FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Maid’s General Care of the Boys _Frontispiece._
Mrs. Burton Brushed a Tiny Crumb from Her _Page_
Robe _Facing_ 4
“It’s Only Jus’ About So Long” 9
“We’s Makin’ Pickles for You” 17
“I Got Into a Hen’s Nesht Where There Was Some
Eggs” 23
“Isn’t It Lovaly?” _Facing_ 30
“Ragged, Dirty Men Talk to My Papa Sometimes” 37
“Yes, an’ We Put a Little Stone at the Head of the
Grave” 43
“Don’t Either of You Move Out of a Chair?” 47
“--But I Didn’t Know Ashes Made ’Em” 53
“Splashin’ In the Bathtub” 59
“Jump!” Shouted Mr. Burton _Facing_ 66
“Cats,” Uttered Mr. Burton 75
Both Started In Chase of It 79
“Tell Me What You Think About It” _Facing_ 92
“We Got Three or Four Nice Bunches” 99
“So I Putted Crosses on the Door” 101
“Then You Can Only Have One Bite,” Said Budge 107
“Where Did the Cards Come From?” 113
He Kicked, Pushed, Screamed and Roared 119
The Jardiniére Came Down With a Crash 125
“Threw a Mean Old Dirty Carpet On Top of It” _Facing_ 130
Toddie Playing Bear 137
Budge Taking Up the Collection _Facing_ 146
Terry 155
The General Fell Into the Water _Facing_ 160
“Dreamin’ I was In a Candy-Store” 167
“Wonder How Big Moons Got to be Little Again” 173
“A Cow Readin’ An Atlas” 175
“How Do They Get Things to Eat for the Angels?” 181
The Squeak of the Violin and the Wail of a Badly
Played Wind Instrument 187
Uncle Harry’s Frantic Examination of His Beloved
Violin 193
Both Boys Tumbled Into the Room 199
Toddie Drank About Two Swallows of Water _Facing_ 204
Suddenly Heard a Splash and a Howl 211
Budge Enlivened the Dust of the Roadway 215
Further Progress Was Arrested _Facing_ 222
“Well,” Said Budge “’Cause You’re Different” 227
Pretending to be Horses _Facing_ 232
Budge Lost His Balance 239
Two Inquiring Faces Hanging Over the Bread-Pan 243
A Loud Report Startled the Party _Facing_ 246
“Too Much Tea Isn’t Good for People, Is It?” 253
“When We Cooked ’Em, What Do You Think?” _Facing_ 256
Budge and Toddie Playing Doctor 265
Down the Stairs, Dashed Terry 271
“Why Aunt Alice! How Did You Upset That
Table?” 275
A Red Pepper Experience _Facing_ 288
Candy Making 295
The Dandelion 301
“We’re Goin’ Home” 303
“Some Nashty Medshin” 313
“Izhe a Shotted Soldier” _Facing_ 322
Both Boys Sleeping Soundly 333
The Obedient Member of the Family _Facing_ 340
Making Them What I Would Like Them To Be 351
A Little Visitor at the Burtons’s 357
BUDGE AND TODDIE
OR
HELEN’S BABIES AT PLAY
The writer of a certain much-abused book sat at breakfast one morning
with his wife, and their conversation turned, as it had many times
before, upon a brace of boys who had made a little fun for the lovers
of trifling stories and a great deal of trouble for their uncle. Mrs.
Burton, thanks to that womanly generosity which, like a garment, covers
the faults of men who are happily married, was so proud of her husband
that she admired even his book; she had made magnificent attempts to
defend it at points where it was utterly indefensible; but her critical
sense had been frequently offended by her husband’s ignorance regarding
the management of children. On the particular morning referred to, this
critical sense was extremely active.
“To know, Harry,” said Mrs. Burton, “that you gave so little true
personal attention to Budge and Toddie, while you professed to love
them with the tenderness peculiar to blood-relationship, is to wonder
whether some people do not really expect children to grow as the forest
trees grow, utterly without care or training.”
“I spent most of my time,” Mr. Burton replied, attacking his steak with
more energy than was called for at the breakfast-table of a man whose
business hours were easy, “I spent most of my time in saving their
parents’ property and their own lives from destruction. When had I an
opportunity to do anything else?”
A smile of conscious superiority, the honesty of which made it none the
less tantalizing, passed lightly over Mrs. Burton’s features as she
replied:
“All the while. You should have explained to them the necessity for
order, cleanliness and self-restraint. Do you imagine that their pure
little hearts would not have received it and acted upon it?”
Mr. Burton offered a Yankee reply.
“Do you suppose, my dear,” said he “that the necessity for all these
virtues was never brought to their attention? Did you never hear the
homely but significant saying, that you may lead a horse to water, but
you can’t make him drink?”
With the promptness born of true intuition, Mrs. Burton went around
this verbal obstacle instead of attempting to reduce it.
“You might at least have attempted to teach them something of the
inner significance of things,” said Mrs. Burton. “Then they would have
brought a truer sense to the contemplation of everything about them.”
Mr. Burton gazed almost worshipfully at this noble creature whose
impulses led her irresistibly to the discernment of the motives of
action, and with becoming humility he asked:
“Will you tell me how you would have explained the inner significance
of dirt, so that those boys could have been trusted to cross a dry road
without creating for themselves a halo which should be more visible
than luminous?”
“Don’t trifle about serious matters, Harry,” said Mrs. Burton, after
a hasty but evident search for a reply. “You know that conscience and
æsthetic sense lead to correct lives all persons who subject themselves
to their influence, and you know that the purest natures are the most
susceptible. If men and women, warped and mistrained though their
earlier lives may have been, grow into sweetness and light under right
incentives, what may not be done with those of whom it was said, ‘Of
such is the kingdom of heaven’?”
Mr. Burton instinctively bowed his head at his wife’s last words, but
raised it speedily as the lady uttered an opinion which was probably
suggested by the holy sentiment she had just expressed.
“Then you allowed them to be dreadfully irreverent in their
conversations about sacred things,” said she.
“Really, my dear,” expostulated the victim, “you must charge up some of
these faults to the children’s parents. I had nothing to do with the
formation of the children’s habits, and their peculiar habit of talking
about what you call sacred things is inherited directly from their
parents. Their father says he doesn’t believe it was ever intended that
mere mention of a man in the Bible should be a patent of sacredness,
and Helen agrees with him.”
[Illustration: MRS. BURTON BRUSHED A TINY CRUMB FROM HER ROBE]
Mrs. Burton coughed. It is surprising what a multitude of suggestions
can be conveyed by a gentle cough.
“I suppose,” she said slowly, as if musing aloud, “that inheritance
_is_ the method by which children obtain many objectionable qualities
for which they themselves are blamed, poor little things. I don’t know
how to sympathize in the least degree with this idea of Tom’s and
Helen’s, for the Maytons, and my mother’s family, too, have always been
extremely reverent toward sacred things. You are right in laying the
fault to them instead of the boys, but I cannot see how they can bear
to inflict such a habit upon innocent children and I must say that I
can’t see how they can tolerate it in each other.”
Mrs. Burton raised her napkin, and with fastidious solicitude brushed
a tiny crumb or two from her robe as she finished this remark. Dear
creature! She needed to display a human weakness to convince her
husband that she was not altogether too good for earth, and this
implication of a superiority of origin, the darling idea of every woman
but Eve, answered the purpose. Her spouse endured the infliction as
good husbands always do in similar cases, though he somewhat hastily
passed his coffee-cup for more sugar, and asked, in a tone in which
self-restraint was distinctly perceptible:
“What else, my dear?”
