marked, "I dess Dod does it when I's asleep."

A careful explanation followed, to which he listened so attentively
that his anxious grandmother said, "My dear, do you think it wise to
talk about such things to that baby? He's getting great bumps over his
eyes, and learning to ask the most unanswerable questions."

"If he is old enough to ask the question he is old enough to receive
true answers. I am not putting the thoughts into his head, but helping
him unfold those already there. These children are wiser than we are,
and I have no doubt the boy understands every word I have said to him.
Now, Demi, tell me where you keep your mind."

If the boy had replied like Alcibiades, "By the gods, Socrates, I
cannot tell," his grandfather would not have been surprised, but when,
after standing a moment on one leg, like a meditative young stork, he
answered, in a tone of calm conviction, "In my little belly," the old
gentleman could only join in Grandma's laugh, and dismiss the class in
metaphysics.

There might have been cause for maternal anxiety, if Demi had not given
convincing proofs that he was a true boy, as well as a budding
philosopher, for often, after a discussion which caused Hannah to
prophesy, with ominous nods, "That child ain't long for this world," he
would turn about and set her fears at rest by some of the pranks with
which dear, dirty, naughty little rascals distract and delight their
parent's souls.

Meg made many moral rules, and tried to keep them, but what mother was
ever proof against the winning wiles, the ingenious evasions, or the
tranquil audacity of the miniature men and women who so early show
themselves accomplished Artful Dodgers?

"No more raisins, Demi. They'll make you sick," says Mamma to the
young person who offers his services in the kitchen with unfailing
regularity on plum-pudding day.

"Me likes to be sick."

"I don't want to have you, so run away and help Daisy make patty cakes."

He reluctantly departs, but his wrongs weigh upon his spirit, and
by-and-by when an opportunity comes to redress them, he outwits Mamma
by a shrewd bargain.

"Now you have been good children, and I'll play anything you like,"
says Meg, as she leads her assistant cooks upstairs, when the pudding
is safely bouncing in the pot.

"Truly, Marmar?" asks Demi, with a brilliant idea in his well-powdered
head.

"Yes, truly. Anything you say," replies the shortsighted parent,
preparing herself to sin