“Bless me! what a boy!” fell from the lips of Mrs. Howland, as she pushed open the door and saw the disordered condition of the room.  The chairs were scattered about the apartment, and through the caning of one of them was a large hole.  The wash-bowl and pitcher were on the floor, and a good deal of water spilled around.  The bed-clothes were nearly all dragged off; and it was plain, from the feathers scattered about, that Andrew had been amusing himself with jumping on the bed.  Lifting her eyes to the tester, Mrs. Howland saw nearly a yard of the valance torn away and hanging down.

“Oh, what a boy!” she again murmured.  “He seems possessed with a spirit of mischief and destruction.  Andrew!”

She called the lad’s name, but there was no answer.

“Andrew! where are you?” The mother looked searchingly about the room.  But she neither saw the boy nor heard his voice.  Perceiving now that the back-window was open, she sprung to it with a sudden thrill of alarm.  The first object that caught her sight, was Andrew suspended in the air on the pole that supported the pigeon-box.  He was just about reaching the object of his perilous adventure.  A wild scream of terror came from the mother’s lips, ere she had time to think of self-control.  The scream, as it pierced suddenly the ears of Andrew, startled and unnerved him.  A quick muscular exhaustion followed, and ere he could recover from the confusion and weakness of the moment, his hands were dragged from their hold, and he went flashing down from the eyes of his mother like the passing of a lightning gleam.  Another scream thrilled on the air, and then Mrs. Howland sunk swooning to the floor.

Mr. Howland was just stepping into the yard, when his son fell, crushed by the terrific fall, at his feet.

“Oh, father!” came in a voice of anguish from the yet conscious boy, as he lifted one hand with a feeble effort toward his parent.  Then a deathly whiteness came ever his face, and he fainted instantly.

On the arrival of a physician it was found that Andrew’s left arm was broken in two places, his left ancle dislocated, and two ribs fractured.  As to the internal injury sustained, no estimate could be made at the time.  He did not recover fully from the state of insensibility into which he lapsed after the fall, until the work of setting the broken bones and reducing the dislocation was nearly over.  His first utterance was to ask for his mother.  She was not present, however.  Her cries, at seeing the peril and fall of her child, brought a domestic to the room, who found her lying insensible upon the floor.  Assistance being called, she was removed to her own chamber, where she remained, apparently lifeless for the space of half an hour.  When she recovered, her husband was pacing the chamber floor with slow, measured steps, and his eyes cast down.

“Andrew!  Is he dead?” were her first words.  She spoke in a low voice, and with forced composure.