hopelessly in the dreadful throes of trying to get through with
your siesta!

One of the mean things about it is that neither side of the
pillow has any cool spot. You turn it over once more and once
more, and yet once more again, but it is no use. It is utterly
impossible to cuddle down and obey orders and go to sleep like a
brave soldier-man. The more you try it the more squirmy and itchy
you feel; for at such a time one is usually fretted by the
repeated ticklings of some bothersome fly. He will sneak along
the edge of the pillow and rub his hands together in front of
him, and then he's ready. Down he swoops upon your nose, hitting
it precisely in the same place where he lit before.

It is easy for Mother to say, "Go to sleep, now," but what bad
shift a little boy will sometimes make of his siesta!

There came a day in June when David believed he never in this
world could get through with it. He heard the chuck and drowsy
clack of the sprinkling-wagon as it ponderously advanced upon its
lazy way; he heard the almost whispered clucking of a mother-hen
who was calling her chicks to come shuffle with her in the cool
loose earth under the shade of the crooked old apple-tree, and
presently there came a time when the out-of-doors was all so
still that even the falling of a shadow would have made a sound.

David was right sure of that. There was such mystery, such an
unwonted sense of unreality a-quiver in this silence, that he
wanted, very much, to learn what it was all about. Then, ever and
ever so cautiously, he slipped down off the bed. His dimpled toes