remember those less blest
than they.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

DAISY AND DEMI

I cannot feel that I have done my duty as humble historian of the March
family, without devoting at least one chapter to the two most precious
and important members of it. Daisy and Demi had now arrived at years
of discretion, for in this fast age babies of three or four assert
their rights, and get them, too, which is more than many of their
elders do. If there ever were a pair of twins in danger of being
utterly spoiled by adoration, it was these prattling Brookes. Of
course they were the most remarkable children ever born, as will be
shown when I mention that they walked at eight months, talked fluently
at twelve months, and at two years they took their places at table, and
behaved with a propriety which charmed all beholders. At three, Daisy
demanded a 'needler', and actually made a bag with four stitches in it.
She likewise set up housekeeping in the sideboard, and managed a
microscopic cooking stove with a skill that brought tears of pride to
Hannah's eyes, while Demi learned his letters with his grandfather, who
invented a new mode of teaching the alphabet by forming letters with
his arms and legs, thus uniting gymnastics for head and heels. The boy
early developed a mechanical genius which delighted his father and
distracted his mother, for he tried to imitate every machine he saw,
and kept the nursery in a chaotic condition, with his 'sewinsheen', a
mysterious structure of string, chairs, clothespins, and spools, for
wheels to go 'wound and wound'. Also a basket hung over the back of a
chair, in which he vainly tried to hoist his too confiding sister, who,
with feminine devotion, allowed her little head to be bumped till
rescued, when the young inventor indignantly remarked, "Why, Marmar,
dat's my lellywaiter, and me's trying to pull her up."

Though utterly unlike in character, the twins got on remarkably well
together, and seldom quarreled more than thrice a day. Of course, Demi
tyrannized over Daisy, and gallantly defended her from every other
aggressor, while Daisy made a galley slave of herself, and adored her
brother as the one perfect being in the world. A rosy, chubby,
sunshiny little soul was Daisy, who found her way to everybody's heart,
and nestled there. One of the captivating children, who seem made to
be kissed and cuddled, adorned and adored like little goddesses, and
produced for general approval on all fe