Immediately after breakfast I despatched Mike with a note to Alice, informing her that I would be glad to drive her to the Falls in the afternoon calling for her at two.  Then I placed myself unreservedly at the disposal of the boys for the morning, it being distinctly understood that they must not expect to see me between lunch and dinner.  I was first instructed to harness the goat, which order I obeyed, and I afterward watched that grave animal as he drew my nephews up and down the carriage-road, his countenance as demure as if he had no idea of suddenly departing when my back should be turned.  The wheels of the goat carriage uttered the most heartrending noises I had ever heard from ungreased axle; so I persuaded the boys to dismount, and submit to the temporary unharnessing of the goat, while I should lubricate the axles.  Half an hour of dirty work sufficed, with such assistance as I gained from juvenile advice, to accomplish the task properly; then I put the horned steed into the shafts, Budge cracked the whip, the carriage moved off without noise, and Toddie began to weep bitterly.

“Cawwidge is all bwoke,” said he; “WHEELSH don’t sing A bittie no more,” while Budge remarked:—­

“I think the carriage sounds kind o’ lonesome now, don’t you, Uncle Harry?”

“Uncle Harry,” asked Budge, a little later in the morning, “do you know what makes the thunder?”

“Yes, Budge—­when two clouds go bump into each other they make a good deal of noise, and they call it thunder.”

“That ain’t it at all,” said Budge.  “When it thundered yesterday it was because the Lord was riding along through the sky and the wheels of his carriage made an awful noise, an’ that was the thunder.”

“Don’t like nashty old ’funder,” remarked Toddie.  “It goesh into our cellar an’ makesh all ze milk sour—­Maggie said so.  An’ so I can’t hazh no nice white tea for my brepspup.”

“I should think you’d like the Lord to go a ridin’, Toddie, with all the angels running after him,” said Budge, “even if the thunder does make the milk sour.  And ’tis so splendid to see the thunder bang.”

“How do you see it, Budge?” I asked.

“Why, don’t you know when the thunder bangs, and then you see an awful bright place in the sky?—­that’s where the Lord’s carriage gives an awful pound, and makes little cracks through the floor of heaven, an’ we see right in.  But what’s the reason we can’t ever see anybody through the cracks, Uncle Harry?”

“I don’t know—­old fellow,—­I guess it’s because it isn’t cracks in heaven that look so bright,—­it’s a kind of fire that the Lord makes up in the clouds.  You’ll know all about it when you get bigger.”

“Well, I’ll feel awful sorry if ’tain’t anything but fire.  Do you know that funny song my papa sings ’bout:—­

    “‘Roarin’ thunders, lightenin’s blazes,
    Shout the great Creator’s praises?’”