a regular little Paddy! If you kept him
he'd grow up into a hod-carrier."

"Good!" said I. "I never thought of that. What a novel thing it would be
to witness the gradual growth of a hod-carrier! I'll make him a little
hod, now, to begin with. He couldn't have a more suitable toy."

"I was talking in earnest," she said. "Take your baby, and please carry
him home as quick as you can, for I am certainly not going to take care
of him."

"Of course not," said I. "Now that I see how it's done, I'm going to do
it myself. Jonas will mix his feed and I will give it to him. He looks
sleepy now. Shall I take him upstairs and lay him on our bed?"

"No, indeed," cried Euphemia. "You can put him on a quilt on the floor,
until after luncheon, and then you must take him home."

I laid the young Milesian on the folded quilt which Euphemia prepared
for him, where he turned up his little pug nose to the ceiling and went
contentedly to sleep.

That afternoon I nailed four legs on a small packing-box and made a
bedstead for him. This, with a pillow in the bottom of it, was very
comfortable, and instead of taking him home, I borrowed, in the evening,
some baby night-clothes from Pomona, and set about preparing Pat for the
night.

This Euphemia would not allow, but silently taking him from me, she put
him to bed.

"To-morrow," she said, "you must positively take him away. I wont stand
it. And in our room, too."

"I didn't talk in that way about the baby you adopted," I said.

To this she made no answer, but went away to attend, as usual, to
Pomona's baby, while its mother washed the dishes.

That night little Pat woke up, several times, and made things unpleasant
by his wails. On the first two occasions, I got up and walked him about,
singing impromptu lines to the tune of "weak and wounded," but the third
time, Euphemia herself arose, and declaring that that doleful tune was
a great deal worse than the baby's crying, silenced him herself, and
arranging his couch more comfortably, he troubled us no more.

In the morning, when I beheld the little pad of orange fur in the box,
my heart almost misgave me, but as the day wore on, my courage rose
again, and I gave myself up, almost entirely, to my new charge,
composing a vast deal of blank verse, while walking him up and down the
house.

Euphemia scolded and scolded, and said she would put on her hat and go
for the mother. But I told her the mother was dead, and that seemed to
b