When baby had been dressed and kissed, she was set down in the middle of the clean kitchen-floor, on her own rug, hedged in by soft white pillows. There she sat, serene and happy, surveying her playthings with quizzical eyes; while her mamma gathered up bath-tub, towel, and cast-off clothes, and went up stairs to put them away.
Left to herself, Lila first made a careful review of her treasures. The feather duster was certainly present. So was the old rattle. Was the door-knob there? and the string of spools? Yes; and so was the little red pincushion, dear to baby's color-loving eyes.
She was slowly poking over the things in her lap, when mamma came back, bringing a pot of yeast to set by the open fire-place, where a small fire burned leisurely on this cool May morning. She put a little tin plate on the top of the pot, kissed the precious baby, and then went out again. Baby Lila was used to being left alone, though seldom out of mamma's hearing. At such times she would sit among the pillows, tossing her trinkets all about, and crowing at her own performances. Sometimes she would drop over against a pillow, and go to sleep.
But this morning Lila had no intention of going to sleep. She flourished the duster, and laughed at the pincushion; then gazed meditatively at the bright window, and reflected gravely on the broad belt of sunshine lying across the floor. That speculation over, she fell to hugging the cherished duster, rocking back and forth as if it were another baby.
A smart little snap of the fire,—a "How-do-you-do?" from the fire-place,—made the baby twist her little body to look at it. She watched the small flames dancing in and out, as long as her neck could bear the twist.
As she turned back again, her eyes fell on the pot of yeast. Oh! wasn't that her own tin plate shining in the sunlight? Didn't she make music on it with a spoon every meal-time? and hadn't her little gums felt of every A, B, C, around its edge? Didn't she want it now? And wouldn't she have it too?
How she ever did it, nobody knows. How she ever got over the pillows, and made her way across to the fire-place in her long, hindering skirts, nobody can tell.
Mamma was busy in another room, when she heard the little plate clatter on the kitchen-floor. Not a thought of the real mischief-maker entered her head. She only said to herself,—