These little are called “Three of Them,” but there are really five, on and off the stage.  There is Daddy, a lumpish person with some gift for playing Indian games when he is in the mood.  He is then known as “The Great Chief of the Leatherskin Tribe.”  Then there is my Lady Sunshine.  These are the grown-ups, and don’t really count.  There remain the three, who need some upon paper, though their little spirits are as different in reality as spirits could be—all beautiful and all quite different.  The is a boy of eight whom we shall call “Laddie.”  If ever there was a little cavalier sent down ready-made it is he.  His soul is the most , unselfish, innocent thing that ever God sent out to get an extra polish upon earth.  It dwells in a tall, slight, well-formed body, and , with a head and face as clean-cut as if an old Greek cameo had come to life, and a pair of innocent and yet wise grey p. 205eyes that read and win the heart.  He is shy and does not shine before strangers.  I have said that he is unselfish and brave.  When there is the usual about going to bed, up he gets in his way.  “I will go first,” says he, and off he goes, the eldest, that the others may have the few extra minutes while he is in his bath.  As to his courage, he is absolutely lion-hearted where he can help or defend any one else.  On one occasion Daddy lost his temper with Dimples (Boy Number 2), and, not without very good , gave him a tap on the side of the head.  Next instant he felt a down somewhere in the region of his waist-belt, and there was an angry little red face looking up at him, which turned suddenly to a brown mop of hair as the butt was repeated.  No one, not even Daddy, should hit his little brother.  Such was Laddie, the gentle and the fearless.  
Then there is Dimples.  Dimples is nearly seven, and you never saw a rounder, softer, dimplier face, with two great roguish, eyes of wood-pigeon grey, which are sparkling with fun for the most part, though they can look sad and solemn enough at times.  Dimples has the making of a big man in him.  He has depth and reserves in his tiny soul.  But on the surface he is a boy of boys, always in innocent .  “I will now do mischuff,” he occasionally announces, and is usually as good as his word.  He has a love and understanding of all living creatures, the uglier and more slimy the better, treating them all in a tender, fairylike fashion which seems to come from some inner knowledge.  He has been found holding a buttercup under the mouth of a slug “to see if he likes butter.”  He finds creatures in an astonishing way.  Put him in the fairest garden, and presently he will approach you with a newt, a , or a huge in his .  Nothing would ever induce him to hurt them, but he gives them what he imagines to be a little treat and then restores them to their homes.  He has been known to speak bitterly to the Lady when she has given orders that be killed if found upon the cabbages, and even the explanation that the caterpillars were doing the work of what he calls “the Jarmans” did not reconcile him to their fate.
 
He has an advantage over Laddie, in that he suffers from no trace of shyness and is friendly in an instant with any one of every class of life, straight into conversation with some such remark as “Can your Daddy give a war-whoop?” or “Were you ever chased by a bear?”  He is a sunny creature but sometimes, when he draws down his brows, sets his eyes, his cheeks flush, and his lips go back from his almond-white teeth.  “I am Swankie the Berserker,” says he, quoting out of p. 207his favourite “Erling the Bold,” which Daddy reads aloud at bed-time.  When he is in this fighting mood he can even drive back Laddie, chiefly because the elder is far too to hurt him.  If you want to see what Laddie can really do, put the small gloves on him and let him go for Daddy.  Some of those hurricane rallies of his would stop Daddy grinning if they could get home, and he has to fall back off his stool in order to get away from them.
 
If that latent power of Dimples should ever come out, how will it be manifest?  Surely in his imagination.  Tell him a story and the boy is lost.  He sits with his little round, face immovable and , while his eyes never from those of the speaker.  He sucks in everything that is or or wild.  Laddie is a rather restless soul, eager to be up and doing; but Dimples is absorbed in the present if there be something worth hearing to be heard.  In height he is half a head shorter than his brother, but rather more sturdy in build.  The power of his voice is one of his noticeable characteristics.  If Dimples is coming you know it well in advance.  With that physical gift upon the top of his , and his , he fairly takes command of any place in which he may find himself, while Laddie, his soul too noble for , becomes one of the laughing and admiring audience.
 
Then there is Baby, a dainty elfin Dresden-china little creature of five, as fair as an angel and as deep as a well.  The boys are but shallow, sparkling pools compared with this little girl with her self-repression and dainty .  You know the boys, you never feel that you quite know the girl.  Something very strong and forceful seems to be at the back of that wee body.  Her will is tremendous.  Nothing can break or even bend it.  Only kind guidance and friendly reasoning can mould it.  The boys are helpless if she has really made up her mind.  But this is only when she asserts herself, and those are rare occasions.  As a rule she sits quiet, , affable, keenly alive to all that passes and yet taking no part in it save for some subtle smile or glance.  And then suddenly the wonderful grey-blue eyes under the long black will gleam like coy diamonds, and such a little will come from her that every one else is bound to laugh out of sympathy.  She and Dimples are great allies and yet have continual lovers’ quarrels.  One night she would not even include his name in her prayers.  “God bless—” every one else, but not a word of Dimples.  “Come, come, darling!” urged the Lady.  “Well, then, God bless Dimples!” said she at last, after she had named the cat, the goat, her dolls, and her .
 
That is a strange trait, the love for the Wriggly.  p. 209It would repay thought from some scientific brain.  It is an old, faded, disused downy from her cot.  Yet go where she will, she must take Wriggly with her.  All her toys put together would not console her for the absence of Wriggly.  If the family go to the seaside, Wriggly must come too.  She will not sleep without the absurd bundle in her arms.  If she goes to a party she insists upon dragging its disreputable folds along with her, one end always projecting “to give it fresh air.”  Every phase of childhood represents to the philosopher something in the history of the race.  From the new-born baby which can hang easily by one hand from a broomstick with its legs up under it, the whole evolution of mankind is re-enacted.  You can trace clearly the cave-dweller, the hunter, the .  What, then, does Wriggly represent?  Fetish worship—nothing else.  The chooses some most unlikely thing and adores it.  This dear little savage adores her Wriggly.
 
So now we have our three little figures drawn as clearly as a clumsy pen can follow such subtle creatures of mood and fancy.  We will suppose now that it is a summer evening, that Daddy is seated smoking in his chair, that the Lady is listening somewhere near, and that the three are in a tumbled heap upon the bear-skin before the empty fireplace trying to puzzle out the little problems of their tiny lives.  When p. 210three children play with a new thought it is like three kittens with a ball, one giving it a pat and another a pat, as they chase it from point to point.  Daddy would as little as possible, save when he was called upon to explain or to deny.  It was usually wiser for him to pretend to be doing something else.  Then their talk was the more natural.  On this occasion, however, he was directly appealed to.
 
“Daddy!” asked Dimples.
 
“Yes, boy.”
 
“Do you fink that the roses know us?”
 
Dimples, in spite of his impish naughtiness, had a way of looking such a perfectly innocent and kissable little person that one felt he really might be a good deal nearer to the sweet secrets of Nature than his elders.  However, Daddy was in a material mood.
 
“No, ............