Toots and His Friends

TOOTS is our baby. He is a queer one too; up early, and always in dread of bed-time. One morning, not long ago, we heard him singing, and on looking for him, found the little rogue in the very middle of our best bed in the guest chamber, where he was playing hand-organ with a long hairpin put through the pretty pillow covers which had just come home from the laundry. There he sat singing a droll medley of "Uncle Ned," "Blessed Desus," and "Down in the Coal Mine."

He had been watching two soldiers with a hand-organ, and Toots likes to do everything he sees done. While we were putting the guest-room in order, Toots marched out as a blind man, with his eyes shut and a cane in his hand. This brought him to grief, for he was picked up at the foot of the stairs with two large bumps on his pretty white brow.

Toots was quiet then for a little while, a very little while, for as soon as we decided that his bones were all sound and a doctor need not be called, he "played sick," and asked for "shicken brof" and toast.