TH MISCHIEVOUS PRANK OF THE GNOMES. 13

his face, as one sometimes smiles at the recol-
lection of the misdemeanors of children, to
whom he has administered a deserved rebuke.
Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, the lit-
tle gray man was gone. How or where, no
one could have told, he simply was gone.

The threat of the little gray man was ful-
filled. The burnt oatmeal porridge with the
specks of cinders in it was congealed where it
fell, and to this day, the quarries of Quincy
and the Cape Ann Quarry of Gloucester pro-
duce handsome blocks of granite, that very
few people know was once the burnt oatmeal
porridge of the Blue Hill giants.