Helens Babies | Page 4

salesman of white goods,
bachelor, aged twenty-eight, and received just as I was trying to decide
where I should Spend a fortnight's vacation:--

"HILLCREST, June 15, 1875.
"DEAR HARRY:--Remembering that you are always complaining that
you never have a chance to read, and knowing that you won't get it this
summer, if you spend your vacation among people of your own set, I
write to ask you to come up here. I admit that I am not wholly
disinterested in inviting you. The truth is, Tom and I are invited to
spend a fortnight with my old schoolmate, Alice Wayne, who, you
know, is the dearest girl in the world, though you DIDN'T obey me and
marry her before Frank Wayne appeared. Well, we're dying to go, for
Alice and Frank live in splendid style; but as they haven't included our
children in their invitation, and have no children of their own, we must
leave Budge and Toddie at home. I've no doubt they'll be perfectly safe,
for my girl is a jewel, and devoted to the children, but I would feel a
great deal easier if there was a man in the house. Besides, there's the
silver, and burglars are less likely to break into a house where there's a
savage-looking man. (Never mind about thanking me for the
compliment.) If YOU'LL only come up, my mind will be completely at

rest. The children won't give you the slightest trouble; they're the best
children in the world--everybody says so.
"Tom has plenty of cigars, I know, for the money I should have had for
a new suit went to pay his cigar-man. He has some new claret, too, that
HE goes into ecstasies over, though I can't tell it from the vilest black
ink, except by the color. Our horses are in splendid condition, and so is
the garden--you see I don't forget your old passion for flowers. And,
last and best, there never were so many handsome girls at Hillcrest as
there are among the summer boarders already here; the girls you
already are acquainted with here will see that you meet all the newer
acquisitions.
"Reply by telegraph right away. "Of course you'll say 'Yes.' "In great
haste, your loving
"SISTER HELEN.
P. S. You shall have our own chamber; it catches every breeze, and
commands the finest views. The children's room communicates with it;
so, if anything SHOULD happen to the darlings at night, you'd be sure
to hear them."
"Just the thing!" I ejaculated. Five minutes later I had telegraphed
Helen my acceptance of her invitation, and had mentally selected books
enough to busy me during a dozen vacations. Without sharing Helen's
belief that her boys were the best ones in the world, I knew them well
enough to feel assured that they would not give me any annoyance.
There were two of them, since Baby Phil died last fall; Budge, the elder,
was five years of age, and had generally, during my flying visits to
Helen, worn a shy, serious, meditative, noble face, with great, pure,
penetrating eyes, that made me almost fear their stare. Tom declared he
was a born philanthropist or prophet, and Helen made so free with Miss
Muloch's lines as to sing:--
"Ah, the day that THOU goest a-wooing, Budgie, my boy!"
Toddie had seen but three summers, and was a happy little know-

nothing, with a head full of tangled yellow hair, and a very pretty fancy
for finding out sunbeams and dancing in them. I had long envied Tom
his horses, his garden, his house and his location, and the idea of
controlling them for a fortnight was particularly delightful. Tom's taste
in cigars and claret I had always respected, while the lady inhabitants of
Hillcrest were, according to my memory, much like those of every
other suburban village, the fairest of their sex.
Three days later I made the hour and a half trip between New York and
Hillcrest, and hired a hackman to drive me over to Tom's. Half a mile
from my brother-in-law's residence, our horses shied violently, and the
driver, after talking freely to them, turned to me and remarked:--
"That was one of the 'Imps.'"
"What was?" I asked.
"That little cuss that scared the hosses. There he is, now, holdin' up that
piece of brushwood. 'Twould be just like his cheek, now, to ask me to
let him ride. Here he comes, runnin'. Wonder where t'other is?--they
most generally travel together. We call 'em the Imps, about these parts,
because they're so uncommon likely at mischief. Always skeerin'
hosses, or chasin' cows, or frightenin' chickens. Nice enough father an'
mother, too--queer, how young ones do turn out."
As he spoke, the offending youth came panting beside our carriage, and
in a very dirty