him, dear?" she put him down in the basket again.

"Want him? Of course, I want him!" she replied a little scornfully. "But I
can't buy him to-day. I spent all my birthday money on candies and cakes.
Take him now before I steal him and run away."

She was a pretty girl, with red hair, a dimple in her chin, and one big
freckle on the end of her nose; but her eyes were blue, and they made
Bumper think of the sky which he could see through a hole in the roof of
his house. I suppose it was because he had pink eyes that he thought blue
was so becoming to little girls.

That night when he got home, Bumper was bursting with excitement. The
day's experience was enough to cause this, but the words of the little
girl who had spent all of her birthday money for candies and cakes were
fresh in his mind. The first thing he did when he got in his box was to
pester his mother with so many questions that she had hard work answering
them.

"A little girl asked me where I came from, mother, and I couldn't answer
her. Where did I come from?"

"Why, dear, from a snowball, of course. How else could you be so white?"

"And have I pink eyes?" That was the little girl's second question.

"What color did you think they were?" asked Bumper's mother, smiling.
"Look at the eyes of your brothers and sisters."

Bumper looked in Jimsy's and Wheedle's eyes, and saw they were pink, but