, forming altogether a
perfect picture of peace and innocence, it seems hard to realize what a
busy, restive, pugnacious, badly ingenious little wretch he is! There is
something so comical in those funny little shoes and stockings sprawling
on the floor,--they look as if they could jump up and run off, if they
wanted to,--there is something so laughable about those little trousers,
which appear to be making vain attempts to climb up into the
easy-chair,--the said trousers still retaining the shape of Johnny's
little legs, and refusing to go to sleep,--there is something, I say,
about these things, and about Johnny himself, which makes it difficult
for me to remember that, when Johnny is awake, he not unfrequently
displays traits of character not to be compared with anything but the
cunning of an Indian warrior, combined with the combative qualities of a
trained prize-fighter.

I'm sure I don't know how he came by such unpleasant propensities. I am
myself the meekest of men. Of course, I don't mean to imply that Johnny
inherited his warlike disposition from his mother. She is the gentlest
of women. But when you come to Johnny--he's the terror of the whole
neighborhood.

He was meek enough at first,--that is to say, for the first six or seven
days of his existence. But I verily believe that he wasn't more than
eleven days old when he showed a degree of temper that shocked
me,--shocked me in one so young. On that occasion he turned very red in
the face,--he was quite red before,--doubled up his ridiculous hands in
the most threatening manner, and finally, in the impotency of rage,
punched himself in the eye. When I think of the life he led his mother
and Susan during the first eighteen months after his arrival, I shrink
from the responsibility of allowing Johnny to call me father.

Johnny's aggressive disposition was not more early developed than his
duplicity. By the time he was two years of age, I had got the following
maxim by heart: "Whenever J. is particularly quiet, look out for
squalls." He was sure to be in some mischief. And I must say there was a
novelty, an unexpectedness, an ingenuity, in his badness that constantly
astonished me. The crimes he committed could be arranged alphabetically.
He never repeated himself. His evil resources were inexhaustible. He
never did the thing I expected he would. He never failed to do the thing
I was unprepared for. I am not thinking so much of the time when he
painted my wri