32 LTistory of Gutta-Percha Withe,

 

thinking ; then for advice betook himself to Mrs
Wilson, who gave him her full attention, and sug-
gested several things, none of which, however,
seemed to him likely to succeed.

“If I could but go to bed after mamma was
asleep,” he said, “I could tie a string to my hair,
and then slip a loop at the other end over mamma’s
wrist, so that when she sat up to attend to Agnes,
she would pull my hair and wake me. Wouldn't
she wonder what it was when she felt it pulling
her?”

He had to go home without any help from Mrs
Wilson. All the way he kept thinking with him-
self something after this fashion—

“Mamma won't wake me, and Agnes can’t; and
the worst of it is that everybody else will be just as
fast asleep as I shall be. Let me see—who zs there
that’s awake all night? There’s the cat: I think
she is, but then she wouldn’t know when to wake
me, and even if I could teach her to wake me the
moment Agnes cried, I don’t think she would be a
nice one to do it; for if I didn’t come awake with a
pat of her velvety pin-cushions, she might turn out
the points of the pins in them, and scratch me
awake. There’s the clock; it’s always awake ; but
it can’t tell you the time till you go and ask it. I
think it might be made to wind up a string that
should pull me when the right time came; but I
don’t think I could teach it. And when it came to