RUDE.

Why, in all sorts of ways, GRANDMOTHER answers. For one thing, the
days seemed ever so much shorter when I was a little girl.

And the nights, adds GRANDFATHER. Nowadays the nights are sometimes
quite long, but when I was a boy they were so short, that it almost
seemed as though there weren't any nights at all.

And food used to taste quite different then, says GRANDMOTHER. I
used to care a lot more for breakfast and dinner and supper then than
I do now.

Grandfather, asks WALTER, do you wish that you could have stayed on
being a little boy, always?

Well, I don't know, Walter, GRANDFATHER replies thoughtfully; there
are two sides to that. I'll tell you what I would like, though. I'd
like to be a little boy now and then, just for a short time, to see
once more how it would feel to run and shout and play and eat and
laugh, the way I used to. But then I think I'd pretty soon want to be
myself again, old as I am, because there are some grand things about
old age that I think I'd miss if I had to be a little boy for good and
all. A good many wonderful things happen to you when you grow old, and
even if my old body does get pretty tired sometimes, and you children
think perhaps that grandfather looks very stupid, sitting so quiet by
the fire-side here, I'm often thinking, inside, of splendid things
that little boys and girls don't know anything about.

But, grandfather, says GERTRUDE, tell us some more things that were
different when you were a boy.

Well, let me see, GRANDFATHER says, and stops for a moment to think.
Then he goes on. There were the brownies. I haven't said anything
about them, have I?

The brownies? exclaims WALTER, his eyes big with interest. What
about the brownies?

Only that when I was a little boy, answers GRANDFATHER, I used to
see the brownies sometimes. But now I never see them. It's many a long
year since I caught sight of a single one.

Where did you used to see them? asks WALTER, still excited.

Right here in this room, answers GRANDFATHER. There used to be two
of them, when I was a boy; and often I would see them, though none of
the grown-up people could see them at all. During the daytime they
used often to hide in the wood-box over there: and then at night,
they used to come out and play. And sometimes they worked, too, for I
can remember my father saying sometimes in the morning, "The floor
looks so clean that I think the brownies must have swept it last
night."

But,