h, I _do_ love you."

"Then tell me how that ridiculous song comforts you?"

"Makes me feel good, an' all nicey," replied Toddie.

"Wouldn't you feel just as good if I sang, 'Plunged in a gulf of dark
despair?'"

"No, don't like dokdishpairs; if a dokdishpair done anyfing to me, I'd
knock it right down dead."

With this extremely lucid remark, our conversation on this particular
subject ended; but I wondered, during a few uneasy moments, whether the
temporary mental aberration which had once afflicted Helen's grandfather
and mine was not reappearing in this, his youngest descendant. My
wondering was cut short by Budge, who remarked, in a confident tone:

"Now, Uncle Harry, we'll have the whistles, I guess."

I acted upon the suggestion, and led the way to the woods. I had not had
occasion to seek a hickory sapling before for years; not since the war,
in fact, when I learned how hot a fire small hickory sticks would make.
I had not sought wood for whistles since--gracious, nearly a quarter of
a century ago! The dissimilar associations called up by these
recollections threatened to put me in a frame of mind which might have
resulted in a bad poem, had not my nephews kept up a lively succession
of questions such as no one but children can ask. The whistles
completed, I was marched, with music, to the place where the "Jacks"
grew. It was just such a place as boys instinctively delight in--low,
damp, and boggy, with a brook hiding treacherously away under
overhanging ferns and grasses. The children knew by sight the plant
which bore the "Jacks," and every discovery was announced by a piercing
shriek of delight. At first I looked hurriedly toward the brook as each
yell clove the air; but, as I became accustomed to it, my attention was
diverted by some exquisite ferns. Suddenly, however, a succession of
shrieks announced that something was wrong, and across a large fern I
saw a small face in a great deal of agony. Budge was hurrying to the
relief of his brother, and was soon as deeply imbedded as Toddie was in
the rich black mud, at the bottom of the brook. I dashed to the rescue,
stood astride the brook, and offered a hand to each boy, when a
treacherous tuft of grass gave way, and, with a glorious splash, I went
in myself. This accident turned Toddie's sorrow to laughter, but I can't
say I made light of my misfortune on that account. To fall into _clean_
water is not pleasant, even when one is trout-fishing; but to be