In Camp With a Tin Soldier

going by, returned Ji mieboyc, limbing up on the window-sill and gazing anxiously up and down the street. There were drums playing. I didnt hear them, said mamma. I guess you imagined it. Better lie down again,. Jimmie boy, and rest. You will be very tired when papa gets home, and you know if you are tired youll have ha . ve t .. o go to bed instead of taking supper with hinii hd fi3 c id . . be too bad on his birth dav, t Is eBII Giaihg to have a birthday to-day queried the little fellow. And a cake with candles in it Yes, answered mamma. Two cakes with candles on them, I think, she added. Whats he to have two cakes for I had only one, said Jimmieboy. One cake wouldnt be big enough to hold all the candles, mamma answered. You see, papa is a few years older than you are-almost six times as old to-day, and if he has a candle for every year, hell have to have two cakes to hold them all. Is papa six years old to-day asked Jimrnieboy, resuming his recumbent positioii on tlie pillow. Oh, indeed, yes, hes thirty, said mamma. How many is thirty asked Jiinmieboy. Never mind, dearest, returned mamma, giving Jimmieboy a kiss. Dont you bother about that. Just close those little peepers and go to sleep. So Jimmieboy closed his eyes and lay very still for a few minutes. He was not sorry to do it, either, because he really was quite sleepy. He ought to have had his nap before luncheon, but his mamma had been so busy all the morning, making ready for his papas birthday dinner, that she had forgotten to call him in from the playground, where he was so absorbed in the glorious sport of seesawing with his little friend from across the way that he never even thought of his nap. As many as five minutes must have slipped by before Ji nmieboy opened his eyes again, and I doubt if he would have done so even then had he not heard repeated the unmistakable sounds of drums. I did - hear em tbat time, mamma, he cried, starting up again and winking very hard, for the sand-man had left nearly u pint of sand in Jimmieboys eyes. I heard em plain us could be. To this second statement of Jimmieboys that lie heard solcliers going by somewhere, there was no answer, for there was no one in the room to give him one, His mamma, supposing that he had finally fallen asleep, had tiptoed out of the room and was now down stairs, so that the little fellow fouud himself alone, As a rule ile did not like to be al. one, although he knew of no greater delight than that of conversing with himself, and he was on the point of running to the door to call to his mother to return, when his attention was arrested by some very curious goings-on in a favorite picture of his that hung directly over the . fire-place. This picture was not, under ordinary circumstances, what any one would call a lively picture-in fact, it was usually a vcry quiet one, representing a country lane shaded on either side by great oak-trees that towered up into the sky, their branches overhanging the road so as to form a leafy arch, through which only an occasional ray of the sun ever found its way...