some one for excellent reasons of his own.

After George had gone, they played about happily enough, Jan riding
on Abel's back, and the sandy kitten on Jan's, in and out among the
corn-sacks, full canter as far as the old carved meal-chest, and
back to the door again.

Poor Abel, with his double burden, got tired at last, and they sat
down and sifted flour for the education of their thumbs. Jan was
pinching and flattening his with a very solemn face, in the hope of
attaining to a miller's thumb by a shorter process than the common
one, when Abel suddenly said, -

"I tell thee what, then, Jan: 'tis time thee learned thy letters.
And I'll teach thee. Come hither."

Jan jumped up, thereby pitching the kitten headlong from his
shoulders, and ran to Abel, who was squatting by some spilled flour
near a sack, and was smoothing it upon the floor with his hands.
Then very slowly and carefully he traced the letter A in the flour,
keenly watched by Jan.

"That's A," said he. "Say it, Jan. A."

"A," replied Jan, obediently. But he had no sooner said it, than,
adding hastily, "Let Jan do it," he traced a second A, slightly
larger than Abel's, in three firm and perfectly proportioned
strokes.

His moving finger was too much for the kitten's feelings, and she