entirely. First they insisted upon playing on a part of the lawn
which the sun had not yet reached. Then, while I had gone into the
house for a match to light my cigar, Toddie had gone with his damp
shoes into the middle of the road, where the dust was ankle deep.
Then they got upon their hands and knees on the piazza and played
bear. Each one wanted to pick a bouquet for his mother, and Toddie
took the precaution to smell every flower he approached--an
operation which caused him to get his nose covered with lily-
pollen, so that he looked like a badly used prize-fighter. In one
of their spasms of inaction, Budge asked:--

"What makes some of the men in church have no hair on the tops of
their heads, Uncle Harry?"

"Because," said I, pausing long enough to shake Toddie for trying
to get my watch out of my pocket, "because they have bad little
boys to bother them all the time, so their hair drops out."

"I dess MY hairs is a-goin' to drop out pitty soon, then,"
remarked Toddie, with an injured air.

"Harness the horses, Mike," I shouted.

"An' the goat, too," added Budge.

Five minutes later I was seated in the carriage, or rather in
Tom's two-seated open wagon. "Mike," I shouted, "I forgot to tell
Maggie to have some lunch ready for the folks when they get here--
run, tell her, quick, won't you?"