ite it at all--I only wanted to see how it would feel
between my teeth--that's all."

I felt the corners of my mouth breaking down, and hurried back to the
library, where I spent a quiet quarter of an hour in pondering over the
demoralizing influence exerted upon principle by a sense of the
ludicrous. For some time afterward the boys got along without doing
anything worse than make a dreadful noise, which caused me to resolve
to find some method of deadening piazza-floors if _I_ ever owned a
house in the country. In the occasional intervals of comparative quiet
I caught snatches of very funny conversation. The boys had coined a
great many words whose meaning was evident enough but I wonder greatly
why Tom and Helen had never taught them the proper substitutes.

Among others was the word "deader," whose meaning I could not imagine.
Budge shouted:--

"O Tod; there comes a deader. See where all them things like rooster's
tails are a-shakin'?--Well, there's a deader under them."

"Dasth funny," remarked Toddie.

"An' see all the peoples a-comin' along," continued Budge, "THEY know
'bout the deader, an' they're goin' to see it fixed. Here it comes.
Hello, deader!"

"Hay-oh, deader," echoed Toddie.

What COULD deader mean?

"Oh, here it is right in front of us," cried Budge, "and AIN'T there
lots of people? An' two horses to pull the deader--SOME deaders has
only one."

My curiosity was too much for my weariness; I went to the front window,
and, peering through, saw--a funeral procession! In a second I was on
the piazza, with my hands on the children's collars; a second later two
small boys were on the floor of the hall, the front door was closed,
and two determined hands covered two threatening little mouths.

When the procession had fairly passed the house I released the boys and
heard two prolonged howls for my pains. Then I asked Budge if he wasn't
ashamed to talk that way when a funeral was passing.

"'TWASN'T a funeral," said he. "'Twas only a deader, an' deaders can't
hear nothin'."

"But the people in the carriages could," said I.

"Well," said he, "they was so glad that the other part of the deader
had gone to heaven that they didn't care WHAT I said. Ev'rybody's glad
when the other parts of deaders go to heaven. Papa told me to be glad
that dear little Phillie was in heaven, an' I WAS, but I do want to see
him again awful."

"Wantsh to shee Phillie aden awfoo," said Toddie, as I kissed Budge and
h