I spent the next hour planning how I would like to fix him so as to keep him on his side of the bed and let me go to sleep. In fact, I quit everything else and thought. If there is anything I like to do it is to sleep when the time comes. These are some of the stunts that boy did in that hour: Fits, three;—very distinct and prolonged: snorts,—one every ten minutes: choking spells, at intervals: kicked the pitcher off of the table near the bed twice: jumped up and talked perfectly naturally—so naturally that I felt that he was awake,—but he was not. More snorts; and then: "_Catch him! There he goes in that hole—hooray!_" I would have sworn then that he was awake, and examined him closely, cuffing and shaking him. But he was not. He sighed and slept on.... The brilliant plan I finally settled on was to put the pillows between us. It was nearly midnight before I had courage enough to retire at all. I pulled him up on his side, straightened him out and put the barrier between us, and then crept gingerly in. I lay still for a while listening. My success was so complete I wanted to stay awake a while and enjoy it. He would start out on his journey across the bed, but would wind up suddenly against my barricade. There he would lie a while, and I could feel his thumps against it. In my vanity I chuckled. I had dozed off in this state of self-conceit when I felt something rammed into my mouth. I thought at first that burglars had entered and that I had been chloroformed and gagged. It was not so. That boy had shot his foot through under the pillow and popped me square in the mouth. I had been told that it was not well to sleep with one’s mouth open—now I knew it. When people treat me that way, asleep or awake, I resent it. I fight. I boxed that boy’s ears. I pounded his head against the headboard so that I would awaken him. I shook him, kicked him, and used words I should not have wished his mother to hear. When I had finished, he quietly sighed another of his long, peaceful, happy sighs, and slept on. Sleep was not for me after that, and I spent the next hour lying awake and cataloguing the different things he would do. These were only a few of them:—Another fit; seeing cats, and wolves and dragons around his bed; chasing rabbits; talking in his sleep; telling of seeing a bear ride a bicycle down the pike; breaking a colt; swimming in the creek; fighting another boy; wheezing and thumping and making strange noises; dreaming he was an infant again and imbibing from an imaginary bottle; smacking his lips so loud that the noise could be heard all over the house.