Mrs. Burton suddenly comprehended the situation; she left her chair,
made the one atonement which is always sufficient between husband and
wife, and said:
“Only one thing, you dear old boy, and even that is a repetition, I
suppose. It’ only this: parents are quite as remiss as loving uncles in
training their children, instead of merely watching them. The impress
of the older and wiser mind should be placed upon the child from the
earliest dawn of its intelligence, so that the little one’s shall be
determined, instead of being left to chance.”
“And the impress is readily made, of course, even by a love-struck
uncle on a short vacation?”
“Certainly. Even wild animals are often tamed at sight by master-minds.”
“But suppose these impressible little beings should have opinions and
wishes and intentions of their own?”
“They should be overcome by the adult mind.”
“And if they object?”
“That should make no difference,” said Mrs. Burton, gaining suddenly an
inch or two in stature and queenly beauty.
“Do you mean that you would really make them obey you?” asked Mr.
Burton, with a gaze as reverent as if the answer would be by absolute
authority.
“Certainly!” replied the lady, adding a grace or two to her fully
aroused sense of command.
“By Jove!” exclaimed her husband, “what a remarkable coincidence! That
is just what I determined upon when I first took charge of those boys.
And yet----”
“And yet you failed,” said Mrs. Burton. “How I wish I had been in your
place!”
“So do I, my dear,” said Mr. Burton; “or, at least, I would wish so if
I didn’t realize that if you had had charge of those children instead
of I, there wouldn’t have occurred any of the blessed accidents that
helped to make you Mrs. Burton.”
The lady smiled lovingly, but answered:
“I may have the opportunity yet; in fact--oh, it’s too bad that I
haven’t yet learned how to keep anything secret from you--I have
arranged for just such an experiment. And I’m sure that Helen and Tom,
as well as you, will learn that I am right.”
“I suppose you will try it while I’m away on my spring trip among the
dealers?” queried Mr. Burton hastily. “Or,” he continued, “if not, I
know you love me well enough to give me timely notice, so I can make a
timely excuse to get away from home. When is it to be?”
Mrs. Burton replied by a look which her husband was failing to
comprehend when there came help to him from an unexpected source.
There were successive and violent rings of the door-bell, and as many
tremendous pounds, apparently with a brick, at the back door. Then
there ensued a violent slamming of doors, a trampling in the hall as of
many war-horses, and a loud, high-pitched shout of, “I got in fyst,”
and a louder, deeper one of “So did I!” And then, as Mr. and Mrs.
Burton sprang from their chairs with faces full of apprehension and
inquiry the dining-room door opened and Budge and Toddie shot in as if
propelled from a catapult.
“Hello!” exclaimed Budge, by way of greeting, as Toddie wriggled from
his aunt’ embrace, and seized the tail of the family terrier. “What do
you think? We’ve got a new baby, and Tod and I have come down here to
stay for a few days; papa told us to. Don’t seem to me you had a very
nice breakbux,” concluded Budge, after a critical survey of the table.
“And it’s only jus’ about so long,” said Toddie, from whose custody
the dog Terry had hurriedly removed his tail by the conclusive
proceeding of conveying his whole body out of doors--“only jus’ so
long!” repeated Toddie, placing his pudgy hands a few inches apart, and
contracting every feature of his countenance, as if to indicate the
extreme diminutiveness of the new heir.
[Illustration: “IT’S ONLY JUS’ ABOUT SO LONG”.]
Mrs. Burton kissed her nephews and her husband with more than usual
fervor and inquired as to the sex of the new inhabitant.
“Oh, that’s the nicest thing about it,” said Budge. “It’s a girl. I’m
tired of such lots of boys--Tod is as bad as a whole lot, you know,
when I have to take care of him. Only, now we’re bothered, ’cause we
don’t know what to name her. Mamma told us to think of the loveliest
thing in all the world, so I thought about squash-pie right away; but
Tod thought of molasses candy, and then papa said neither of ’em would
do for the name of a little girl. I don’t see that they’re not as good
as roses and violets, and all the other things that they name little
girls after.”
During the delivery by Budge of this information, Toddie had
been steadily exclaiming, “I--I--I--I--I--I----!” like a prudent
parliamentarian who wants to make sure of recognition by the chair. In
his excitement, he failed to realize for some seconds that his brother
had concluded, but he finally exclaimed: “An’ I--I--I--I--I’m goin’
to give her my turtle, an’ show her how to make mud pies wif currants
in ’em.”
“Huh!” said Budge, with inexpressible contempt in his tones. “Girls
don’t like such things. I’m going to give her my blue necktie, and
take her riding in the goat-carriage.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Toddie, with the air of a man who was wresting
victory from the jaws of defeat, “I’ll give her caterpillars. I know
she’ll be sure to like them, ’cause they’e got lovely fur jackets all
heavenly-green an’ red an’ brown, like ladies’s djesses.”
“And you don’t know what lots of prayin’ Tod and me had to do to get
that baby,” said Budge. “My! It just makes me ache to think about it!
Whole days and weeks and months!”
“Yesh,” said Toddie. “An’ Budgie sometimes was goin’ to stop, ’caush
he fought the Lord was too busy to listen to us. But I just told him
that the Lord was our biggesht papa, an’ just what papas ought to
be, an’ papa at home was just like papas ought to be. An’ the baby
comeded. Oh! Yesh, an’ we had to be awful good too. Why don’t you be
real good an’ pray lots? Then maybe you’ll get a dear, sweet, little
baby!”
The temporary reappearance of the dog, Terry, put an end to the
dispute, for both boys moved toward him, which movement soon developed
into a lively chase. Being not unacquainted with the boys, and knowing
their tender mercies to be much like those of the wicked, Terry sought
and found a forest retreat and the boys came panting back and sat
dejectedly upon the well-curb. Mrs. Burton, who stood near the window,
leaning upon her husband’s shoulder, looked tenderly upon them, and
murmured:
“The poor little darlings are homesick already. Now is the time for my
reign to begin. Boys!”
Both boys looked up at the window. Mrs. Burton gracefully framed a
well-posed picture of herself as she leaned upon the sill, and her
husband hung admiringly upon her words. “Boys, come into the house, and
let’s have a lovely talk about mamma.”
“Don’t want to talk about mamma,” said Toddie, a suspicion of a snarl
modifying his natural tones. “Wantsh the dog.”
“But mammas and babies are so much nicer than dogs,” pleaded Mrs.
Burton, after a withering glance at her husband, who had received
Toddie’s remark with a titter.
“Well, I don’t think so,” said Budge, reflectively. “We can always see
mamma and the baby, but Terry we can only see once in a while, and he
never wants to see us, somehow.”
“My dear,” said Mr. Burton humbly, “if you care for the experience
of another, my advice is that you let those boys come out of their
disappointment themselves. They’ll do it in their own way in spite of
you.”
“There are experiences,” remarked Mrs. Burton, with chilling dignity,
“which are useful only through the realization of their worthlessness.
Anyone can let children alone. Darlings, did you ever hear the story of
little Patty Pout?”
“No,” growled Budge, in a manner that would have discouraged any one
not conscious of having been born to rule.
