and stomach, while Ian has achieved several most
curious looking things with carrot horns,--whatever are they? Father has
just driven in, and is laughing heartily, and Evan is waving to me.

* * * * *

Calm reigns again. The fort has surrendered, the final charge having been
led by Corney Delaney. We've had hot milk all around, father has retired
to the study to decipher a complicated letter from Aunt Lot, Evan has
taken the boys into the den for a drawing lesson, and the mystery of the
snow man is solved.

We do not intend to have the boys learn any regular lessons before
another fall, but for the last two years I have managed that they
should sit still and be occupied with something every morning, so that
they may learn how to keep quiet without its being a strain,--shelling
peas, cutting papers for jelly pots, stringing popcorn for the hospital
Christmas tree, seeding raisins with a dozen for pay at the end--this
latter is an heroic feat when it is accomplished without drawing the
pay on the instalment plan--and many other little tasks, varied
according to season.

Ian has a quick eye and comprehension, and he is extremely colour
sensitive, but healthily ignorant of book learning, while Richard, how we
do not know, has learned to read in a fashion of his own, not seeming yet
to separate letters or words, but "swallowing the sense in lumps," as
Martha puts it.

Yesterday, before our return, the weather being threatening, and the
boys, keyed for mischief, clamouring and uneasy, very much as birds and
animals are before a storm, father invited them to spend the afternoon
with him in the study, and Martha Corkle, who mounts guard during my
brief holidays, saw that their paws were scrubbed, and then relaxed her
vigilance, joining Evan in the sewing room.

After many three-cornered discussions as to what liberty was to be
allowed the boys in study and den, we decided that when they learned to
respect books in the handling they should be free to browse as they
pleased; the curiosities, rarities, and special professional literature,
being behind glass doors, could easily be protected by lock and key.
Father's theory is that if you want children to love books, no barriers
must be interposed from the beginning, and that being so much with us the
boys will only understand what is suited to their age, and therefore the
harmful will pass them by. I was never shut from the library shelves, or