antams,
the woods and fields, books and kindling--and I have had Her and the four
boys,--the family that is,--till at times, I will say, I have not felt
the need of anything more. But none of these things is a dog, not even
the boys. A dog is one of man's primal needs. "We want a dog!" had been
a kind of family cry until Babe's last birthday.

Some six months before that birthday Babe came to me and said:--

"Father, will you guess what I want for my birthday?"

"A new pair of skates with a key fore and aft," I replied.

"Skates in August!" he shouted in derision. "Try again."

"A fast-flyer sled with automatic steering-gear and an electric
self-starter and stopper."

"No. Now, Father,"--and the little face in its Dutch-cut frame sobered
seriously,--"it's something with four legs."

"A duck," I suggested.

"That has only two."

"An armadillo, then."

"No."

"A donkey."

"No."

"An elephant?"

"No."

"An alligator?"

"No."

"A h-i-p hip, p-o, po, hippo, p-o-t pot, hippopot, a hippopota, m-u-s
mus--hippopotamus, _that's_ what it is!"

This had always made him laugh, being the way, as I had told him, that I
learned to spell when I went to school; but to-day there was something
deep and solemn in his heart, and he turned away from my lightness with
close-sealed lips, while his eyes, winking hard, seemed suspiciously
open. I was half inclined to call him back and guess again. But had not
every one of the four boys been making me guess at that four-legged thing
since they could talk about birthdays? And were not the conditions of
our living as unfit now for four-legged things as ever? Besides, they
already had the cow and the pig and a hundred two-legged hens. More live
stock was simply out of the question at present.

The next day Babe snuggled down beside me at the fire.

"Father," he said, "have you guessed yet?"

"Guessed what?" I asked.

"What I want for my birthday?"

"A nice little chair to sit before the fire in?"

"Horrors! a chair! why, I said a four-legged thing."

"Well, how many legs has a chair?"

"Father," he said, "has a rocking-chair four legs?"

"Certainly."

"Then it must have four feet, hasn't it?"

"Cert--why--I--don't--know exactly about that," I stammered. "But if you
want a rocking-chair for your birthday, you shall have it, feet or fins,
four legs or two, though I must confess that I don't exactly know,
according to legs, just where a rocking-chair d