There were seven Pitchers in the family,—Judge Pitcher and his wife and five children; but, as the twins were the youngest of all, they were often called “the Little Pitchers.”

They were Flaxie Frizzle’s cousins; and the more I think about them, the more I think I will try to put them into a story. They lived so far away from New York, that Flaxie had never seen, and had scarcely ever heard of them. Their home was in a town we will call Rosewood, on the banks of a beautiful river, and so high up that the air was very pure and cool; only it did not seem like living on a hill, for, as far as you could see, the whole country looked nearly as flat as a table.

The twins were four years old. I don’t mean that was always their age; but they were four when our story begins. If you had looked in the great gilt-edged family Bible on the parlor-table, you would have seen that their whole names were Napoleon Bonaparte Pitcher, and Josephine Bonaparte Pitcher; but it did no great harm, for nobody called them any thing worse than Pollio and Posy.

“I don’t fink we’re twins,” said Pollio, the boy; “I fink we’re odds. We don’t look any bit alike.”

And they didn’t. Strangers often asked if Pollio belonged to the family; for he looked like a French boy, with his straight dark hair, brown eyes, and brown skin. Posy’s hair fell in golden curls; her eyes were blue, and her face very fair. Pollio was so homely and funny that it made you laugh; and she was so beautiful that it made you smile.

They had two high chairs exactly alike; only Pollio had rubbed the arms of his with his elbows, and scratched them sadly with his fork.

They had each a fur cap and tippet to wear in the winter; only Posy kept hers on a nail, and Pollio threw his down wherever he happened to be.

No, they were not “any bit alike;” but what loving little friends they were, and how gayly they did trudge about the grounds at home, and up and down the village street, with their arms around each other’s waists! The neighbors came to the windows of their houses as the little couple passed by, saying, “See those little Pitchers! Don’t they look like Tom Thumb and his wife?” When people spoke to them, Posy dropped her eyes, and blushed; but Pollio held up his head, and made answer for both.

Once, in the winter, when they were going out walking, and Posy was half stifled with her fur cap and a big comforter wound twice round her neck, Pollio said,—

“She wants to walk sturbously free, and not be mumbled up.”

“Sturbously” was one of his big words that mamma had to guess at; but she unwound the comforter, and Pollio said,—

“Fank you. It’s awful mild, and she fought she’d choke. Good-by now: we’re going.”

“Posy would never have complained of the comforter; but she has a brother who is always ready to scold for her,” said mamma, looking fondly after her darlings.

“Don’t you be afraid; there sha’n’t any dogs hurt you,” she heard him say to his timid little sister, as Dr. Field’s Fido barked at their heels.

He often promised to protect his mother and his aunt Ann from the same dog, and from all the horses in town; for Pollio was a very brave boy.

“Good-morning, General Pollio! Good-morning, Mrs. Posio! Guess what I’ve got in my jug,” called out Bobby Thatcher.

So of course the children followed him; and when they came home from their walk, instead of being “mumbled up,” Pollio had left his ulster at Mrs. Thatcher’s, and his jacket was sticky with maple-sirup.

“What did you wipe your hands on?” asked aunt Ann.

“On my apron.” But looking down, and seeing he wore none, he added promptly, “If I’d had one on.”

Aunt Ann laughed, and “hoped he had not been teasing the neighbors for something to eat.”

“What you s’pose?” cried Pollio indignantly. “I only told Mrs. Fatcher, ‘Oh, dear, we’re so hunger-y!’”

Mrs. Thatcher spoiled the twins a little; and so, I fear, did most of the neighbors, as well as the family at home; but they did have such a good time in this bright, fresh, beautiful world! Pollio had what his uncle Rufus called “a strong sense of the funny,” and could imitate all sorts of noises. He could crow, bark, and mew, and even bray like a donkey. Teddy, the boy next older, was handsomer and behaved better; but Posy thought the sun never shone on a boy so bright as “her Pollio.”

Their papa was gone from home a great deal, attending court. The twins had no idea what a court might be; but Pollio “fought” it was some kind of a store, for papa always came home from it with his pockets full of presents. He was a great fleshy man, a little gray and a little bald, with the most winning smile around the corners of his mouth.

He liked to see his children all about him when he was at home; so he would not stay up stairs in his study, but wrote every evening at the parlor-table between the two front-windows. Nunky—that was uncle Rufus Gilman—sat in the corner, reading; Nanty—that was aunt Ann Pitcher—sat by a little basket-table, sewing; Edith and Dick—the older brother and sister—pretended to study; and mamma—well, mamma spent half her time keeping the three youngest children away from papa’s inkstand.

One evening Pollio got down on all-fours, put up his back, and hissed like a cat. His father only laughed till he hit the table and upset the inkstand, and then he had to be sent out of the room. Posy begged to go too: she always wanted to be punished with Pollio.

Eliza Potter, the cook, was washing dishes when they came into the kitchen.

“O you little witch, quit that!” said she to Pollio, as he began to build houses with the knives and forks.

It always amused him to hear her say “Quit that!” and to see her wink her eyelashes. The more she scolded, the faster she winked.

Next evening Pollio was noisy again in the parlor; but nobody minded it till he said,—

“Don’t you see I’m naughty, mamma? Why don’t you send me out in the kitchen?”

He wanted to tease Eliza again; but his mother punished him this time by sending him to bed. It seemed pretty hard; for he was very wide awake, and, though not afraid, found it rather lonesome without his bed-fellow, Teddy. In a few moments he was heard screaming, and his mother ran up to see what was the matter.

“O Lord! I’m a poor little boy all alone in the dark. Do send me a la-amp, a la-amp, a la-amp!”

“Pollio!” exclaimed his mother as soon as she could reach his chamber.

