warn't it?
You've been just the same height since then, haven't ye?"

"I'm a mite the tallest!" said Mr. Sam, raising his head.

"Tell him it ain't so!" piped Mr. Sim. "Tell him I am!"

"Sho!" said Calvin Parks. "I don't believe either one of you has the
least idee, reelly. If there _was_ any difference, I should say Sim was
just a shade the tallest; how does it look it to you, Miss Hands?"

"I think Cousin Sam is!" replied Mary Sands promptly.

"You don't say!" said Calvin. "Now that's queer! Looks to me--well! I
say, let's find out! 'Tis easy done. Come on into the front room, boys,
and stand back to back, and I'll measure ye!"

The front room was open in honor of Christmas Day; "Ma's" best parlor,
with its cross-stitch embroideries, its mourning pictures, its rigid
black horse-hair chairs and sofas. Above the mantelpiece, with its tall
vases of waving pampas grass, "Ma" herself gazed down from a portentous
gold frame with a quelling glance; "Pa" hung beside her, a meek young
man with a feeble smile of apology; one could understand that he had
backed out of existence as soon as might be. In one corner stood a tall
dim mirror, and before it a little double chair of quaint shape,
evidently made for two children.

"Sho!" said Calvin Parks. "How did that chair come here? Why, I haven't
seen that for forty year. Jerusalem! that takes me back--why, Sim and
Sam, it seems only yesterday, the first time ever I set foot in this
room, and there sat you two in that little chair gogglin' at me, and
your Ma standin' beside you. Say, boys, that kind of takes holt of me!
your Ma was a good woman, if she did know her own mind. Well, we're all
poor creatur's. Here! you stand back to back in front of the glass, and
then I can see--hold your chins up--shoulders back; shoulders _back_,
Sim! don't scrooch down that way; you ain't really a crab, you
know--head up, Sam! there! now shut your eyes; any one can stand
straighter with their eyes shut; now,--"

A voice spoke from the doorway; a woman's voice, full and clear, with a
sharp ring of decision.

"Now you love each other pretty, right away, or I'll take the back of
the hairbrush to you both!"

"_Ma_!" cried the twins; and they fell on their knees beside the little
chair.

* * * * *

"I told 'em shut their eyes, and then slipped out!" said Calvin Parks.
"They never missed me. Jerusalem! Miss Hands, if you'll excuse the
expression, how did you manage it? you