“Well, Patty Pout was a nice little girl,” said Mrs. Burton, “except
that she would sulk whenever things did not happen just as she wanted
them to. One day she had a stick of candy, and was playing ‘lose and
find’ with it; but she happened to put it away so carefully that she
forgot where it was, so she sat down to sulk, and suddenly there came
up a shower and melted that stick of candy, which had been just around
the corner all the while.”
“Is Terry just around the corner?” asked Toddie, jumping up, while
Budge suddenly scraped the dirt with the toes of his shoes and said:
“If Patty’d et up her candy while she had it, she wouldn’t have had any
trouble.”
Mr. Burton hurried into the back parlor to laugh comfortably, and
without visible disrespect, while Mrs. Burton remembered that it was
time to ring the cook and chambermaid to breakfast. A moment or two
later she returned to the window, but the boys were gone; so was a
large stone jar, which was one of those family heirlooms which are
abhorred by men but loved as dearly by women as ancestral robes or
jewels. Mrs. Burton had that mania for making preserves which posterity
has inflicted upon even some of the brightest and best members of the
race, and the jar referred to had been carefully scalded that morning
and set in the sun, preparatory to being filled with raspberry jam.
“Harry,” said Mrs. Burton, “won’t you step out and get that jar for me?
It must be dry by this time.”
Mr. Burton consulted his watch, and replied:
“I’ve barely time to catch the fast train to town, my dear, but the
boys won’t fail to get back by dinner-time. Then you may be able to
ascertain the jar’s whereabouts.”
Mr. Burton hurried from the front door, and his wife made no less haste
in the opposite direction. The boys were invisible, and a careful
glance at the adjacent country showed no traces of them. Mrs. Burton
called the cook and chambermaid, and the three women took, each one, a
roadway through the lightly wooded ground near the house. Mrs. Burton
soon recognized familiar voices, and following them to their source,
she emerged from the wood near the rear of the boys’s own home. Going
closer, she traced the voices to the Lawrence barn, and she appeared
before the door of that structure to see her beloved jar in the
middle of the floor, and full of green tomatoes, over which the boys
were pouring the contents of bottles labeled “Mustang Liniment” and
“Superior Carriage Varnish.” The boys became conscious of the presence
of their aunt, and Toddie, with a smile in which confidence blended
with the assurance of success attained, said:
“We’s makin’ pickles for you, ’cause you told us a nysh little story.
This is just the way mamma makes ’em, only we couldn’t make the stuff
in the bottles hot.”
Mrs. Burton’s readiness of expression seemed to fail her, and as she
abruptly quitted the spot, with a hand of each nephew in her own, Budge
indicated the nature of her feelings by exclaiming:
“Ow! Aunt Alice! don’t squeeze my hand so hard!”
“Boys,” said Mrs. Burton, “why did you take my jar without permission?”
“What did you say?” asked Budge. “Do you mean what did we take it for?”
“Certainly.”
“Why, we wanted to give you a s’prise.”
“You certainly succeeded,” said Mrs. Burton, without a moment’s
hesitation.
“You must give us s’prises, too,” said Toddie. “S’prises is lovaly;
papa gives us lots of ’em. Sometimes they’s candy, but they’s nicest
when they’s buttonanoes” (bananas).
“How would you like to be shut up in a dark room all morning, to think
about the naughty thing you’ve done?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“Huh!” replied Budge. “That wouldn’t be no s’prise at all. We can do
that any time that we do anything bad, and papa and mamma finds out.
Why, you forgot to bring your pickles home! I don’t think you act very
nice about presents and s’prises.”
[Illustration: “WE’S MAKIN’s PICKLES FOR YOU”]
Mrs. Burton did not explain nor did she spend much time in
conversation. When she reached her own door, however, she turned and
said:
“Now, boys, you may play anywhere in the yard that you like, but you
must not go away or come into the house until I call you, at twelve
o’clock. I shall be very busy this morning, and must not be disturbed.
You will try to be good boys, won’t you?”
“I will,” exclaimed Toddie, turning up an honest little face for a
kiss, and dragging his aunt down until he could put his arms about her
and give her an affectionate hug. Budge seemed lost in meditation, but
the sound of the closing of the door brought him back to earth; he
threw the door open, and exclaimed:
“Aunt Alice!”
“What?”
“Come here--I want to ask you something.”
“It’s your business to come to me, Budge, if you have a favor to ask,”
said Mrs. Burton, from the parlor.
“Oh! Well, what I want to know is, how did the Lord make the first
hornet--the very first one that ever was?”
“Just the way he made everything else,” replied Mrs. Burton. “Just by
wanting it done.”
“Then did Noah save hornets in the ark?” continued Budge. “’Cause I
don’t see how he kept ’em from stingin’ his boys and girls, and then
gettin’ killed ’emselves.”
“You ask me about it after lunch, Budge,” said Mrs. Burton, “and I
will tell you all I can. Now run and play.”
The door closed again, and Mrs. Burton, somewhat confused, but still
resolute, seated herself at the piano for practice. She had been
playing perhaps ten minutes, when a long-drawn sigh from some one
not herself caused her to turn hastily and behold the boy Budge. A
stern reproof was ready, but somehow it never reached the young man.
Mrs. Burton afterward explained her silence by saying that Budge’s
countenance was so utterly doleful that she was sure his active
conscience had realized the impropriety of his affair with the jar, and
he had come to confess.
“Aunt Alice,” said Budge, “do you know I don’t think much of your
garden? There ain’t a turtle to be found in it from one end to the
other, and no nice grassy place to slide down like there is at our
house.”
“Can’t you understand, little boy,” replied Mrs. Burton, “that we
arranged the house and grounds to suit ourselves, and not little boys
who come to see us?”
“Well, I don’t think that was a very nice thing to do,” said Budge. “My
papa says we ought to care as much about pleasing other folks as we do
for ourselves. I didn’t want to make you that jar of pickles, but Tod
said ’twould be nice for you, so I went and did it, instead of askin’
a man that drove past to give me a ride. That’s the way you ought to do
about gardens.”
“Suppose you run out now,” said Mrs. Burton, “I told you not to come in
until I called you.”
“But you see I came in for my top--I laid it down in the dining-room
when I came in, and now it ain’t there at all. I’d like to know what
you’ve done with it, and why folks can’t let little boys’s things
alone.”
“Budge,” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, turning suddenly on the piano-stool, “I
think there’ a very cross little boy around here somewhere. Suppose I
were to lose something?”
“’Twas a three-cent top,” said Budge. “’Twasn’t only a something.”
“Suppose, then, that I were to lose a top,” said Mrs. Burton, “what do
you suppose I would do if I wanted it very much?”
“You’d call the servant to find it--that’ what I want you to do now,”
said Budge.
“I shouldn’t do anything of the kind. Try to think, now, of what a
sensible person ought to do in such a case.”
Budge dejectedly traced with his toe one of the figures in the carpet,
and seemed buried in thought; suddenly, however, his face brightened,
and he looked up shyly and said, with an infinite scale of inflection:--
“I know.”
“I thought you would find out,” said Mrs. Burton, with an encouraging
kiss and embrace, which Budge terminated quite abruptly.
“One victory to report to my superior officer, the dear old humbug,”
murmured Mrs. Burton, as she turned again to the keyboard. But before
the lady could again put herself _en rapport_ with the composer Budge
came flying into the room with a radiant face, and the missing top.
