“Gone!” said Martin, waving his little hand around.  “I let it go and you mustn’t look for it.”

John picked the child up in his arms and marched back to the room and popped him down on the floor, then gave him a good scolding.  “It’s a mercy the poisonous thing didn’t sting you,” he said.  “You’re a naughty little boy to play with snakes, because they’re dangerous bad things, and you die if they bite you.  And now you must go straight to bed; that’s the only punishment that has any effect on such a harebrained little butterfly.”

Martin, puckering up his face for a cry, crept away to his little room.  It was very hard to have to go to bed in the daytime when he was not sleepy, and when the birds and butterflies were out in the sunshine having such a good time.

“It’s not a bit of use scolding him—­I found that out long ago,” said Mrs. John, shaking her head.  “Do you know, John, I can’t help thinking sometimes that he’s not our child at all.”

“Whose child do you think he is, then?” said John, who had a cup of water in his hand, for the chase after Martin had made him hot, and he wanted cooling.

“I don’t know—­but I once had a very curious dream.”

“People often do have curious dreams,” said wise old John.

“But this was a very curious one, and I remember saying to myself, if this doesn’t mean something that is going to happen, then dreams don’t count for much.”

“No more they do,” said John.

“It was in England, just when we were getting ready for the voyage, and it was autumn, when the birds were leaving us.  I dreamed that I went out alone and walked by the sea, and stood watching a great number of swallows flying by and out over the sea—­flying away to some distant land.  By-and-by I noticed one bird coming down lower and lower as if he wanted to alight, and I watched it, and it came down straight to me, and at last flew right into my bosom.  I put my hand on it, and looking close saw that it was a martin, all pure white on its throat and breast, and with a white patch on its back.  Then I woke up, and it was because of that dream that I named our child Martin instead of John as you wished to do.  Now, when I watch swallows flying about, coming and going round the house, I sometimes think that Martin came to us like that one in the dream, and that some day he will fly away from us.  When he gets bigger, I mean.”

“When he gets littler,” you mean, said John with a laugh.  “No, no, he’s too big for a swallow—­a Michaelmas goose would be nothing to him for size.  But here I am listening to your silly dreams instead of watering the melons and cucumbers!” And out he went to his garden, but in a minute he put his head in at the door and said, “You may go and tell him to get up if you like.  Poor little fellow!  Only make him promise not to go chumming with spotted snakes any more, and not to bring them into the house, because somehow they disagree with me.”