"I watched him," cried Chuckie Wuckie, excitedly--"oh, for an hour! When I found him he was just hopping on the canna-bed. He was looking for his house. He acted as if the door had been shut in his face. Then he began to open it. He crawled and scrambled round and round, and threw up the dirt, and poked and pushed. At last he had the hole made, just as it is every morning, and he crawled in. Then he lay and blinked at me." "Clever fellow," said papa. "Well, we won't grudge him a home, and we won't shut the door again in his face, will we, Chuckie Wuckie?" The cannas have grown very tall now--almost as tall as Chuckie Wuckie's papa--and so thick that you cannot see where the roots are; but a fat, brown hop-toad has a snug, cool, safe little nest there, and he gratefully crawls into it when the sun grows very hot. The Conceited Mouse BY ELLA FOSTER CASE Once upon a time there was a very small mouse with a very, very large opinion of himself. What he didn't know his own grandmother couldn't tell him. "You'd better keep a bright eye in your head, these days," said she, one chilly afternoon. "Your gran'ther has smelled a trap." "Scat!" answered the small mouse--"'s if I don't know a trap when I see it!" And that was all the thanks she got for her good advice. "Go your own way, for you will go no other," the wise old mouse said to herself; and she scratched her nose slowly and sadly as she watched her grandson scamper up the cellar stairs. "Ah!" sniffed he, poking his whiskers into a crack of the dining-room cupboard, "cheese--as I'm alive!" Scuttle--scuttle. "I'll be squizzled, if it isn't in that cunning little house; I know what that is--a cheese-house, of course. What a very snug hall! That's the way with cheese-houses. I know, 'cause I've heard the dairymaid talk about 'em. It must be rather inconvenient, though, to carry milk up that step and through an iron door. I know why it's so open--to let in fresh air. I tell you, that cheese is good! Kind of a reception-room in there--guess I know a reception-room from a hole in the wall. No trouble at all about getting in, either. Wouldn't grandmother open her eyes to see me here! Guess I'll take another nibble at that cheese, and go out. What's that noise? What in squeaks is the matter with the door? This is a cheese-house, I know it is--but what if it should turn out to be a--O-o-o-eeee!" And that's just what it did turn out to be. [Illustration: End of ye Tale] #RHYMES CONCERNING "MOTHER"# A BOY'S MOTHER[O] BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY My mother she's so good to me, Ef I was good as I could be, I couldn't be as good--no, sir!-- Can't any boy be good as her. She loves me when I'm glad er sad; She loves me when I'm good er bad; An', what's a funniest thing, she says She loves me when she punishes.