“I told you I knew what you’d do,” said he, “an’ I just went and done
it. I prayed about it. I went up-stairs into a chamber and shut the
door, and knelt down an’ said, ‘Dear Lord, bless everybody, an’ don’t
let me be bad, an’ help me to find that top again, an’ don’t let me
have to pray for it as long as I had to pray for that baby.’s And then
when I came down-stairs there was that top on the register, just where
I left it. Say, Aunt Alice, I think brekbux was an awful long while
ago. Don’t you have cakes and oranges to give to little boys?”
“Children should never eat between meals,” Mrs. Burton replied. “It
spoils their digestion and makes them cross.”
“Then I guess my digestion’s spoilt already,” said Budge, “for I’m
awful cross sometimes, an’ you can’t spoil a bad egg;--that’ what
Mike says. So I guess I’d better have some cake; I like the kind with
raisins an’ citron best.”
“Only this once,” murmured Mrs. Burton to herself, as she led the way
to the dining-room closet, partly for the purpose of hiding her own
face. “And I won’t tell Harry about it,” she continued, with greater
energy. “Here’s a little piece for Toddie, too,” said Mrs. Burton, “and
I want you both to remember that I don’t want you to come indoors until
you’re called.”
Budge disappeared, and his aunt had an hour so peaceful that she began
to react against it and started to call her nephews into the house.
Budge came in hot haste in answer to her call, and volunteered the
information that the Burton chicken-coop was much nicer than the one at
his own house, for the latter was without means of ingress for small
boys. Toddy, however, came with evident reluctance, and stopped _en
route_ to sit on the grass and gyrate thereon in a very constrained
manner.
“What’s the matter, Toddie?” asked Mrs. Burton, who speedily discerned
that the young man was ill at ease.
[Illustration: “I GOT INTO A HEN’S NESHT WHERE THERE WAS SOME EGGS”]
“Why,” said Toddie, “I got into a hen’ nesht where there was some eggs,
an’ made believe I was a henny-penny that was goin’ to hatch little
tsickens, an’ some of ’em was goin’ to be brown, an’ some white an’
some black, an’ dey was all goin’ to be such dear little fuzzy balls,
an’ dey was goin’ to sleep in the bed wif me every night, an’ I was
goin’ to give one of de white ones to dat dear little baby sister,
an’ one of ’em to you, ’cause you was sweet, too, an’ dey was all
goin’ to have tsickens of deir own some day, an’ I sitted down in de
nesht ever so soffaly ’cause I hasn’t got fevvers, you know, an’ when
I got up dere wasn’t nuffin dere but a nasty muss. An’ I don’t feel
comfitable.”
Mrs. Burton grasped the situation at once, and shouted: “Toddie, sit
down on the grass. Budge, run home and ask Maggie for a clean suit for
Toddie. Jane, fill the bathtub.”
“Don’t want to sit on the gwass,” whined Toddie. “I feels bad, an’ I
wantsh to be loved.”
“Aunty loves you very much, Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton, tenderly.
“Doesn’t that make you happy?”
“No,” exclaimed the youth with great emphasis. “Dat kind of lovin’
don’t do no good to little boys with eggy dresses. Wantsh you to come
out an’ sit down by me an’ love me.”
Toddie’s eyes said more than his lips, so Mrs. Burton hurried out to
him, prudently throwing a light shawl about her waist. Toddie greeted
her with an effusiveness which was touching in more senses than one,
as Mrs. Burton’s morning robe testified by the time Budge returned.
Carefully enveloped in a hearth-rug, Toddie was then conveyed to the
bathroom, and when he emerged he was so satisfied with the treatment he
had received that he remarked:
“Aunt Alice, will you give me a forough baff every day, if I try to
hatch out little tsickens for you?”
The events of the morning resulted in luncheon being an hour late,
so Mrs. Burton was compelled to make considerable haste in preparing
herself for a round of calls. She was too self-possessed, however, to
forget the possible risks to which her home would be subjected during
her absence, so she called her nephews to her and proceeded to instruct
them in the duties and privileges of the afternoon.
“Darlings,” she said, putting an arm around each boy, “Aunt Alice must
be away this afternoon for an hour or two. I wonder who will take care
of the house for her?”
“I want to go wif you,” said Toddie, with a kiss.
“I can’t take you, dear,” said the lady, after returning Toddie’s
salute. “The walk will be too long; but auntie will come back to her
dear little Toddie as soon as she can.”
“Oh, you’re goin’ to walk to where you’ goin’, are you?” said Toddie,
wriggling from his aunt’s arm. “Den I wouldn’t go wif you for noffin’
in the wyld.”
The pressure of Mrs. Burton’s arm relaxed, but she did not forget her
duty.
“Listen, boys,” said she. “Don’t you like to see houses neatly and
properly arranged, like your mamma’s and mine?”
“I do!” said Budge. “I always think heaven must be that way, with
parlors an’ pictures an’ books an’ a piano. Only they don’t ever have
to sweep in heaven, do they, ’cause there ain’t no dirt there. But I
wonder what the Lord does to make the little angels happy when they
want to make dirt-pies, and can’t?”
“Aunt Alice will have to explain that to you when she comes back,
Budge. But little angels never want to make mud-pies.”
“Why, papa says people’s spirits don’t change when they die,” said
Budge. “So how can little boy angels help it?”
Mrs. Burton silently vowed that at a more convenient season she would
deliver a course of systematic theology which should correct her
brother-in-law’s loose teachings. At present, however, the sun was
hurrying toward Asia, and she had made but little progress in securing
insurance against accident to household goods.
“You both like nicely arranged rooms,” pursued Mrs. Burton, but Toddie
demurred.
“I don’t like ’em,” said he. “They’re the kind of places where folks
always says ‘Don’t!’s to little boysh that wantsh to have nysh times.”
“But, Toddie,” reasoned Mrs. Burton, “the way to have nice times is to
learn to enjoy what is nicest. People have been studying how to make
homes pretty ever since the world began.”
“Adam an’ Eve didn’t,” said Toddie. “Lord done it for ’em; an’ he let
’em do just what dey wanted to. I bet little Cain an’ Abel had more fun
than any uvver little boys dat ever was.”
“Oh, no, they didn’t,” said Mrs. Burton, “because they never were in
that lovely garden. Their parents had to think and plan a long time to
make their home beautiful. Just think, now, how many people have had
to plan and contrive before the world got to be as pleasant a place as
it is now! When you look at your mamma’ parlor and mine, you see what
thousands and millions of people have had to work to bring about.”
“Gwacious!” exclaimed Toddie, his eyes opening wider and wider. “Dat’s
wonnerful!”
“Yes, and every nice person alive is doing the same now,” continued
Mrs. Burton, greatly encouraged by the impression she had made, “and
little boys should try to do the same. Every one should, instead of
disturbing what is beautiful, try to enjoy it, and want to make it
better instead of worse. Even little boys should feel that way.”
“I’e goin’ to ’member that,” said Toddie, with a far-away look. “I
fink it awful nysh for little boys to fink the same finks dat big folks
do.”
“Dear little boy,” said Mrs. Burton, arising. “Then you won’t let
anybody disturb anything in Aunt Alice’s house, will you? You’ll take
care of everything for her just as if you were a big man, won’t you?”
“Yesh, indeedy,” said Toddie.
“An’ me, too,” said Budge.
“You’re two manly little fellows, and I shall have to bring you
something real nice,” said Mrs. Burton, kissing her nephews
good-by. “There!” she whispered to herself, as she passed out of the
garden-gate, “I wonder what my lord and master will say of that victory
over imperfect natures, of the sense of the fitness of things? He would
have left the boys under the care of the servants; I am proud of having
been able to leave them to themselves.”
