MOTHER'S CHILDREN

"El-sie, just mind the ba-by for a few min-utes while I fin-ish Jack's lit-tle trou-sers. He tears his clothes so that it's just patch, patch, put in pockets and sew on but-tons all the time."

"Oh, moth-er, look! Ba-by has tak-en a step! Come quick and look at him!"

So moth-er ran to see her ba-by-boy, and kiss the brave lit-tle fel-low who had dared to do this won-der-ful thing. She a-gain seat-ed her-self at her work, when she heard El-sie call, "Oh, mam-ma! Sa-die has got hold of grand-ma's bas-ket, and is toss-ing all the things out of it on the floor. She'll scream when I take it from her, but don't wor-ry, I think I can man-age her."

It was not long aft-er that when mam-ma cried out, "Why, there must be some-thing burn-ing! Oh, where is Tom-my? He has so many tricks with fire!"

Up jumped mam-ma a-gain, and run-ing in-to the li-bra-ry, found Tom-my in high glee at play in front of a bright coal fire in the grate, on the top bar of which was a row of small fig-ures made from dough that cook was work-ing in the kitch-en. Tom had seized a big piece of dough, ran off with it to the li-bra-ry, and mould-ed it up to suit him in the shape of a row of small boys tak-ing hold of hands. He set them on the hot i-ron bar, and was brown-ing them ready to eat!

"This is great fun, moth-er!" said Tom. "I'll give the chil-dren some when they are baked!"