I don’t know zactly what it means, but I think it’s kind o’ splendid, don’t you?”

I did know the old song; I had heard it in a Western camp-meeting, when scarcely older than Budge, and it left upon my mind just the effect it seemed to have done on his.  I blessed his sympathetic young heart, and snatched him into my arms.  Instantly he became all boy again.

“Uncle Harry,” he shouted, “you crawl on your hands and knees and play you was a horse, and I’ll ride on your back.”

“No, thank you, Budge, not on the dirt.”

“Then let’s play menagerie, an’ you be all the animals.”

To this proposition I assented, and after hiding ourselves in one of the retired angles of the house, so that no one could know who was guilty of disturbing the peace by such dire noises, the performance commenced.  I was by turns a bear, a lion, a zebra, an elephant, dogs of various kinds, and a cat.  As I personated the latter-named animals, Toddie echoed my voice.

“Miauw!  Miauw!” said he, “dat’s what cats saysh when they goesh down wells.”

“Faith, an’ it’s him that knows,” remarked Mike, who had invited himself to a free seat in the menagerie, and assisted in the applause which had greeted each personation.

“Would ye belave it, Misther Harry, dhat young dhivil got out the front door one mornin’ afore sunroise, all in his little noight-gown, an’ wint over to the doctor’s an’ picked up a kitten lyin’ on the kitchen door-mat, an’ throwed it down dhe well.  The docthor wasn’t home, but the missis saw him, an’ her heart was dhat tindher that she hurried out and throwed boords down for dhe poor little baste to stand on, an’ let down a hoe on a sthring, an’ whin she got dhe poor little dhing out, she was dhat faint that she dhrapped on dhe grass.  An’ it cost Mr. Lawrence nigh onto thirty dollars to have dhe docthor’s well claned out.”

“Yes,” said Toddie, who had listened carefully to Mike’s recital, “an’ kitty-kitty said, ‘Miauw!  Miauw!’ when she goed down ze well.  An’ Mish Doctor sed, ’Bad boy—­go home—­don’t never tum to my housh no more,’—­dat’s what she said to me.  Now be some more animals, Ocken Hawwy.  Can’t you be a whay-al?”

“Whales don’t make a noise, Toddie; they only splash about in the water.”

“Zen grop in the cistern an’ ’plash, can’t you?”

Lunch-time, and after it the time for Toddie to take his nap.  Poor Budge was bereft of a playmate, for the doctor’s little girl was sick; so he quietly followed me about with a wistful face, that almost persuaded me to take him with me on my drive—­our drive.  Had he grumbled, I would have felt less uncomfortable; but there’s nothing so touching and overpowering to either gods or men as the spectacle of mute resignation.  At last, to my great relief, he opened his mouth.

“Uncle Harry,” said he, “do you ’spose folks ever get lonesome in heaven?”

“I guess not, Budge.”