wakened with
a song and a ripple of laughter that fell on her father's heart like
shower of sunshine in the somber green of the valley.

It is a pet theory of mine that to be pleasantly wakened is half the
battle for the day. If we could be wakened by the refrain of a joyous
song, instead of having our front teeth knocked out by one of those
patent pillow-sham holders that sit up on their hind feet at the head of
the bed, until we dream that we are just about to enter Paradise and
have just passed our competitive examination, and which then swoop down
and mash us across the bridge of the nose, there would be less insanity
in our land and death would be regarded more in the light of a calamity.

When you waken a child do it in a pleasant way. Do not take him by the
ear and pull him out of bed. It is disagreeable for the child, and
injures the general _tout ensemble_ of the ear. Where children go to
sleep with tears on their cheeks and are wakened by the yowl of
dyspeptic parents, they have a pretty good excuse for crime in after
years. If I sat on the bench in such cases I would mitigate the
sentence.

It is a genuine pleasure for me to wake up a good-natured child in a
good-natured way. Surely it is better from those dimpled lids to chase
the sleep with a caress than to knock out slumber with a harsh word and
a bed slat.

No one should be suddenly wakened from a sound sleep. A sudden awaking
reverses the magnetic currents, and makes the hair pull, to borrow an
expression from Dante. The awaking should be natural, gradual, and
deliberate.

A sad thing occurred last summer on an Omaha train. It was a very warm
day, and in the smoking car a fat man, with a magenta fringe of whiskers
over his Adam's apple, and a light, ecru lambrequin of real camel's hair
around the suburbs of his head, might have been discovered.

He could have opened his mouth wider, perhaps, but not without injuring
the mainspring of his neck and turning his epiglottis out of doors.

He was asleep.

He was not only slumbering, but he was putting the earnestness and
passionate devotion of his whole being into it. His shiny, oilcloth
grip, with the roguish tip of a discarded collar just peeping out at the
side, was up in the iron wall-pocket of the car. He also had, in the
seat with him, a market basket full of misfit lunch and a two-bushel bag
containing extra apparel. On the floor he had a crock of butter with a
copy of the Punkville _Palladiu