CHAPTER VII.

WEEZY'S SAMBO.

Mr. Rowe was fond of fun, and he seized the first opportunity to joke Dr. Wyman on his droll adventure.

"Ah, doctor, I understand you're getting so vain, that, before calling upon the ladies, you have your beard crimped!" said he, overtaking him on the street. "I suppose next you'll be having it rolled on curl-papers."

"I suppose I shall if my fair young barber so wills it," replied Dr. Wyman sportively. "I only hope she won't prefer to curl it with tongs."

"Very well, if you choose to let Weezy make a guy of you, why you can," said Mr. Rowe good-naturedly; "but one thing is certain, I sha'n't let her make a guy of _me_."

"Don't be too sure of it: she may take you unaware," returned the doctor with a smile, as Mr. Rowe entered his own door.

Weezy had come down-stairs that morning so nearly well that Viola Maud had been wrapped in tissue paper and laid away. Weezy did not miss her much, she had so many dolls of her own. Indeed, she had more than she could keep properly supplied with features and limbs; for the six had only four noses among them, and not half enough arms to go round.

"You's cross 'ittle girl, Eva, snarled yous face all up," said Weezy, climbing to the sitting-room window-sill with her bruised gutta-percha baby. "Dess all tored, too. Oh, I be 'shame! Now you mus' clean house for punish you."

She began to rub the doll up and down the glass in a brisk way, extremely annoying to Kirke, upon the sofa taking his turn with mumps.

"You call that fun, miss, do you?" growled he, from the depths of the afghan.

"Oh, defful fun; but this is _funner_," cried she with provoking sweetness, turning Eva upside down to polish the window-pane with her head.

"Oh, do stop that racket, Weezy! it makes my head ache. Please run out and see the kitties."

"Oh, ho! I 'most didn't think 'bout the kitties," exclaimed Weezy, throwing down the doll, and skipping away to the cat's basket in the back entry.

There were three kittens,--two white, and one gray all except a white spot at the tip of his tail. The gray was Weezy's favorite. She waked this from its morning nap, and pulled it out of its warm nest to carry it to Kirke.

"Loot! he's the _tip-tail_ kitty! He makes up faces; he can't help _hisse'f_," said she charitably.

"Help himself! I should like to _see_ the poor little fellow help himself, when you pick him up by the neck that way," cried Kirke scornfully, raising himself on his elbow.

"Kitty's _mamma_ picks kitty up that way wiv her mouf: I _sawed_ her," retorted Weezy triumphantly.

Dropping her little mewing burden upon the lounge beside her brother, she suddenly discovered that the kitty's eyelids had parted far enough to disclose a glimmer of blue.

"Oh, loot, loot!" shouted she, hopping up and down in transport. "Kitty's eyes is _unshuttin'_! Kitty's eyes is unshuttin'!"

"Is that a fact, little girl? Why, why, you don't say so!" cried her father, who had that moment parted from Dr. Wyman at the gate.

"They _is_, papa, they truly _is_," cried Weezy, trying to blow open kitty's three-cornered eyelids as she had seen Molly blow open the petals of a rose-bud.

"Stop, stop, little daughter," called Mr. Rowe, laughing. "Her eyes are not like blue gentians; you can't pry into them without hurting kitty. I'd give her back to her mother, and run and find Sambo."

Sambo was Weezy's pet doll, made of worsted yarn,--pink face, blue jacket, yellow trousers, and all. It injured other members of her family to be dipped into the bath-tub, or dumped into the coal-hod; but Sambo could bear rough treatment, he was so strong and well-knit. Oh, he was a doll to be depended on! And from the crown of his red cap to the soles of his green shoes, Weezy loved every inch of him. Yet on occasion she could discipline him strictly; and when after a long hunt she found him under the hall mat, she shook him till one of his bead eyes fell off.

"What for, Sambo, you _yun_ away and hide?" scolded she. "I shall be 'bliged to tie Sambo, for 'cause Sambo didn't mind."

But to what should she tie the naughty little wretch?

Frisking about the hall, she spied upon the hat-tree her father's overcoat. She could just reach the buttons on its back.

"Does you see that button, Sambo?" said she severely. "Well, I's going to tie you to that button till you's a good boy. I's _sowwy_ to hurt you, Sambo, but I does it for _yous good_."

As she talked, she was winding the ends of Sambo's scarf around the button: and she ran in to dinner, leaving the poor doll swinging to and fro like a queer kind of tassel.

Mr. Rowe chanced to be in haste that noon; and before Weezy had finished her plate of custard-pudding, he asked to be excused from the table, and went out into the hall to get ready to go down-town. It was so dark there that he put on his overcoat without noticing what was attached to it. Then he caught up his hat and gloves, and stepped briskly into the street with Sambo bobbing up and down behind him.

The faster Mr. Rowe walked, the higher Sambo jumped and kicked. Oh, it was very, very funny! Jimmy Maguire laughed so hard at the sight that he rolled off the doorstep where he had been sitting. A group of boys on the corner shouted and clapped their hands. Mr. Rowe could not see any thing to laugh at: he wondered what all the excitement was about. He might have gone the entire length of Main Street with Sambo's yellow legs dancing a jig at his back, if he had not at the next crossing come upon Dr. Wyman, waiting for a street-car.

"Good-afternoon," said the doctor, with a roguish twinkle in his eye. "I hope you and your friend are enjoying your walk."

"Friend! What friend? I fail to see the joke," returned Mr. Rowe, wheeling so abruptly that Sambo bounced against him, and struck him between the shoulders.

"It's a joke that Weezy has had a hand in, I fancy," said Dr. Wyman, chuckling, as Mr. Rowe gazed savagely about for the person who had hit him. "Turn your head, my stiff-necked friend; now look down, and try to see yourself as others see you."

When Mr. Rowe beheld Sambo swaying backward and forward like the pendulum of a clock, he could not help laughing himself, though his face grew very red.

"I must say I've cut a pretty figure, and I don't blame the boys for shouting," said he, groping behind him for the doll. "Do, doctor, tear the thing off somehow. Quick, for here comes your car, with thirty pairs of eyes in it."

Dr. Wyman speedily unwound the scarf, and presented Sambo to Mr. Rowe with a bow, saying jestingly, "Ah, you are the gentleman, I believe, who an hour ago boasted that Weezy shouldn't make a guy of him!"

Mr. Rowe shrugged his shoulders. "I've half a mind to toss this ridiculous image into the gutter," said he, as Dr. Wyman swung himself upon the car. But then he thought of his little daughter; and, instead of throwing Sambo away, he crammed him, head first, into his pocket.

"I'll take him home to Weezy this time," said he to himself; "but if she ever hangs him on to my coat-tail again, I'll burn him up, cap and boots."