they needed to.

On the way back, we met several women and girls on nags, and I was
pained to see that my boys did not remove their hats. When I told them
they must do so, Philip demanded why.

"To show the respect you feel for women," I replied.

"But I haint got none," he answered candidly; "they never done nothing
for me. I'd ruther take off my hat to a cow,--I git something back from
her!"

This from the namesake of the Pattern of Chivalry! Philip is very much
of a man, and a prodigious worker,--in the shop he does better work than
most of the grown-up boys, and is actually permitted to make walnut
furniture for the big house--but he certainly lacks minor virtues, such
as courtesy and cleanliness.

After supper I happened to ask Killis about his name, and told him I
thought he must be named for Achilles, a hero who lived several thousand
years ago, and was the greatest fighter of his time. There were
unanimous demands to hear all about him, and perforce I started in
telling tales of the Trojan War. This time there was no drowsiness, but,
as one great combat followed another, intense interest, and howls of
remonstrance when I tried to stop.

I have found acceptable literary food for my babes,--but alas, what they
want is not milk at all, but blood!

_Wednesday Bed-time._

Jason, my "little pet" as the others call him, resents any allusion to
the fact that he is small, and burns to play the man. In our garden
work, he seizes shovels and mattocks almost as large as himself from the
bigger boys, and whacks away joyously with them. To-day while we were
making gravel walks, I caught him wheeling Geordie's barrow, while
Geordie made feeble passes at the gravel-bank in the creek with Jason's
little broken-handled pick. Geordie explained,

"That 'ere little Jason says he's aiming to leave if you give him
little-boy jobs,--he wants big ones. I told him he could take my
wheel-borrow awhile,--that I were willing to trade jobs with him, to
favor him."

"I don't doubt you were," I said, sharply,--I begin to fear that
Geordie's energy and talent reside mostly in his tongue.

"He's able to do it all right," continued Geordie, imperturbably. "By
dogs, you ought to have seed him fight out two of them little
day-schools at a time yesterday! Any boy can fight like that ought to
labor some, and would have to if he weren't a pet!"

This evening while Keats gave me a glowing description of Nervesty's
vinegar-pies (