4 EVK SI'V 



doubtless fain have us understand that lie was not 

 always thus unable to take care of himself, that 

 he was not always the clumsy, crawling creature 

 that he now is. As he lies there on his back, the 

 yellow, oily globules of surplus " elbow grease " 

 swelling larger and larger at his leaky elbows, and 

 one by one falling on the paper beneath him, we 

 may almost fancy the monologue which might be 

 going on in that blue head of his. 



"Yes, I am indeed a clumsy creature," he might 

 be saying, as he stares upward into our faces with 

 fixed indigo eyes, " and my cumbersome body is 

 a burden. Hut I was not always what you now 

 see. Ah, you should have seen me as a baby ! 

 Was there ever such a lively, acrobatic, venture- 

 some, pluck)' baby as I, even when I was a day 

 old ? Shall I tell you some of my feats ? Every- 

 body knows me as I am now; but I have taken 

 care that few shall learn my earlier history. It 

 takes a sharp eye to follow my pranks of baby- 

 hood, and no one has been smart enough to do it 

 yet, but I will at least let you into the secret of 

 my life as far as it has been found out. I am 

 little over a year old. I was born under a stone 

 in a meadow last April, when I crept out of a 

 golden-yellow case so small that you could hardly 

 see it. I believe your books say I was about a 

 sixteenth of an inch long at that time. Ah ! when 

 I think of what I zvas and what I coii/d do then. 



