roof.

“Ho yo! that’s jolly!” shouted Pollio.

Instantly the door was shut in his face. So unkind of Nunky! The twins wouldn’t have meddled with his paints, of course: hadn’t they told him they wouldn’t meddle?

“If we once got in, he’d want us to stay: he finks everyfing of us,” said Pollio to Posy.

“Let’s get in,” said she.

So one day they crept up stairs and knocked. Posy had her doll, and Pollio his drum; for they meant to make it very pleasant for Nunky.

Knock! knock!

“We won’t be sturbous!” said Pollio.

“Can’t we come in a tinty minute?” pleaded Posy, fumbling at the keyhole; while Pollio’s drum tumbled down stairs, rattlety bang.

Instead of answering, Nunky growled like a bear, and roared like a lion; and they were obliged to go at last; for they might have stood all day without getting in. Nunky was a man that couldn’t be coaxed.

But that very evening, when his work was done, he was perfectly lovely, and played for them on his flute. The tune Pollio liked best was “The Shepherd’s Pipe upon the Mountain.” He thought it was a meerschaum like papa’s, and the shepherd was smoking it as he drove his sheep along. Nunky forgot to say he was making his flute sound like a bagpipe.

But the tune Posy liked best was “The Mother’s Prayer,” low and faint at first, then growing clearer and sweeter.

“Well, darling, what does it make you think of?” said Nunky as she sat on his knee, her wee hands folded, and her eyes raised to his face.

“Makes me fink of the heaven-folks,” replied she solemnly. “I wish little Alice would come down here and live again. Me and Pollio, we’d be very glad.”

Alice was a little sister she had never seen.

“I’ve asked God to send her down,” said Pollio; “but He won’t. I sha’n’t pray to God any more. You may if you want to, Posy; but I sha’n’t. I keep a-talkin’, and He don’t say a word.”

Now was the time for Nunky to tell them something about God; but what should he say? What could they understand?

“God does speak to you, Pollio: not in words; but he speaks to your heart.”

“Oh! does He? I know where my heart is,—right here under my jag-knife pocket.”

“Well, there is a voice in there sometimes, that tells you when you do wrong.”

“Is there?—-Put your ear down, Posy. Can you hear anyfing?”

“No, no,” said Nunky, trying not to smile: “the voice isn’t heard; it is felt. Tell me, little ones, don’t you feel sorry when you do wrong?”

“When I get sent to bed I do,” said Pollio.

“Once I felt awful bad when I fell down cellar,” remarked Posy.

Nunky smiled outright then, and had a great mind not to say any more; but he did so wish to plant a seed of truth in these little minds!

“Was it right, Pollio, to take those tarts yesterday without leave?”

The little boy hung his head, and wondered how Nunky knew about that.

“Didn’t something tell you it was wrong?”

“Yes, sir,” whispered Pollio faintly.

“Well, that was God’s voice. He spoke to your heart then.”

“Oh!”

Pollio began to understand.

“That is the way He speaks. Now, I don’t want to hear you say again, ‘I keep a-talkin’ and a-talkin’, and He don’t say a word.’”

“No, I won’t,” said Pollio, his brown face lighting up. “He whispers right under your pocket. I’m going to pray some more now: I’d just as lief pray as not.”

“So’d I,” said Posy. “But I sha’n’t ask him to ‘bless papa and mamma, and everybody,’ ’cause I don’t want him to bless the naughty Indians; do you, Nunky?”

“Ask him to make them good,” replied Nunky, stroking the little golden head, and wondering how much Posy understood of what he had been saying.

“Well, I will. I love God and the angels better’n I do you, Nunky. Of course I ought to love the heaven-folks best.”

“Does God do just what you ask him to when you pray?” said Pollio, who had been for some moments lost in thought.

“Yes, if He thinks it best, he does.”

“Well, then, I sha’n’t say, ‘Accept me through thy Son;’ for the sun is too hot: I’d rather go through the moon.”

Nunky had to turn his head away to laugh. He did not try in the least to explain any thing more to Pollio that evening, and he really thought all his words had been thrown away. But this was a mistake. A new idea had entered the children’s minds,—an idea they would never forget. Nunky found this out a long while afterward, and was very glad he had taken so much pains.

But just now he had talked long enough; so he dropped the children from his knee suddenly, pretending he hadn’t known they were there.

“What! you here, little Pitchers? Off with you this minute!—Oh, no! come back: you haven’t thanked me for the music.”

Nunky was careful of their manners; but I think, too, he had “a strong sense of the funny” as well as Pollio, and enjoyed seeing his nephew pull his front-hair and make a bow; while Posy dropped a deep, deep courtesy, and they both lisped out,—

“Fank you, Nunky.”

You know, Pollio’s hair was uncommonly straight and black, and he twitched it as if he were pulling a bell-rope; and Posy, being rather fat, bounced up and down like a rubber ball.

I am sure their uncle made them say “Fank you” when there wasn’t the least need of it, just to see how comical they looked.

CHAPTER II.
GOING TO SCHOOL.

When the twins were five years old, they began to go to school.

As they were trudging along with Teddy and the dog on the first morning, feeling very happy and very important, Edith called aunt Ann to see how cunning they looked,—Posy in a white frock and sun-bonnet; and Pollio all in blue, with a white sailor-hat. Posy had curled some dandelion-stems, and Teddy had tied them to the dog’s ears; so Beppo was as fine as the twins.

Dr. Field met the merry party on the street.

“Good-morning, little twimlings! Going to school? Well, don’t be sturbous, my dears.”

Pollio pulled Posy along with a jerk.

“Oh! give my regards to the family when you go home, and tell your mamma I disapprove of your studying too hard.”

Pollio ran faster yet. He never could see the least fun in the doctor’s jokes.

The schoolhouse was a large brick building, half a mile away; and the teacher seemed very glad to see the twins (of course they knew she would be), and she let them sit together. They liked it extremely, till Pollio happened to observe that he was one boy in the midst of forty girls: whereupon he stalked out to Miss Chase, and said with great dignity,—

“If you’ll scuse me, I want to sit the way the other folks do.”

Miss Chase smiled, and seated him beside Jamie Cushing (a boy of eight), and Posy beside a lame girl of seven. Pollio liked Jamie, because he had a pop-gun in his desk, and promised to show him at recess how to fire it off. Posy liked her seat-mate, because she had a very sweet face, and because she hopped on one foot, and dragged the other as a