Next morning he found the hole dug there again, and Chuckie Wuckie was
still busy in her corner by the fence. He did not speak of it, however.
There were prints of small feet on the edge. He only smoothed down the
earth and raked the bed. He did this for three mornings, then he led
Chuckie Wuckie again to the canna-bed.

"Papa," she said earnestly, "I did not dig there. Truly, I didn't. The
hole is there every morning. I found it to-day before you came out, but
I did not dig it." There were tears in her brown eyes.

"I believe you, Chuckie Wuckie dear," said her father, earnestly.

That night the little girl stood at the gate, watching for her father to
jump off the car. She could hardly wait for him to kiss her. She took
his hand and led him to the canna-bed.

"Look!" she cried eagerly.

She was pointing excitedly to a hole beside the roots of a fresh, green
canna plant.

"That hole again," said her father. "There's a stone in it now, isn't
there?"

"No, that's what I thought; stoop down and look close, papa!" cried
Chuckie Wuckie.

It was the head of a fat hop-toad, but all that could be seen was its
mouth and bright eyes. It was staring at them. Papa poked it with the
point of his umbrella. It scrambled deeper into the hole, until there
was nothing to be seen but the dirt. It was slowly changing to the color
of the black earth.

"I watched him," cried Chuckie Wuckie, excitedly--"oh, for an hour! When
I found him he was just hopping on the canna-bed. He was looking for his
house. He acted as if the door had been shut in his face. Then he began
to open it. He crawled and scrambled round and round, and threw up the
dirt, and poked and pushed. At last he had the hole made, just as it is
every morning, and he crawled in. Then he lay and blinked at me."

"Clever fellow," said papa. "Well, we won't grudge him a home, and we
won't shut the door again in his face, will we, Chuckie Wuckie?"

The cannas have grown very tall now--almost as tall as Chuckie Wuckie's
papa--and so thick that you cannot see where the roots are; but a fat,
brown hop-toad has a snug, cool, safe little nest there, and he
gratefully crawls into it when the sun grows very hot.

The Conceited Mouse

BY ELLA FOSTER CASE

Once upon a time there was a very small mouse with a very, very large
opinion of himself. What he didn't know his own grandmother couldn't
tell him.

"You'd better keep a bright eye in your head, these days," said sh