On her return, two hours later, Mrs. Burton was met at her front door
by two very dirty little boys, with faces full of importance and
expectancy.
“We done just what you told us, Aunt Alice,” said Toddie. “We didn’t
touch a thing, an’ we thought of everything we could do to make the
world prettier. D’just come see.”
With a quickened step Mrs. Burton followed her nephews into the back
parlor. Furniture, pictures, books, and bric-a-brac were exactly as she
left them, but some improvements had been designed and partly executed.
A bit of wall several feet long, and bare from floor to ceiling, except
for a single picture, had long troubled Mrs. Burton’s artistic eye, and
she now found that tasteful minds, like great ones, think alike.
“I think no room is perfect without flowers,” said Budge; “so does papa
an’ mamma, so we thought we’d s’prise you with some.”
On the floor, in a heap which was not without tasteful arrangement,
was almost a cartload of stones disposed as a rockery, and on the top
thereof, and working through the crevices, was a large quantity of
street dust. From several of the crevices protruded ferns, somewhat
wilted, and bearing evidence of having been several times disarranged
and dropped upon the dry soil which partly covered their roots. Around
the base was twined several yards of Virginia creeper while from the
top sprang a well-branched specimen of the “Datura stramonium” (the
common “stink-weed”). The three conservators of the beautiful gazed in
silence for a moment, and then Toddie looked up with angelic expression
and said:
“Isn’t it lovaly?”
[Illustration: “ISN’T IT LOVALY?”]
“I hope what you brought us is real nice,” remarked Budge, “for ’twas
awful hard work to make that rockery. I guess I never was so tired in
all my life. Mamma’s is on a big box, but we couldn’t find any boxes
anywhere, an’ we couldn’t find the servants to ask ’em. That ain’t
the kind of datura that has flowers just like pretty vases, but
papa says it’s more healthy than the tame kind. The ferns look kind
o’s thirsty, but I couldn’t see how to water ’em without wettin’ the
carpet, so I thought I’d wait till you came home, and ask you about it.”
There was a sudden rustle of silken robes and two little boys found
themselves alone. When, half an hour later, Mr. Burton returned from
the city, he found his wife more reticent than he had ever known her
to be, while two workmen with market baskets were sifting dust upon
his hall-carpets and making a stone-heap in the gutter in front of the
house.
CHAPTER II
On the morning of the second day of Mrs. Burton’s experiment, the
aunt of Budge and Toddie awoke with more than her usual sense of the
responsibility and burden of life. Her husband’s description of a
charming lot of bric-à-brac and pottery soon to be sold at auction did
not stimulate as much inquiry as such announcements usually did, and
Mrs. Burton’s cook did not have her usual early morning visit from her
watchful mistress. Mrs. Burton was wondering which of her many duties
to her nephews should be first attended to; but, as she wondered long
without reaching any conclusion an ever-sympathizing Providence came
to her assistance, for the children awoke and created such a hubbub
directly over her head that she speedily determined that reproof was
the first thing in order. Dressing hastily, she went up to the chamber
of the innocents, and learned that the noise was occasioned by a heavy
antique center-table, which was flying back and forth across the room,
the motive power consisting of two pairs of sturdy little arms.
“Hullo, Aunt Alice!” said Budge. “I awful glad you came in. The
table’s a choo-choo, you know, an’ my corner’s New York an’ Tod’s is
Hillcrest, an’ he’s ticket-agent at one place an’ I at the other. But
the choo-choo hasn’t got any engineer, an’ we have to push it, an’ it
isn’t fair for ticket-agents to do so much work besides their own. Now
you can be engineer. Jump on!”
The extempore locomotive was accommodatingly pushed up to Mrs. Burton
with such force as to disturb her equilibrium, but she managed to say:
“Do you do this way with your mamma’ guest-chamber furniture?”
“No,” said Toddie, “’cause why, ’pare-chamber’h always lockted. B’ides
dat, papa once tookted all de wheels off our tables--said tables wash
too restless.”
“Little boys,” said Mrs. Burton, returning the table to its place,
“should never use things which belong to other people without asking
permission. Nor should they ever use anything, no matter who it belongs
to, in any way but that in which it was made to be used. Did either of
you ever see a table on a railroad?”
“’Coursh we did,” said Toddie, promptly; “dere’s a tyne-table at
Hillcrest, an’annuvver at Dzersey City. How could choo-choos turn
around if dere wasn’t?”
“It’s time to dress for breakfast now,” said Mrs. Burton in some
confusion, as she departed.
The children appeared promptly at the table on the ringing of the bell
and brought ravenous appetites with them. Mrs. Burton composed a solemn
face, rapped on the table with the handle of the carving-knife, and all
heads were bowed while the host and hostess silently returned thanks.
When the adults raised their heads they saw that two juvenile faces
were still closely hidden in two pairs of small hands. Mrs. Burton
reverently nodded at each one to attract her husband’ attention, and
mentally determined that souls so absorbed in thanksgiving were good
ground for better spiritual seed than their parents had ever scattered.
Slowly, however, twice ten little fingers separated, and very large
eyes peeped inquiringly between them; then Budge suddenly dropped his
hands, straightened himself in his chair, and said:
“Why, Uncle Harry! Have you been forgettin’ again how to ask a
blessin’?”
And Toddie, looking somewhat complainingly at his uncle, and very
hungrily at the steak, remarked:
“Said my blessin’ ’bout fifty timesh.”
“Once would have been sufficient, Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Why didn’t you say yoursh once, den?” asked Toddie.
“I did. We don’t need to talk aloud to have the Lord hear us,”
explained Mrs. Burton.
“’Posin’ you don’t,” said Toddie, “I don’t fink it’s a very nysh way
to do, to whisper fings to de Lord. When I whisper anyfing mamma says,
‘Toddie, what’s you whisperin’ for? You ’shamed of somefing?’s Guesh
you an’ Uncle Harry’s bofe ’shamed at de same time.”
Mr. Burton desired to give his wife a pertinent hint yet dared not
while two such vigilant pairs of ears were present. A happy thought
struck him and he said in very bad German:
“Is it not time for the reformation to begin?”
And Mrs. Burton answered:--
“It soon will be.”
“That’s awful funny talk,” said Budge. “I wish I could talk that way.
That’s just the way ragged, dirty men talk to my papa sometimes, and
then he gives ’em lots of pennies. When was you an’ Aunt Alice ragged
an’ dirty, so as to learn to talk that way?”
“Budge, Budge!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “Thousands of very rich and
handsome people talk that way--all German people do.”
“Do they talk to the Lord so?” asked Budge.
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Gracious!” exclaimed the young man. “He must be awful smart to
understand them.”
Mr. Burton repeated his question in German, but Mrs. Burton kept silent
and looked extremely serious, with a ghost of a frown.
“What are you boys and your auntie going to do with yourselves to-day?”
asked Mr. Burton, anxious to clear away the cloud of reticence which,
since the night before, had been marring his matrimonial sky.
“I guess,” said Budge, looking out through the window, “it’s going to
rain; so the best thing will be for Aunt Alice to tell us stories all
day long. We never do get enough stories.”
“Just the thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, her face coming from behind
the clouds, and with more than its usual radiance.
“Hazh you got plenty of stories in your ’tomach?” asked Toddie, poising
his fork in air, regardless of the gravy which trickled down upon his
hand from the fragment of meat at the end.
