“You mean, mamma, the one with the red smokestack, and only three
iegs?” é

“Yes,” said mamma, “that’s the very one.”

“Well, then,” replied the baby, as he settled down into bed again, “‘that
b’longs to Jim.”

“Did he say you could have it?”

The baby thought for quite a long time, and then said: ‘Seems to me he
didn’t; I expect I just took it.”

“Come,” said mamma, putting down the candle, “you must get right up
and take it back.”

“But I haven’t got any clothes on,” said the baby.

“No difference,” said mamma, “you can dress, and I'll stay here to button
your shoes.”

““Oh, dear!” é

But he had to do it, I can tell you; and, when he came down-stairs, there
was the engine quite ready to be taken home.

“Have I got to go all alone >” And the little boy opened the front door,
and looked out. The lights were burning in the streets, but, phew! wasn’t it
dark between them?

“T tell you what,” said mamma as her cold, stony heart softened a little at
last, ‘I'll stay here by the window, and perhaps you can see all the way over.”
Well, and so—Oh, yes, then the baby clattered down the front steps; and,
after running straight into the big lilac bush at the corner of the house, and
almost going head-first over the big stone down in the driveway, he looked
around, and there was mamma, sure enough, standing and waving good-by.

“ Pretty tough!” said baby to himself; but he tramped on over the hill, and
down to the fence that ran across Jim’s back yard. He crawled through, and
went on tiptoe up the steps to the door.

“Guess I'll just leave it and run home,” said the little boy to himself, but
he looked across and there was mamma still standing in the window. |

‘No, I guess I wont,” he said; and so he rang the bell. The minute the
girl opened the door, he heard Jim crying almost like mad, way up-stairs.
“Here’s Jim's engine, and I stold it; and I guess he’s crying for that, and I’m
sorry, and I’m going home—”

And the next thing they saw was a little boy scurrying across the back-
yard, through the fence, and over the hill. And I tell you another thing, too—
that little chap did not stop till he was safe in his mamma’sarmsagain. ‘This
makes two times that I’m gone to bed in only one night,” said the baby. “And,
mamma, I’m sorry "bout that engine.”