had six older brothers, great, strong, stamping boys; and her mother was a feeble, delicate woman, who had to do all the cooking, washing, ironing, making, and mending for all these men folk, without any help from servants, - so you may believe she had small time to coddle and pet her baby. In fact, before Little Pussy Willow was four weeks old, she was lying in an old basket tied into a straw-bottomed rocking-chair, in the kitchen where her mother was busy about her work; and all day long there she lay, with her thumb in her mouth, and her great, round blue eyes contentedly staring at the kitchen ceiling. Once in two or three hours her mother would take her up and nurse her a little, and pull her clothes down straight about her, and then Pussy would go off to sleep, and sleep an hour or two, and then wake up and stare at the kitchen ceiling as before, and sing and gurgle to herself in a quiet baby way, that was quite like the sound of the little brook behind the house.

When her father came home to his dinner, he would seize her in his great, strong, sun-browned hands, and toss her over his head, and her long-armed brothers would pass her from one to another, like a little shuttle-cock, in a way that would have alarmed many another baby; but Pussy took it all with the utmost composure, and laughed and crowed all the more, the ruder her nursing grew.

"I say, wife, what shall we call her?" said John Papa; "she's a perfect March blossom, come just as the pussy-willows were out."

"Let's call her Pussy Willow then," said Sam, the oldest boy; and the rest laughed uproariously, and considered it a famous joke, for when people work hard all day, and have a good digestion, it is not necessary that a thing should be very funny to make them laugh tremendously. In fine, whether the plant fairies secretly had a hand in it, or because brother Sam was so fond of his conceit, the fact is, that, though the baby was baptized in church by the name of Mary, she was ever afterwards called in the family "Pussy," and "Pussy Willow." Tom, the second boy, declared that her cheeks were soft and downy like the pussies, and when she was lying in her cradle, only two weeks old, he would sometimes tickle her cheeks with them to bring out that pretty baby smile which is as welcome on a little face as the first spring flower.

Pussy having a tranquil mind and a good digestion, throve very fast. The old women of the neighborhood remarked that she began to "feel her feet" when she was only a month old, and if anybody gave her the least chance to show off this accomplishment, she would jump up and down till one's arms were tired of holding her; but when her father or brother or mother was weary of this exercise, and laid her flat on her back in the cradle, Pussy did not make up a square mouth and begin to cry, as many ill-advised babies do, but put her thumb into her mouth, like a sensible little damsel, and set herself to seeing what could be found to amuse her on the top of the kitchen wall. There she saw the blue flies coursing up and down, stopping once in a while to brush themselves briskly with the little clothes-brushes which nature has put on the end of each of their legs, when suddenly they

would sweep round and round in circles, and then come down and settle on Pussy's face, and walk up and down over it, buzzing and talking with each other, first by her eyes, then by her nose, then over her forehead, as if the little face had been a flies' pleasure-garden, laid out expressly for them to amuse themselves in.

Pussy took it all in good part, though sometimes she winked very hard, and even took her thumb out of her mouth to make some blind little passes with her white baby fists doubled up, which would send the flies buzzing and careering again; but never a cry did she utter.

"Of all the good babies that ever I did see," said Nurse Toothacre, “I never see one ekil to this. Why, Marthy Primrose would n't know she had a baby in the house, if she had n't the washin' and dressin' and nussin' of her."

By and by little Pussy learned to creep on all-fours, and then she made long voyages over the clean-scoured kitchen floor, and had most beautiful times, because she could open the low cupboard doors and pull out all the things, and pick holes in all the paper parcels, and pull over pails of water, and then paddle in the clear, silver flood that coursed its way along the kitchen in little rivulets. One day she found a paper of indigo in the low closet, with which she very busily rubbed her hands and face and her apron and the floor, so that when her mother came in from hanging out clothes she did not know her own baby, but thought she was a little blue goblin, and had to take her to the wash-tub and put her in like a dirty dress to get her looking like herself again.

Now as Martha Primrose was celebrated as one of the nicest housekeepers in the country, of course she could not allow such proceedings; and as Pussy did not yet understand English, the only way she could keep her from them was to watch her and catch her away when she saw her going about any piece of mischief. In consequence, Baby's life was a perfect series of disappointments. It often seemed to her that she was stopped in everything she undertook to do. First, she would scuttle across the floor to the kitchen fireplace and fill both little hands with ashes and black coals, just to see what they were made of; and then there would be a loud outcry, and she would be made to throw them down, her apron would be shaken, and her hands washed, and the words, "No! no! naughty!" pronounced in very solemn tones over her. She would look up and laugh, and creep away, and bring up next by the dresser, where she would reach up for a pretty, nice dish of flour which she longed to pull over; and then the "No! no!" and "Naughty!" would sound again. Then Pussy would laugh again, and go into the back kitchen and begin paddling in a delightful pail of water, which was to her the dearest of all forbidden amusements, when suddenly she would be twitched up from behind, and "No! no! naughty baby!" once more sounded in her ear. Pussy heard this so much that it began to amuse her; and so, when her mother looked solemn and stern at her, she would shake her little head and look waggish, and try to imitate the "No! no!" as if it were something said for her diversion.

"You can't put her out," said Martha to her husband; "she's the best little thing; but it is wonderful the mischief she does. She just goes from one thing to another all day long."

The fact is, baby once got a pan of molasses pulled over on her head, and once fell, head first, into her mother's wash-tub, which luckily had not at the time very hot water in it; and once she pulled the tap out of her mother's cask of beer, and got herself pretty well blinded and soaked with the spurting liquid. But all these things did not disturb her serenity, and she took all the washings and dressings and scoldings that followed with such jolly good humor that the usual amusement, when her father and brothers came home, was the recital of Pussy's adventures for the day; and Pussy, sitting on her father's knee and discovering herself to be the heroine of the story, would clap her hands and crow and laugh as loud as any of them.

"She's got more laugh in her than a whole circus," said John Primrose. "I don't want no theatre nor no opera when I can have her"; - and her brothers, who used to be gone whole evenings over at a neighboring tavern, gradually took to staying at home to have a romp with little Pussy. When the hay about the old house was mown, they had capital times, tumbling and rolling with little Pussy in the sweet grass, and covering her up and

letting her scratch out again, and toss the hay about in her little fat hands, enchanted to find that there was one thing that she could play with and not be called "Naughty baby!" or have "No! no!" called in her ear. In my next I will tell you all about what little Pussy had to play with, and what she did, when she got older.

VOL. II. NO. X.

41

Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Who has no sunshine in his heart May call the autumn sober;

But

boys, with pulses leaping wild, Should love the brown Oc

long the glade and on the hill The ruddy oaks are glowing, And

mer - ry winds are out by night, Through all