Morpheus Lazybones never seemed to think his son required anything; so long as the boy made no demands, surely nothing could be wanting, and every one knew he was not equal to any exertion.  For years he had lived the life of an invalid, shut up in his room most of the time, venturing from it only in the sunniest weather, and then with great caution.  He had no particular malady except that he was a poet, but surely that was burden enough.  To have to endure the common sights and sounds of this earth when one is composing poetry is indeed a trying and troublesome thing.  So Morpheus found it, and therefore he frequently stayed in bed, and allowed his fancy to rove at its own sweet will.

They lived in what had been a monastery.  There had been houses and farms on the Lazybones property, but the money not being forthcoming for repairs, they had been each in turn left for another in better condition, until the monastery—­what was left of it—­with its solidly built walls, offered what seemed to be a permanent home.

Here Morpheus lined a cell with tapestries and books, and wrote his sonnets.  Here Leo slept and ate, and housed his dogs.  The servants grumbled at the damp and mould, but made the chimneys roar with blazing logs, and held many a merry carousal where the old monks had prayed and fasted.  The more devout ones rebuked these proceedings, and said they were enough to provoke a visit from the Evil One; but as yet the warning had no effect, as the revels went on as usual.

Besides being a poet, Morpheus was conducting Leo’s education.  Undertaken in the common way, this might have interfered with the delicate modes of thought required for the production of poems, but the Lazybones were never without ingenuity.  Morpheus so arranged matters that Leo could study without damage to his father’s poems.  The books were marked for a month’s study, and Leo’s recitations consisted of a written essay which was to comprise all the knowledge acquired in that time.  Thus writing and spelling were included, and made to do duty for the higher flights of his mind.

I do not tell how often Leo made his returns, neither do I mention how many papers Morpheus found no time to examine, but I may urge that Leo’s out-door exercise demanded much attention, and that his father’s excursions in Dream-land were equally exacting.  But Leo, though he hated books, did not hate information.  He knew every feathered thing by name as far as he could see it.  He knew every oak and pine and fir and nut tree as a familiar friend.  He knew every rivulet, every ravine, every rabbit-burrow.  The streams seemed to him as melodious as the song-birds, and the winds had voices.  He knew where to find the first blossom of spring and the latest of autumn, the ripest fruit and most abundant vines.  He could tell just where the nests were and the number of eggs, whether of the robin or the waterfowl.  He knew the sunniest bank and shadiest dell, the smoothest path, with its carpet of pine-needles and fringe of fern, or the roughest crag and darkest abyss.  He could read the clouds like an open page, and predict fine weather or the coming storm.  He knew where the deer couched and where they came to drink, and when the fawns would leave their mothers, and no trout was too cunning for him.