[Illustration: “RAGGED, DIRTY MEN TALK TO MY PAPA SOMETIMES”]
“Dozens of them,” said Mrs. Burton. “I listened to stories in
Sunday-school for about ten years, and I’ve never had anybody to tell
them to.”
“I don’t think much of Sunday-school stories,” said Budge, with the
air of a man indulging in an unsatisfactory retrospect. “There’s
always somethin’ at the end of ’em that spoils all the good taste of
’em--somethin’ about bein’ good little boys.”
“Aunt Alice’s stories haven’t any such endings,” said Mr. Burton, with
a sneaking desire to commit his wife to a policy of simple amusement.
“She knows that little boys want to be good, and she wants to see them
happy, too.”
“Aunt Alice will tell you only what you will enjoy, Budge--she promises
you that,” said Mrs. Burton. “We will send Uncle Harry away right after
breakfast and then you shall have all the stories you want.”
“And cake, too?” asked Toddie. “Mamma always gives us cakesh when she’s
tellin’ us stories, so we’ll sit still an’ not wriggle about.”
“No cakes,” said Mrs. Burton, kindly but firmly. “Eating between meals
spoils the digestion of little boys, and makes them very cross.”
“I guess that’s what was the matter with Terry yesterday, then,”
said Budge. “He was eatin’ a bone between meals, out in the garden
yesterday afternoon, and when I took hold of his back legs and tried to
play that he was a wheelbarrow, he bit me.”
Mr. Burton gave the dog Terry a sympathetic pat and a bit of meat,
making him stand on his hind legs and beg for the latter, to the great
diversion of the children. Then, with an affectionate kiss and a look
of tender solicitude he wished his wife a happy day and hurried off to
the city. Mrs. Burton took the children into the library and picked up
a Bible.
“What sort of story would you like first?” she asked, as she slowly
turned the leaves.
“One ’bout Abraham, ’cause he ’most killed somebody,” said Toddie,
eagerly.
“Oh, no,” said Budge; “one about Jesus, because He was always good to
everybody.”
“Dear child,” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “Goodness always makes people
nice, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Budge; “’cept when they talk about it to little boys. Say,
Aunt Alice, what makes good folks always die?”
“Because the Lord needs them, I suppose, Budge.”
“Then don’t he need me?” asked Budge, with a pathetic look of inquiry.
“Certainly, dear,” said Mrs. Burton; “but he wants you to make other
people happy first. A great many good people are left in the world for
the same reason.”
“Then why couldn’t Jesus be left?” said Budge. “He could make people
happier than every one else put together.”
“You’ll understand why, when you grow older,” said Mrs. Burton.
“I wish I’d hurry up about it and grow, then,” said Budge. “Why can’t
little boys grow just like little flowers do?--just be put in the
ground an’ watered and hoed? Our ’paragus grows half-a-foot in a day
almost.”
“You’s a dyty boy to want to be put in de dyte, Budgie,” said Toddie,
“an’ I isn’t goin’ to play wif you any more. Mamma says I mustn’t
play wif dyty little boys.”
“Dirty boy yourself!” retorted Budge. “You like to play in the dirt,
only you cry whenever anybody comes with water to put on you. Say, Aunt
Alice, how long does people have to stay in the ground when they die
before they go to heaven?”
“Three days, I suppose, Budge,” said Mrs. Burton.
“An’ does everybody that the Lord loves go up to heaven?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Well, papa says some folks believe that dead people never go to
heaven.”
“Never mind what they believe, Budge. You should believe what you are
taught,” said Mrs. Burton.
“But I’d like to know for sure.”
“So you will, some day.”
“I wish ’twould be pretty quick about it, then,” said Budge. “Now tell
us a story.”
Mrs. Burton drew the children nearer her as she reopened the Bible,
when she discovered, to her surprise, that Toddie was crying.
“I hazhn’t talked a bit for ever so long!” he exclaimed, in a high,
pathetic tremolo.
“What do you want to say, Toddie?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“I know all ’bout burying folks--that’ what,” said Toddie. “Mamma
tolded me all ’bout it one time, she did. An’ yeshterday me and Budgie
had a funelal all by ourselves. We found a dear little dead byde. An’
we w’apped it up in a piesh of paper, ’cause a baking-powder box wazn’t
bid enough for a coffin, an’ we dugged a little grave, an’ we knelted
down an’ said a little prayer, an’ ashked de Lord to take it up to
hebben, an’ den we put dyte in the grave an’ planted little flowers
all over it. Dat’s what.”
“Yes, an’ we put a little stone at the head of the grave, too, just
like big dead folks,” said Budge. “We couldn’t find one with any
writin’ on it, but I went home and got a picture-book an’ cut out a
little picture of a bird, an’ stuck it on the stone with some tar that
I picked out of the groceryman’ wagon-wheel, so that when the angel
that takes spirits to heaven comes along, it can see there’s a dead
little birdie there waitin’ for him.”
“Yesh,” added Toddie, “an’ little bydie ishn’t like us. ’Twon’t have
to wunner how it’ll feel to hazh wings when it gets to be a angel,
’cause ’twas all used to wings ’fore it died.”
“Birds don’t go----” began Mrs. Burton, intending to correct the
children’s views as to the future state of the animal kingdom, when
there flashed through her mind some of the wonderings of her own
girlish days, and the inability of her riper experience to answer them,
so she again postponed, and with a renewed sense of its vastness, the
duty of reforming the opinions of her nephews on things celestial. At
about the same time her cook sought an interview, and complained of
the absence of two of the silver tablespoons. Mrs. Burton went into
the mingled despondency, suspicion and anger which is the frequent
condition of all American women who are unfortunate enough to have
servants.
[Illustration: “YES, AN’ WE PUT A LITTLE STONE AT THE HEAD OF THE
GRAVE”]
“Where is the chambermaid?” she asked.
“An’ ye’s needn’t be a-suspectin’ av her,” said the cook. “It’s them
av yer own family that I’m thinkin’ hez tuk ’em.” And the cook glared
suggestively upon the boys. Mrs. Burton accepted the hint.
“Boys, have either of you taken any of auntie’s spoons for anything?”
“No,” answered Toddie, promptly; and Budge looked very saintly and shy,
as if he knew something that, through delicacy of feeling and not fear,
he shrank from telling.
“What is it, Budge?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“Why, you see,” said Budge, in the sweetest of tones, “we wanted
somethin’ yesterday to dig the grave of the birdie with, an’ we
couldn’t think of anything else so nice as spoons. There was plenty of
ugly old iron ones lyin’ around, but birdies are so sweet an’ nice
that I wouldn’t have none of ’em. An’ the dinner-dishes was all lyin’
there with the big silver spoons on top of ’em, so I just got two of
’em--they wasn’t washed yet, but we washed ’em real clean so’s to be
real nice about everythin’, so that if the little birdie’ spirit was
lookin’ at us it wouldn’t be disgusted.”
“And where are the spoons now?” demanded Mrs. Burton, oblivious to all
the witchery of the child’s spirit and appearance.
“I dunno,” said Budge, becoming an ordinary boy in an instant.
“I doeszh,” said Toddie--“I put ’em somewherezh, so when we wanted to
play housh nexsht time we wouldn’t have to make b’lieve little sticks
was spoons.”
“Show me immediately where they are,” commanded Mrs. Burton, rising
from her chair.
“Den will you lend ’em to us nexsht time we playzh housh?” asked Toddie.
“No,” said Mrs. Burton, with cruel emphasis.
