d a
creature, somewhat like a mouse, somewhat like a red flower-pot, which
glided around during the night-watches to sharpen slate-pencils, smooth
out dog-ears from school-books, erase lead-pencil marks, polish up
marbles, straighten kite strings, put the "suck" into brick-suckers, and
otherwise make itself useful. If there were not such a creature, there
ought to be, and Elias became daily surer that there was. He called it
"the Gibbage."

Perchance Romeo Augustus had caught a glimpse of it. No wonder Elias's
eyes snapped as he was hurried across the yard, and led back of the
barn, where there was a space between the underpinning and the ground.
By lying flat one could wriggle his way under the barn, and when once
beneath, there was room to stand nearly up-right.

"Elias," said Romeo Augustus, breathlessly, "I keep Mephibosheth under
here."

"Sakes and daisies!" gasped Elias.

That was a very strong expression. When somewhat moved, Elias often
exclaimed, "Sakes!" but when he added, "and daisies!" it was a sign he
was stirred to his inmost depths.

"Sakes and daisies!" said Elias.

"Yes," Romeo Augustus went on, "I heard father say he didn't want the
trouble of raising him, so I concluded I would. But nobody must see him
till he's raised, and Philemon he heard him this very day. I must take
him somewhere else. Where, Elias, oh, where can I carry him?"

Elias frowned and pondered. He was grieved not to have discovered "the
Gibbage," but he would do the handsome thing by Romeo Augustus.

Half an hour later the jolly old moon nearly fell out of the sky for
laughing. There were Elias and Romeo Augustus straining and tugging,
coaxing and scolding, trying with might and main to stifle the
expostulations of Mephibosheth, as they bore him down to an unmowed
meadow.

The ox-eye daisies opened their sleepy petals to see what all the stir
was about. The buttercups and dandelions craned themselves forward to
peep.

Down in the meadow the boys drove a stake, and to it they fastened
Mephibosheth. It was no joke taking food to him now. The unmowed meadow
was in sight of the house, and it seemed as if one or another of the
boys was always at the window. But Elias aided Romeo Augustus, and
between them Mephibosheth got his daily rations. Surely he was safe at
last. Far from it.

"Who has been trampling the grass in the north pasture?" asked Romeo
Augustus's father, a fortnight later. "I followed the path made by feet
tha