Pages for Laughing Eyes

"We left him and went in-to the house. In a few min-utes he went soft-ly down the gar-den walk, took off his shoes, stooped down, and scooped up earth e-nough to fill them, and then, in his stock-ing-feet, ran in a-mong the tulips and filled each cup full of the earth, emp-ty-ing all from his shoes in-to them. Daugh-ter and I had been watch-ing the child from the li-bra-ry win-dow. We crept out of the house and got in-to the gar-den as quick-ly as we could, and peep-ing be-hind the hon-ey suc-kle ar-bor, lis-tened while the lit-tle fel-low talked a-loud. 'Now 'ou tu-lips, dear, make haste and grow. All this dirt will make 'ou grow, I know, and then there'll be e-nough tu-lips for me to fill my 'it-tle hat full ev'ry day!'

"The lis-ten-ers had to laugh at that. My ba-by-boy dropped his shoes and ran as fast as he could a-way from us, 'round-and-'round, through the damp gar-den paths! He led us quite a chase be-fore we could