Toddie pouted, rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, and led the way
to the rear of the garden where, in a hollow at the base of an old
apple-tree, were the missing spoons. Wondering whether other valuable
property might not be there, Mrs. Burton cautiously and with a stick
examined the remaining contents of the hole, and soon discovered one of
her damask napkins.
“Datsh goin’ to be our table-cloff,” explained Toddie, “an’
dat”--this, as an unopened pot of French mustard was unearthed “is
pizzyves” (preserves).
Mrs. Burton placed her property in the pocket of her apron, led her two
nephews into the house, seated them with violence upon a sofa, closed
the doors noisily, drew a chair close to the prisoners, and said:
“Now, boys, you are to be punished for taking auntie’s things out of
the house without permission.”
“Don’t want to be shpynkted!” screamed Toddie, in a tone which
seemed an attempt at a musical duet by a saw-filer and an ungreased
wagon-wheel.
“You’re not to be whipped,” continued Mrs. Burton, “but you must learn
not to touch things without permission. I think that to go without your
dinners would help you to remember that what you have done is naughty.”
“Izhe ’most ’tarved to deff,” exclaimed Toddie, bursting out crying.
(N.B. Breakfast has been finished but a scant hour.)
“Then I will put you into an empty room, and keep you there until you
are sure you can remember.”
Toddie shrieked as if enduring the thousand tortures of the Chinese
executioner, and Budge looked as unhappy as if he were a young man in
love and in the throes of reluctant poesy, but Mrs. Burton led them
both to the attic, and into an empty room, placed chairs in two corners
and a boy in each chair, and said:
“Don’t either of you move out of a chair. Just sit still and think how
naughty you’ve been. In an hour or two I’ll come back, and see if you
think you can be good boys here-after.”
[Illustration: “DON’T EITHER OF YOU MOVE OUT OF A CHAIR”.]
As Mrs. Burton left the room, she was followed by a shriek that seemed
to pierce the walls and be heard over half the earth. Turning hastily,
she saw that Toddie, from whom it had proceeded, had neither fallen out
of his chair, nor been seized by an epileptic fit, nor stung by some
venomous insect; so she closed the door, locked it, softly placed a
chair against it, sat down softly and listened. There was silence after
the several minutes required by Toddie to weary of his crying, and
then Mrs. Burton heard the following conversation:
“Tod?”
“What?”
“We ought to do something!”
“Chop Aunt Alish into little shnipsh of bitsh--datsh what I fink would
be nysh.”
“That would be dreadful naughty,” said Budge, “after we’ve bothered her
so! We ought to do something good, just like big folks when they’ve
been bad.”
“What doezh big folks do?”
“Well, they read the Bible an’ go to church. But you an’ me can’t go
to church, ’cause ’tain’t Sunday, an’ we ain’t got no Bible, an’ we
wouldn’t know how to read it if we had.”
“Den don’t letsh do noffin’ but be awful mad,” said the unrepentant
Toddie. “I’ll tell you what we can do. Let’s do like dat Maggydalen dat
mamma’s got a picture of, and dat was bad an’ got sorry; letsh look
awful doleful and cwosh. See me.”
Toddie apparently gave an illustration of what he thought the proper
penitential countenance and attitude, for Budge exclaimed:
“I don’t think that would look nice at all. It makes you look like a
dead puppy-dog with his head turned to one side. I’ll tell you what;
we can’t read Bibles like big folks, but we can tell stories out of the
Bible, an’ that’ bein’ just as good as if we read ’em.”
“Oh, yes,” said Toddie, repenting at once. “Letsh! I wantsh to be good
just awful.”
“Well, what shall we tell about?” asked Budge.
“’Bout when Jesus was a little boy,” said Toddie, “for he was awful
good.”
“No,” said Budge; “we’ve been naughty, an’ we must tell about somebody
that was awful naughty. I think old Pharaoh’s about the thing.”
“Aw right,” said Toddie. “Tell us ’bout him.”
“Well, once there was a bad old king down in Egypt, that had all the
Izzyrelites there an’ made ’em work, an’ when they didn’t work he
had ’em banged. But that dear little bit of a Moses, that lived in a
basket in the river, grew up to be a man, an’ he just killed one of
Pharaoh’s bad bangers, an’ then he skooted an’ hid. An’ the Lord saw
that he was the kind of man that was good for somethin’, so he told him
he wanted him to make Pharaoh let the poor Izzyrelites go where they
wanted to. So Moses went and told Pharaoh. An’ Pharaoh said, ’No, you
don’t!’s Then Moses went an’ told the Lord, an’ the Lord got angry,
and turned all the water in the river into blood.”
“My!” said Toddie. “Then if anybody wanted to look all bluggy, all he
had to do was to go in bavin’, wasn’t it?”
“But he wouldn’t let ’em go then,” continued Budge. “So the Lord made
frogs hop out of all the rivers an’ mud-puddles everywhere, and they
went into all the houses an’ folks couldn’t keep ’em out.”
“I just wis mamma an’ me’d been in Egypt, den,” said Toddie. “Den she
couldn’t make me leave my hop-toads out of doors, if de Lord wanted ’em
to stay in de house. I loves hop-toads. I fwallowed one de uvver day,
an’ it went way down my ’tomach.”
“Didn’t it kick inside of you?” asked Budge, with natural interest.
“No-o!” said Toddie. “I bited him in two fyst. But he growed togvver
ag’in, an’dzust hopped right out froo de top of my head.”
“Let’s see the hole he came out of?” said Budge, starting across the
floor.
“It all growded up again right away,” said Toddie, in haste, “an’
you’s a bad boy to get out of your chair when Aunt Alice told you not
to, and you’s got to tell annuvver story ’bout naughty folks to pay for
it. Gwon!”
Budge returned to his chair, and continued:
“An’ old Pharaoh went down to Moses’s house an’ said, ‘Ask the Lord
to make the frogs hop away, an’ you can have your old Izzyrelites--I
don’t want ’em.’ So the Lord done it, an’ all the glad old Pharaoh
was, was only ’cause he got rid of ’em; an’ he kept the Izzyrelites
some more. Then the Lord thought he’d fix ’em sure, so he turned all
the dirt into nasty bugs.”
“What did little boys do den, dat wanted dyte to make mud-pies of?”
asked Toddie.
“Well, the bugs was only made out of dry dirt,” exclaimed Budge; “just
dust like we kick up in the street, you know.”
“Oh,” said Toddie. “I wonder if any of dem bugs was ’tato-bugs?”
“I dunno, but some of ’em was the kind that mammas catch with fine
combs after their little boys have been playin’ with dirty children.
An’ Pharaoh’s smart men, that thought they could do everythin’, found
they couldn’t make them bugs.”
“Why-y-y,” drawled Toddie, “did Pharaoh want some more of ’em?”
“No, I s’pose not, but he stayed bad, so he had to catch it again.
The Lord sent whole swarms of flies to Egypt, an’ there wasn’t any
mosquito-nets in that country either. An’ then Pharaoh got good again,
an’ the Lord took the flies away, an Pharaoh got bad again, so the
Lord made all the horses an’ cows awful sick, an’ they all died.”
“Then couldn’t Pharaoh go out ridin’ at all?”
“No. He had to walk, even if he wanted to get to the depot in an awful
hurry. An’ it made him so mad that he said the Izzyrelites shouldn’t
go anyhow. So Moses took a handful of ashes an’ threw it up in the air
before Pharaoh, an’ everybody in all Egypt got sore with boils right
away.”
