“I guess you had a pleasant dream,” said his aunt.

“I had a real funny one,” replied Oscar.  “I thought you sent me over to the store to get some things, and when I got there, I had them all jumbled together in my head, and I told the man I wanted a yard of molasses, and a pound of calico, and a gallon of shingle-nails, and I did n’t know what else.  And I thought the man laughed, and asked me if I would take them loose, or have them done up in a rag.  Then another boy that was in the store set up a loud laugh, and that woke me up.  I wonder how long I slept—­do you know, aunt?”

“Only two or three minutes,” replied Mrs. Preston.

“I was real smart, then,” replied Oscar; “for you gave me my errand, and I harnessed the horse and drove away over to the Cross-Roads, and went through the scene in the store, and woke up again, all in two or three minutes.  I thought I ’d been asleep half an hour.”

“I should think you ’d dream about the store,” said Jerry; “you ’ve made fun enough about it, if that ’s all.”

“Well, I ’ll leave it to aunt if it is n’t odd to see such a queer lot of stuff in one store; I ’ve heard about country stores, but I never saw one that would come up to that before.  It is almost equal to going into a fair, to go in there.  There was everything you could think of, from a grindstone to a pop-gun.”

“There is n’t business enough to support more than one trader, and that is the reason why Mr. Fletcher keeps such a variety,” said Mrs. Preston.

“I know that,” said Oscar, “and I suppose the folks are glad to have him keep all sorts of knick-knacks; but it seems queer to me, to see groceries and dry goods, and everything else, in the same shop.”

“Did you see any babies there?” inquired little Mary, who was amusing herself by walking around the room backwards.

“What sort of babies—­live ones, or rag ones, or wax ones?” inquired Oscar.

“No, none of them,” replied Mary; “I mean crying babies, like Annie Davenport’s.”

“O, you mean those little dolls that make a squeaking noise when you squeeze them.  No, I believe I did n’t see any,” said Oscar.

“No, Mr. Fletcher would n’t keep such silly things as them,” said Jerry, who was very fond of teasing his sisters.

“No, they aint silly, either, are they cousin Oscar?” said Mary.

“No,” replied Oscar, “seeing it’s you, they aint silly.”

Mary was continuing her backward walk around the room, and was just at that moment passing before Jerry, when he suddenly put out his foot, and stumbling over it, she fell heavily upon the floor, striking her head against a corner of the sofa.  A loud scream immediately followed this mishap, and as the author of it hastened to raise up his sister, he was himself a little frightened; but seeing no blood flowing from her head, he concluded she was “more scared than hurt,” and tried to turn the affair into a joke, saying: