IS#'.] terized the charming little fellow that Stoger involuntarily smiled. “Then you must be mother’s stupid little thin boy,’’ addressing the eldest of the trio, a slender boy who was doing his best not to appear frightened, but who answered with not a little self-con sciousness, jf No, sir; I’m mother’s sensible boy.” “ Zounds I Tisten to that. But none of you appear to have a name. ’ ’ “ Mine is Bess,” said the girl, “ And mine is Walt,” added the little brother. “Their names are Elizabeth and Walter, broke in the eldest,” and mine is John Charles Rudolph Francis Konig. ’ ’ “H’m! You seem to be quite a resolute little fellow. What do you intend becoming when you’re grown up ? ” “I’m going to be a general.” “ To do that you must go to war, and you might be killed.” This prospect was not very pleasing to him. He thought a moment and then said: “ If I fight bravely, nothing will happen; and do you know what?” he confidingly stepped closer, “I’ll shut my eyes real tight and then I won’t see the shooting,” Stoger laughed out loudly. It was a rough, unmelodiotts laugh, for laughing, like every other accomplishment, must be practiced if one would not lose it. He shrank at the sound of his own voice. ‘ ‘ What does your mother do ? ” “ Paints and draws, and sometimes she cries,” was the answer. “Paints and draws,” Stoger repeated, pretending to have missed the last words. “ On pusselan,” declared Bess. “On plortslain,” corrected Johnnie, and then added, apolo getically, “ she’s too little; she can’t say plortslain yet.” ‘ ‘ Do you love your mother ? ’ ’ “ Oh, awful much,” said Bess. “ And I—l love her like, like—” and here Johnny began seek ing a word which would express the magnitude of his love — “ like an elephant.” This was apparently the best his imagination could suggest, and Stoger was amazed at the immensity of the idea, when Bess Ckristniastide.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers