they do not understand.  I’ll ask Father in the morning why Granny laughed at me for saying I’d like to be a prophet.  But as morning seemed still a long way ahead he tried to find a reason, but could find no better one than that prophets were usually old men.  But I shall be old in time to come and have a beard.  Father has a beard and they can’t tell that I won’t have a beard, and a white one too, so why should they—­

His senses were numbing, and he must have fallen asleep soon after, for when he awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep a long time, several hours at least, so many things had happened or seemed to have happened; but as he recovered his mind all the dream happenings melted away, and he could remember only his mother.  She had been dead four years, but in his dream she looked as she had always looked, and had scolded Granny for laughing at him.  He tried to remember what else she had said but her words faded out of his mind and he fell asleep again.  In this second sleep an old man rose up by his bedside and told him that he was the prophet Samuel, who though he had been dead a thousand years had heard him say he would like to be a prophet.  But shall I be a prophet?  Joseph asked, and as Samuel did not answer he cried out as loudly as he could:  shall I? shall I?

What ails thee, Son? he heard his grandmother calling to him, and he answered:  an old man, an old man.  Ye are dreaming, she mumbled between sleeping and waking.  Go to sleep like a good boy, and don’t dream any more.  I will, Granny, and don’t be getting up; the bed-clothes don’t want settling.  I am well tucked in, he pleaded; and fell asleep praying that Granny had not heard him ask Samuel if he would be a prophet.

A memory of his dream of Samuel came upon him while she dressed him, and he hoped she had forgotten all about it; but his father mentioned at breakfast that he had been awakened by cries.  It was Joseph crying out in his dream, Dan, disturbed thee last night:  such cries, “Shall I?  Shall I?” And when I asked “What ails thee?” the only answer I got was “An old man.”

Dan, Joseph’s father, wondered why Joseph should seem so disheartened and why he should murmur so perfunctorily that he could not remember his dream.  But if he had forgotten it, why trouble him further?  If we are to forget anything it were well that we should choose our dreams; at which piece of incredulity his mother shook her head, being firm in the belief that there was much sense in dreams and that they could be interpreted to the advantage of everybody.

Dan said:  if that be so, let him tell thee his dream.  But Joseph hung his head and pushed his plate away; and seeing him so morose they left him to his sulks and fell to talking of dreams that had come true.  Joseph had never heard them speak of anything so interesting before, and though he suspected that they were making fun of him he could not do else than listen, till becoming convinced suddenly that