Taro and Take were standing right beside their Father early one
morning when the nurse came into the room with a bundle in her
arms.

It was a queer-looking, knobby kind of a bundle, and there was
something in it that squirmed!

The nurse looked so happy and smiling that the twins knew at
once there must be something very nice in the bundle, but what
it was they could not guess. Taro thought, "Maybe it's a puppy."
He had wanted a puppy for a long time. And Take thought,
"Perhaps it's a kitten! But it looks pretty large for a kitten,
and it doesn't mew. Kittens always mew." And they both thought,
"Anyway, it's alive."

The nurse carried the bundle across the room. She knelt down on
the floor before the Twins' Father and laid it at his feet.

The Twins' Father looked very much surprised, and as for Taro
and Take, they felt just exactly the way you feel when you look
at your stocking on Christmas morning.

They dropped down on their knees beside the bundle, one on each
side of their Father. They wanted dreadfully to open it. They
wanted so dreadfully to open it that they had to hold their
hands hard to keep from touching it, but they never even laid a
finger on it, because the nurse had given it to their Father!

Taro just said aloud: "Is it a puppy?"