'll get used
to it. Can't you find my carpet-bag, Barby?"

"Carpet-bag? And what for a thing is that?" said Barbara, rousing from a
nap, and beginning to click her knitting-needles. "Here I was asleep
again. Now, if I did keep working in the kitchen, I could sit up just
what time I wants to; but when I sits down, I goes to sleep right off."

And Barbara went on knitting, putting the yarn over the needle with her
left hand, after the German fashion.

"But the carpet-bag, Barby: there's a black one 'some place,' in the
trunk-closet or up-attic. Now, Barby, you know I helped pick those
quails yesterday."

"Yes, yes, dear, when I gets my eyes open."

"I would sleep out doors, but ma says I'd get cold; so I'll lie on the
floor in the bathing-room. O, Barby, I'll sleep like a trooper!"

But Horace was a little mistaken. A hard, unyielding floor makes a poor
bed; and when, at the same time, one's neck is almost put out of joint
by a carpet-bag stuffed with newspaper, it is not easy to go to sleep.

In a short time the little boy began to feel tired of "camping out;" and
I am sorry to say that he employed some of the moon-light hours in
studying the workmanship of his mother's watch, which had been left, by
accident, hanging on a nail in the bathing-room.

He felt very guilty all the while; and when, at last, a _chirr-chirr_
from the watch told that mischief had been done, his heart gave a quick
throb of fright, and he stole off to his chamber, undressed, and went to
bed in the dark.

Next morning he did not awake as early as usual, and, to his great
dismay, came very near being late to breakfast.

"Good morning, little buzzard-lark," said his sister, coming into his
room just as he was thrusting his arms into his jacket.

"Ho, Gracie! why didn't you wake me up?"

"I spoke to you seven times, Horace."

"Well, why didn't you pinch me, or shake me awake, or something?"

"Why, Horace, then you'd have been cross, and said, 'Gracie Clifford,
let me alone!' You know you would, Horace."

The little boy stood by the looking-glass finishing his toilet, and made
no reply.

"Don't you mean to behave?" said he, talking to his hair. "There, now,
you've parted in the middle! Do you 'spose I'm going to look like a
girl? Part the way you ought to, and lie down smooth! We'll see which
will beat!"

"Why, what in the world is this?" exclaimed Grace, as something heavy
dropped at her feet.

It was her mother's watch, which h