n bed, and I make up and do
what I like with them. Every Sunday I put my room in order, and talk
with the little spirit that lives there, and tell him what to do. He is
very bad sometimes, and won't mind me, and I have to scold him, and take
him to Grandpa. He always makes him behave, and be sorry for his faults,
because Grandpa likes this play, and gives me nice things to put in the
drawers, and tells me how to shut up the naughties. Hadn't you better
try that way? It's a very good one;" and Demi looked so earnest and full
of faith, that Dan did not laugh at his quaint fancy, but said, soberly,

"I don't think there is a lock strong enough to keep my badness shut up.
Any way my room is in such a clutter I don't know how to clear it up."

"You keep your drawers in the cabinet all spandy nice; why can't you do
the others?"

"I ain't used to it. Will you show me how?" and Dan looked as if
inclined to try Demi's childish way of keeping a soul in order.

"I'd love to, but I don't know how, except to talk as Grandpa does. I
can't do it good like him, but I'll try."

"Don't tell any one; only now and then we'll come here and talk things
over, and I'll pay you for it by telling all I know about my sort of
things. Will that do?" and Dan held out his big, rough hand.

Demi gave his smooth, little hand readily, and the league was made;
for in the happy, peaceful world where the younger boy lived, lions
and lambs played together, and little children innocently taught their
elders.

"Hush!" said Dan, pointing toward the house, as Demi was about to
indulge in another discourse on the best way of getting badness down,
and keeping it down; and peeping from their perch, they saw Mrs. Jo
strolling slowly along, reading as she went, while Teddy trotted behind
her, dragging a little cart upside down.

"Wait till they see us," whispered Demi, and both sat still as the pair
came nearer, Mrs. Jo so absorbed in her book that she would have walked
into the brook if Teddy had not stopped her by saying,

"Marmar, I wanter fis."

Mrs. Jo put down the charming book which she had been trying to read for
a week, and looked about her for a fishing-pole, being used to making
toys out of nothing. Before she had broken one from the hedge, a
slender willow bough fell at her feet; and, looking up, she saw the boys
laughing in the nest.

"Up! up!" cried Teddy, stretching his arms and flapping his skirts as if
about to fly.

"I'll come down a