The Portland daily press., 1882-12-25

the ruin; he simply opened his fist and drop
| pad the string, and passed on as If they were
anybody's beans but his; he had nothing to do
with them, and didn't know there was such
thing as baked bean in the world, in fact.
En- pede Hereulen1.
Perhaps the worst thing Laddy ever did was
p. But l hesitate to tell you. II really
was too shocking Still, don't kuow,-if you
| will promise never to speak of it,-ond then 1
| hardly think he realized what he was doing.
Ii h. and Johnny had not been left alone that
day,-but they were alone with great-grand-
mother and had been told to take care of her,
and see that she didn't fall into the fire, till
grandmother came back. Grandmother her.
self seemed almost young girl in comparison
| with poor old great-grandmother, who never
stirred from the moment she was put into her
armchair IN the morning till she was taken
| out of it at night. Laddy Sat looking al her
| with | know not what strange fancies fitting
| through his mind Possibly there came over
him such sensation as one might have when
looking down the crater of bnrned-out volca-
no, or over picture where the painting had
been wiped out. For all at once he whispered
TO Johnny, "Larks, Johnny, larks! let's do it!''
How far the little wretches would have gone
in their wicked work nobody knows; for they
We're interrupted by grandmother, who had
| thought matters were too quiet to be whole
some in there, and who seized them both and
| shook them till they did not know whether they
were on on this star or on several others. And
then the little torments ran back to their
m AZ act fhnu nj oto ,rt+ !
great-grandmother any longer, because grand
mother was SO cross Laddy was good deal
younger then than at this present writing, but
! am afraid he had soma reprehensible begin
nings in him.
Yet, after all, l suppose 1 could find as many
good things to tell of him. I remember that
once he gave his own shoes to a beggar, and
would have gone barefooted all summer If he
had not known of pair of Toms that fitted
him; he was always polite to the cook, and she
at any rate, did not believe it had anything to
do with sly turnovers now and then; he never
robbed birds nests,-he had business with his
marbles, indeed, at birds nesting time; he
| never called a boy names behind his back, and
he always gave away the core. In spite of
everything, he was an affectionate little fellew
| and loved his people as much as he tormented
| them. If his mother sternly called him Claw
| rence!" it hurt him more than a whipping
| from Their did.
| Laddy had been busy several weeks with
chips and tools, frequently running in from his
! place of seclusion 10 ask on what day of the
month Christmas came this year. He had
been fashoning feot-rest for great grand
mother, having often exercised himself, since
the enormity of his intended behavior on a GER
tain previous occasion had been felt, in doing
one little odd turn and another for the poor
old lady's comfort Now, by the help of the
lathe, brightheaded tacks and varnish, he had
succeeded in quite an effective bit of work
| With his head first on this side and then on
that, he contemplated it in satisfaction, as he
thought of poor old great-grandmother's tired
/ feet resting on its soft cushion, whose down he
had himself plucked, last summer on the farm,
from under the wings of the old gander, at the
imminent risk of his life; and he found some
thing little touching in the contrast between
the rest of this cushion and the soul of speed
OF motion in the bicycle for which he had such
a raging desire. Bobbins and sheaths, and ve-
rious other small wooden trihes had his car
pentry devised for the rest, and he only finish
ed the last as the girls were hanging up the
green and the bells were ringing for Christmas
Eve. Having deposited his little accumula-
ton in safe hiding, he went to bed, answering
questions to his gifts in rather surly fashion,
in order to avoid having more of them to an
swer, and waited breathlessly, till every one
in the house should be asleep, that he might
steal down secretly and dispose Of them among
the array Of the other gifts.
1t had seemed to Laddy as If that Christmas
Eve W ould ne YER come. He had told his mother
that he wanted new skates; and to his father
he had been eloquent on the charms of that or
any other bicycle, Grandmother would prob
| ably give him little purse of money,-and he
wanted money sadly; Johnny, he knew pretty
certainly, was going to give him his ball; and
Rosy, and Lucy, and Sadie, and Katharine,
had united their funds towards knife with a
corkscrew in it, he suspected "a most useful
article to Laddyl What Tom had in store for
him, what Laura aud Eleanor and Sophia, not
TO speak of his grown-up and prospecting broth
ers Will and Harry, had prepared for him. he
desirable without doubt, for when Christmas
came Laddy kne that all his sins were con-
doned and forgotten.
How long it took that red sunset to fade
into orange over the snow! How slow the stars
were about coming out, how long the folks
were about getting Though tea, and what a
tittering fracas Katharine and Lucy and the
rest of them had to make in putting theil
paper parcels in convenient places fer their Ell
ders to distribute by directionl What fooll
girls werel And when upstairs at length
what splashing and chattering, what dane
gowned figures, and what choruses of glad gig
giles about nothing, till the hush of heavily
breathing slumber came and found him still
waiting, waiting for the elder people to seek
their sleep in turn. He watched the star:
through the uncurtained window while he
tried to keep his eyes open they seemed to get
caught in the huge pine boughs and to make
thin streams of white fire there; then came an
aurora borealis, like a web of white gauze
burning and shaking over the whole heav ems
he thought of the dreams stepping about from
pillow to pillow, and he was pretty sure that
he had been asleep himself when he started
with ray of the moon in his face to find the
house SO still that it was plain everybody,
young and old, were in what he cal ed the
| arms of Murphy
Making quite sure of it, Laddy slipped out Of
BED and gathered his foot-rest, and bobbns, and
| knittino- al eaths and hraokats and thar 70