Like most days, this particular day of Kenneth’s began in the morning. He slept in a crib in mamma’s large room, for the twins and Eliza had the nursery all to themselves.
Every morning, as soon as it was dawn, Kenneth would begin to stir like a little bird in his white nest, and then, half asleep as he was, he would scramble quietly out of his crib, gather up his long, white nightie, and steal softly over to the big bed across the room.
Then came the never-failing joke of clapping his little fat hands over papa’s sleepy eyes, with a chirping,—
“Dess who’s here, papa!” and papa, of course, never could guess, and always named over the whole flock, from seventeen-year-old Donald down, till the baby called out, gleefully,—
“It’s you’ Tennet, papa!” and scrambled like a little monkey into his arms. He was such a sunny little creature, always beaming on the world in general, with such radiant good-temper, that it was no wonder he was everybody’s pet.
This particular morning was the seventh of November, just before the Presidential election. Kenneth was astir earlier than usual, for some reason, and it was still dark when he crept with unusual caution across the floor, and stuck his little fists into papa’s eyes.
He lifted him up, without his customary frolic, saying, sleepily,—
“Be a good baby, Kenneth, and let papa have another snooze.” So the little fellow cuddled down in his father’s arms, and lay as still as a mouse, with his arms tight around papa’s neck, and his golden curls drifting across his face and getting dreadfully in his way. At last papa was aroused by a patient little sigh.
“Now, then, Kenneth,” he said, suddenly hoisting him up in the air, “do you know that papa must go and vote to-day?”
“Let Tennet do, too, papa?” he suggested, coaxingly.