oden leg, and out of thin air came the haughty ringmaster
and the clown and the pink acrobats, and I remembered thankfully that
I'd memorized Vachel Lindsey's "Kallyope" long ago----

"Tooting joy, tooting hope,
I am the Kallyope!
Hoot, toot, hoot, toot,
Willy, willy wah hoo,
Sizz--fizz----"

Dan'l held his breath, his eyes starry, and his mother stopped her
work, and I could see that the old man was listening slyly. Do you
know it, Michael? It's pure witchcraft of words.

"See the flags; snow-white tent;
See the bear and elephant;
See the monkey jump the rope;
Listen to the lion roar,
LISTEN TO THE LION ROAR!
Listen to the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope!"

(He must have been thinking of the Deacon's sort:)

"I will blow the proud folk low,
Humanize the dour and slow,
I will shake the proud folk down----"

Dan'l went to sleep pink and happy. So did I!

J. V.

_Wednesday._

I haven't told you about the "Low-down Wilkes," have I? They're the
pleasantest people in Three Meadows and we're very clubby. The nice
old maid on the wharf at Bath told me about them and advised me to
have the woman do my washing, but warned me that I should have to
come unto her delicately, like Agag. Being the poorest and most
destitute family on the Island they are correspondingly proud and
"techy."

Shiftlessness is a fine art with them, they've carried it so far.
Last winter they lived in a very good two-story house, and as it was
a very bitter season and Mr. L.D.W. was "kinder run down, someway,"
he very ingeniously burnt it for fuel while they were living in
it,--first the partitions in the second story, then the floor, then
the stairs, then the downstairs walls and doors. Wasn't that clever
of him? Now it's just a charred shell, and--grace of a more opulent
relative--they are camping in an unused barn. They fish a little, and
pick blueberries, and wonder, vaguely, "jest how they'll make out,
come wintuh."

I wish you might have seen her when, after a long social call, I
subtly introduced the subject of laundry and dilated on my helpless
predicament. She weighed and considered and consulted with her
spouse, and said at last, "Wall, I don't keer if I do--but I wunt
fetch'n kerry fer nobuddy!"