Dreamland | Page 5

form of a maiden, fair and frail as a
dream. She was bending over the slumbering body of the boy, as if to
arouse him to life by the whispered words she was breathing against his
cheek.
The artist scrawled his signature in the corner of his completed work
and set the canvas in its frame, and then stood before it, scrutinizing it
closely.
"'The Waking Soul!'--I wonder if that is a good name for it?" murmured
he to himself. And then, after a moment, he said to the pictured lad,--
"Well, Larry, little fellow, the dream's come true; and here we are, you
and I,--you, Larry, and I, Lawrence,--with the 'wish grown strong to an
endeavor, and the endeavor to an achievement.' Are you glad, Boy?"

BETTY'S BY-AND-BY.
"'One, two, three! The humble-bee! The rooster crows, And away she
goes!'"
And down from the low railing of the piazza jumped Betty into the soft
heap of new-mown grass that seemed to have been especially placed
where it could tempt her and make her forget--or, at least, "not
remember"--that she was wanted indoors to help amuse the baby for an
hour.
It was a hot summer day, and Betty had been running and jumping and
skipping and prancing all the morning, so she was now rather tired; and
after she had jumped from the piazza-rail into the heap of grass she did
not hop up nimbly at once, but lay quite still, burying her face in the
sweet-smelling hay and fragrant clover, feeling very comfortable and
contented.
"Betty! Betty!"
"Oh dear!" thought the little maid, diving still deeper into the light
grass, "there's Olga calling me to take care of Roger while she gets his
bread and milk ready. I don't see why she can't wait a minute till I rest.
It's too hot now. Baby can do without his dinner for a minute, I should
think,--just a minute or so. He won't mind. He 's glad to wait if only
you give him Mamma's chain and don't take away her watch. Ye-es,
Olga,--I 'll come--by and by."
A big velvety humble-bee came, boom! against Betty's head, and got
tangled in her hair. He shook himself free and went reeling on his way
in quite a drunken fashion, thinking probably that was a very
disagreeable variety of dandelion he had stumbled across,--quite too
large and fluffy for comfort, though it was such a pretty yellow.
Betty lazily raised her head and peered after him. "I wonder where
you're going," she said, half aloud.
The humble-bee veered about and came bouncing back in her direction

again, and when he reached the little grass-heap in which she lay,
stopped so suddenly that he went careering over in the most ridiculous
fashion possible, and Betty laughed aloud. But to her amazement the
humble-bee righted himself in no time at all, and then remarked in
quite a dignified manner and with some asperity,--
"If I were a little girl with gilt hair and were n't doing what I ought, and
if I had wondered where a body was going and the body had come back
expressly to tell me, I think I 'd have the politeness not to laugh if the
body happened to lose his balance and fall,--especially when the body
was going to get up in less time than it would take me to wink,--I being
only a little girl, and he being a most respected member of the
Busy-bee Society. However, I suppose one must make allowances for
the way in which children are brought up nowadays. When I was a
little--"
"Now, please don't say, 'When I was a little girl,'--for you never were a
little girl, you know," interrupted Betty, not intending to be saucy, but
feeling rather provoked that a mere humble-bee should undertake to
rebuke her. "Mamma always says, 'When I was a little girl,' and so does
Aunt Louie, and so does everybody; and I 'm tired of hearing about it,
so there!"
The humble-bee gave his gorgeous waistcoat a pull which settled it
more smoothly over his stout person, and remarked shortly,--
"In the first place, I was n't going to say, 'When I was a little girl.' I was
going to say, 'When I was a little leaner,' but you snapped me up so.
However, it's true, isn't it? Everybody was a little girl once, were n't
she?--was n't they?--hem!--confusing weather for talking, very! And
what is true one ought to be glad to hear, eh?"
"But it is n't true that everybody was once a little girl; some were little
boys. There!"
"Do you know," whispered the humble-bee, in a very impressive
undertone, as if it were a secret that he did not wish any one else to hear,
"that you are a very re-mark-a-ble