“Why, mamma,” said he, looking up in her face very innocently, “I was only praying! You want me to pray, don’t you?”

Mamma told Nunky afterwards that she did not know what to say to her queer little boy. He and Posy both had such strange ideas about God, that she wished Nunky would talk with them some time and try to make them understand who He is and why we should pray to Him.

Nunky said, perhaps they were too young; but he would do the best he could. He was like a father to them when their own father was gone. He was quite a young man, and an artist. And here I will stop a moment, and tell you more about him.

He had a room at the very top of the house, called a studio; and you climbed some crooked stairs to reach it. He spent all his mornings in this room, with the door locked but once or twice the twins had peeped in and seen him sitting before a great easel painting pictures. He wore a gray dressing gown, and velvet cap with a tassel; and the sun poured straight down on his head through a hole in the roof.

“Ho yo! that’s jolly!” shouted Pollio.

Instantly the door was shut in his face. So unkind of Nunky! The twins wouldn’t have meddled with his paints, of course: hadn’t they told him they wouldn’t meddle?

“If we once got in, he’d want us to stay: he finks everyfing of us,” said Pollio to Posy.

“Let’s get in,” said she.

So one day they crept up stairs and knocked. Posy had her doll, and Pollio his drum; for they meant to make it very pleasant for Nunky.

Knock! knock!

“We won’t be sturbous!” said Pollio.

“Can’t we come in a tinty minute?” pleaded Posy, fumbling at the keyhole; while Pollio’s drum tumbled down stairs, rattlety bang.

Instead of answering, Nunky growled like a bear, and roared like a lion; and they were obliged to go at last; for they might have stood all day without getting in. Nunky was a man that couldn’t be coaxed.

But that very evening, when his work was done, he was perfectly lovely, and played for them on his flute. The tune Pollio liked best was “The Shepherd’s Pipe upon the Mountain.” He thought it was a meerschaum like papa’s, and the shepherd was smoking it as he drove his sheep along. Nunky forgot to say he was making his flute sound like a bagpipe.

But the tune Posy liked best was “The Mother’s Prayer,” low and faint at first, then growing clearer and sweeter.

“Well, darling, what does it make you think of?” said Nunky as she sat on his knee, her wee hands folded, and her eyes raised to his face.

“Makes me fink of the heaven-folks,” replied she solemnly. “I wish little Alice would come down here and live again. Me and Pollio, we’d be very glad.”

Alice was a little sister she had never seen.

“I’ve asked God to send her down,” said Pollio; “but He won’t. I sha’n’t pray to God any more. You may if you want to, Posy; but I sha’n’t. I keep a-talkin’, and He don’t say a word.”

Now was the time for Nunky to tell them something about God; but what should he say? What could they understand?

“God does speak to you, Pollio: not in words; but he speaks to your heart.”

“Oh! does He? I know where my heart is,—right here under my jag-knife pocket.”

“Well, there is a voice in there sometimes, that tells you when you do wrong.”

“Is there?—-Put your ear down, Posy. Can you hear anyfing?”

“No, no,” said Nunky, trying not to smile: “the voice isn’t heard; it is felt. Tell me, little ones, don’t you feel sorry when you do wrong?”

“When I get sent to bed I do,” said Pollio.

“Once I felt awful bad when I fell down cellar,” remarked Posy.

Nunky smiled outright then, and had a great mind not to say any more; but he did so wish to plant a seed of truth in these little minds!

“Was it right, Pollio, to take those tarts yesterday without leave?”

The little boy hung his head, and wondered how Nunky knew about that.

“Didn’t something tell you it was wrong?”

“Yes, sir,” whispered Pollio faintly.

“Well, that was God’s voice. He spoke to your heart then.”

“Oh!”

Pollio began to understand.

“That is the way He speaks. Now, I don’t want to hear you say again, ‘I keep a-talkin’ and a-talkin’, and He don’t say a word.’”

“No, I won’t,” said Pollio, his brown face lighting up. “He whispers right under your pocket. I’m going to pray some more now: I’d just as lief pray as not.”

“So’d I,” said Posy. “But I sha’n’t ask him to ‘bless papa and mamma, and everybody,’ ’cause I don’t want him to bless the naughty Indians; do you, Nunky?”

“Ask him to make them good,” replied Nunky, stroking the little golden head, and wondering how much Posy understood of what he had been saying.

“Well, I will. I love God and the angels better’n I do you, Nunky. Of course I ought to love the heaven-folks best.”

“Does God do just what you ask him to when you pray?” said Pollio, who had been for some moments lost in thought.

“Yes, if He thinks it best, he does.”

“Well, then, I sha’n’t say, ‘Accept me through thy Son;’ for the sun is too hot: I’d rather go through the moon.”

Nunky had to turn his head away to laugh. He did not try in the least to explain any thing more to Pollio that evening, and he really thought all his words had been thrown away. But this was a mistake. A new idea had entered the children’s minds,—an idea they would never forget. Nunky found this out a long while afterward, and was very glad he had taken so much pains.

But just now he had talked long enough; so he dropped the children from his knee suddenly, pretending he hadn’t known they were there.

“What! you here, little Pitchers? Off with you this minute!—Oh, no! come back: you haven’t thanked me for the music.”

Nunky was careful of their manners; but I think, too, he had “a strong sense of the funny” as well as Pollio, and enjoyed seeing his nephew pull his front-hair and make a bow; while Posy dropped a deep, deep courtesy, and they both lisped out,—

“Fank you, Nunky.”

You know, Pollio’s hair was uncommonly straight and black, and he twitched it as if he were pulling a bell-rope; and Posy, being rather fat, bounced up and down like a rubber ball.

I am sure their uncle made them say “Fank you” when there wasn’t the least need of it, just to see how comical they looked.