world! coming into other people's houses, with nothing to do! They
sting and torment every body! Bees are very different, for they make
honey."

"And wasps make jelly!" said Harry resolutely, while he opened the
window, and shook the happy wasp out of his pocket handkerchief.

Mrs. Crabtree allowed no pets of any description in her territories, and
ordered the children to be happy without any such nonsense. When Laura's
canary-bird escaped one unlucky day out of its cage, Mrs. Crabtree was
strongly suspected by Major Graham, of having secretly opened the door,
as she had long declared war upon bulfinches, white mice, parrots,
kittens, dogs, bantams, and gold fish, observing that animals only made
a noise and soiled the house, therefore every creature should remain in
its own home, "birds in the air, fish in the sea, and beasts in the
desert." She seemed always watching in hopes Harry and Laura might do
something that they ought to be punished for; and Mrs. Crabtree
certainly had more ears than other people, or slept with one eye open,
as, whatever might be done, night or day, she overheard the lowest
whisper of mischief, and appeared able to see what was going on in the
dark.

When Harry was a very little boy, he sometimes put himself in the
corner, after doing wrong, apparently quite sensible that he deserved to
be punished, and once, after being terribly scolded by Mrs. Crabtree, he
drew in his stool beside her chair, with a funny penitent face, twirling
his thumbs over and over each other, and saying, "Now, Mrs. Crabtree!
look what a good boy I am going to be!"

"You a good boy!" replied she contemptuously: "No! no! the world will be
turned into a cream-cheese first!"

Lady Harriet gave Harry and Laura a closet of their own, in which she
allowed them to keep their toys, and nobody could help laughing to see
that, amidst the whole collection, there was seldom one unbroken. Frank
wrote out a list once of what he found in this crowded little
store-room, and amused himself often with reading it over afterwards.
There were three dolls without faces, a horse with no legs, a drum with
a hole in the top, a cart without wheels, a churn with no bottom, a kite
without a tale, a skipping-rope with no handles, and a cup and ball that
had lost the string. Lady Harriet called this closet the hospital for
decayed toys, and she often employed herself as their doctor, mending
legs and arms for soldiers, horses, and dolls, though