Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 1.djvu/91

78 as if he said, 'What in the world are all those topsy-turvy children about?' Then he'd sit in the middle of a brook, in a water-color sketch by Vautin, as if bathing his feet, or seem to be eating the cherry which one little duck politely offers another little duck, in Oscar Pletch's Summer Party. He frequently kissed my mother's portrait, and sat on my father's bald head, as if trying to get out some of the wisdom stored up there, like honey in an ill-thatched bee-hive. My bronze Mercury rather puzzled him, for he could not understand why the young gentleman didn't fly off when he had four wings and seemed in such a hurry.

I'm afraid he was a trifle vain, for he sat before the glass a great deal, and I often saw him cleaning his proboscis, and twiddling his feelers, and I know he was 'prinking,' as we say. The books pleased him, too, and he used