ing away of
his curls did not make such a difference in him as Mother had
supposed. He was as charming to her; he was as much her own
little boy as though no meddlesome hands had even been laid upon
him. In size he was quite the same, and, as Mother stood peering
in at him, she presently heard a small, far-away voice. In it was
the whispered awe of a child who feels the bigness of the night
about him and the strangeness of silvery moonbeams on his face.

"Mother!"

The queerness of everything was so very big that the little boy's
voice almost got lost in it.

"Yes, David, Mother is here."

"Are you coming to bed?"

"Do you want me to come?"

"I got trouvers," he said. But there was no pride in this
announcement; there was a touch of disappointment. For how is it
possible to have trouvers and at the same time to call babyishly
for your mother?

"Yes, David, you have them." A pause. The little boy was sitting
up, with a bare foot held meditatively in his hand. A wee, forlorn
figure of a child he was, who seemed to be listening to the
silence of the room. And by and by he was asking dispiritedly:--

"You aren't--you aren't afraid, are you, Mother?"

"How can I be afraid when I have a soldier-man to look out for
me? Are you afraid?"

No, indeed; David was not afraid. He flopped suddenly back upon
the bed, and resolutely turned his face to the wall. Mother need
not sit by him.

So she went back to her chair and rocked quietly, and thought of
a little child who was struggling hard to be more than a little
child. Later, as she was preparing to go to bed, she heard the
wee, sweet voice of him asking ruefully if she were not--maybe--a
little lonesome.

"I'm afraid so, dear," she reluctantly admitted.

One could see that this made a difference. If she was really
lonesome she might now come into the bedroom; she might sit by
David; she might even tell him a story if she wanted to.

"If you do," he said, "it won't matter to-night. It will help you
to get use-ter to having me all grown up."

In the trail of soft radiance across the pillow Mother could see
how wide open were the eyes of her little boy, but not long after
she had drawn a chair to the bedside the drowsy lids began to
droop.

"If you're real lonesome I'll hold your hand," said David, and he
went to sleep still holding her hand.

Before he was awake the next day she stood looking at her little
boy in the darkness of early morning, and she lighte