succession of
shrieks announced that something was wrong, and across a large fern I
saw a small face in a great deal of agony. Budge was hurrying to the
relief of his brother, and was soon as deeply imbedded as Toddie was in
the rich black mud, at the bottom of the brook. I dashed to the rescue,
stood astride the brook, and offered a hand to each boy, when a
treacherous tuft of grass gave way, and, with a glorious splash, I went
in myself. This accident turned Toddie's sorrow to laughter, but I
can't say I made light of my misfortune on that account. To fall into
CLEAN water is not pleasant, even when one is tro