WEIGHING THE BABY

Starr was the outgrown baby now; there was a new baby in the nursery - a very, very new one. He was so new that Starr was sure he could not feel much acquainted yet with anybody, and that was why he cried so often.

  "He's kind of homesick, I guess," Starr said. "Course he cries! I cried that time I was at my grandfather's 'thout my mother. Folks always cry when they're homesick."

  There were so many beautiful things about that new baby! Starr haunted the nursery all day long, to make sure of not missing any of them. He watched Nurse Mary wash and dress the baby every morning in front of the open fire. That was the most beautiful thing of all! Such round, dimply little elbows and knees! Curly, curly little legs! Such a soft little fuzz on the small, round head that Nurse Mary insisted was hair!

  Every week they weighed the new baby, and every week he had gained about half a pound. It surprised Starr a little, and made him rather uncertain about the homesick theory.

  "I didn't gain half-pounds when I was homesick," he reflected. "I got just as unfat, an' he keeps a-gettin' fatter! Maybe that isn't the reason he cries."

  The eighth week the new baby weighed fifteen pounds, and Starr was very proud indeed-as proud; Nurse Mary said, as if he weighed fifteen pounds him­self. He got his slate and pencil and "reduced" the fifteen pounds to ounces, to make it sound still more splendid. Starr was "in" denominative numbers now, in his 'rithmetic, so he could do a little sum like that as easy as anything.

  "One hundred 'n' eighty," he announced, looking up from his slate. Then he hurried back to the nursery to tell Nurse Mary.

  "The baby weighs a hundred 'n' eighty ounces," he said, triumphantly; "twelve times fifteen, you know -that's the way you do it. There's twelve ounces in a. pou"­

  "Twelve," exclaimed Nurse Mary in surprise, "I thought in my time sixteen ounces made a pound."

   "Avoirdupois weight," Starr said, looking scornful, "but the baby's Troy weight."

   "Troy weight?" Nurse Mary looked up over the new baby's little bald head in more surprise still. The scorn on Starr's face grew and grew till it covered up all his little gold-brown freckles.

   "Course, Troy weight!" he cried. "I hope you don't s'pose we'd weigh the baby avoirdupois, same as coal and flour and-and butter! It's Troy weight you weigh precious things by-gold and silver and di'monds -and the baby."

   And Starr' dropped a kiss into the little, warm, sweet wen of the baby's neck.

            Sunday School Visitor.