“Ow!” said Toddie, “I had some nashty boils oncesh, but I didn’t know
ashes made ’em. I’ll ’member that.”
“An’ Pharaoh said ‘no!’again, so he got some more bothers. The Lord
made great big lumps of ice tumble down out of heaven, an’ he made
the thunder go bang, an’ the lightnin’ ran around the ground like
our fizzers did last Fourth of July, an’ it spoiled all the growing
things.”
“Strawberries?” queried Toddie.
“Yes.”
“An’ dear little panzhies?”
“Yes.”
“Poo’s old Pharo’! Gwon.”
[Illustration: “--BUT I DIDN’T KNOW ASHES MADE ’EM”]
“Then Pharaoh’s friends began to tell him he was bein’ a goose,
thinkin’ he could be stronger than the Lord, an’ Pharaoh kind
o’ thought so himself. So he told Moses that the men-folks of the
Izzyrelites might go away if they wanted to, but nobody else.”
“Mean old fing! Who did he fink was goin’ to cook fings--an’ go to
school?”
“I dunno, but I guess he had a chance to think about it, for the Lord
made whole crowds of locusts come. Them’s grasshoppers, you know, an’
they ate up everythin’ in all the gardens, an’ the folks got half
crazy about it.”
“Den I guesh dey didn’t tell their little boysh that they mushn’t kill
gwasshoppers, like mamma doesh. Wish I’d been dere! What did he do den?”
“Oh, he was a selfish old pig, just like he was before, so the Lord
said, ‘Moses, just hold your hand up to the sky a minute.’ An’ Moses
did it, and then it got darker in Egypt than it is in our coal-bin.
Folks couldn’t see anythin’ anywhere, an’ wherever they was when it
growed dark, they had to stay for three whole days an’ nights.”
“Gwacious!” Toddie exclaimed. “Wouldn’t it be drefful if Moses was to
go an’ hold his hand up in the sky while we’s a-sittin’ in dezhe
chairzh? Mebbe he will! Let’s holler for Aunt Alish!”
“Oh, he can’t do it now, ’cause he’s dead. Besides that, we ain’t
keepin’ any Izzyrelites from doin’ what they want to. Old Pharaoh
got awful frightened then, an’ told Moses he might take all the people
away, but they mustn’t take their things with ’em--the selfish old
fellow! But Moses knew how hard the poor Izzyrelites had to work for
the few things they had, so he said they wouldn’t go unless they could
carry everythin’ they owned. An’ that made Pharaoh mad, an’ he said,
‘Get out! If I catch you here again I’ll kill you!’s An’ Moses said,
‘Don’t trouble yourself; you won’t see me again unless you want me.’”
“Shouldn’t fink he would,” said Toddie. “Nobody’s goin’ to vizhit
kings dzust to have deir heads cutted off. Even our shickens knows
enough not to come to Mike when he wants to cut deir heads off. Gwon!”
“Well, then the Lord told Moses somethin’ that must have made him feel
awful. He told him that next night every biggest boy in every family
was goin’ to be killed by an angel. Ain’t I glad I didn’t live there
then! I’d like to see an angel, but not if that’s what he wants to do
with me. What would you do if an angel was to kill me, Tod?”
“I’d have all your marbles,” Toddie answered, promptly, “and the
goat-cawwiage would be all mine. Gwon!”
“Well, the Lord told Moses about it, an’ Moses told the folks; an’
he told ’em all to kill a little lamb, an’ dip their fingers in the
blood, an’ make a cross on their door-posts, so when the angel came
along an’ saw it he wouldn’t kill the biggest boy in their houses.
An’ that night down came the angel, an’ everybody woke up an’ cried
awful--worse than you did when you fell down-stairs the other day,
because all the biggest died. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearin’
papas an’ mammas cryin’.”
“Did dey all have funerals den?”
“Of course.”
“Gwacious! Den the little ’Gyptian boys dat didn’t get killed could
look at deaders all day long! What did Pharo’s do ’bout it den?”
“He sent right after Moses an’ his brother, in a hurry, an’ he
told ’em that he’d been a bad king--just as if they didn’t know that
already! An’ he told ’em to take all the Izzyrelites, an’ all their
things, an’ go right straight away--he was in such a hurry that he
didn’t even invite Moses to the funeral, though he had a dead biggest
boy himself. An’ all the Egyptian people came too, and begged the
Izzyrelites to hurry an’ go--they didn’t see what they was waitin’
for. They was so glad to get rid of ’em that they lent ’em anything
they wanted.”
“Pies an’ cakes?”
“No!” said Budge, contemptuously. “You don’t s’pose folks that’s
goin’ off travelin’ for forty years is goin’ to think ’bout eatin’
first thing, do you? They borrowed clothes, an’ money, an’ everything
else they could get, an’ left the Egyptians awful poor. An’ off they
started.”
“Did they have a ’cursion train?”
“No! All the excursion trains in the world couldn’t have held such lots
of people. They rode on camels and donkeys, but lots of ’em walked.”
“I don’t think that was a bit of fun.”
“You would have,” said Budge, “if you’d always had to work like
everything. Don’t you ’member how once when mamma made you work, an’
carry away all the blocks you brought up on the piazza from the new
buildin’? You walked ’way off to the village to get rid of it.”
“Ye--es,” drawled Toddie, “but I knew I’d be rided back when dey came
to look for me. Den what did they do?”
“They started to travel to a nice country that the Lord had told Moses
about, an’ they got along till they came to a pretty big ocean where
there wasn’t any ferry-boats. I don’t see what Moses took ’em to
such a place as that for, unless the Lord wanted to show ’em that no
ferry-boats could get the best of Him, when all of a sudden they saw an
awful lot of dust bein’ kicked up behind ’em, an’ somebody said that
Pharaoh was a-comin’.”
“Should fink he’d seen ’nough of ’em,” said Toddie. “Did he come down
to the boat to wave his hanafitch good-by at ’em?”
“No, he knew there wasn’t any boats there, an’ so he came to take ’em
back again an’ make ’em work some more.”
“Should fink he’d be afraid de Lord would kill him next.”
“P’r’aps he did; but then, you see, he was awful lazy, an’ didn’t like
to work for himself; papa says there’s lots of folks that would rather
be killed than do any work.”
“Den what d’s de lazy folks do? They can’t catch any Izzyrelites, can
they?”
“No,” said Budge, “but they can do what the Izzyrelites done
themselves--they borrow other people’s money. Well, when the folks saw
that ’twas Pharaoh a-comin’, they began to grunt, an pitch into poor
Moses, an’ told him he ought to be ashamed of hisself to bring ’em
away off there to be killed, when they might have died in Egypt without
havin’ to walk so far. But Moses said: ‘Shut your mouth, will you?
The Lord’s doin’ this job.’ Then the Lord said: ‘Moses, lift up your
cane an’ point across the water with it!’s An’ the minute Moses done
that, the water of that ocean went way up on one side, and way up on
the other side--just like it does in the bathtub sometimes when we’re
splashin’, you know--and there was a path right through the bottom of
that ocean. An’ the people just skooted right along it!”
[Illustration: “SPLASHIN’ IN THE BATHTUB”]
“Did they put on their rubbers fyst? ’Cause if they didn’t there must
have been lots of little boys spanked when they got across for gettin’
their shoes muddy.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Budge, after a slight pause for
reflection. “I must ’member to ask papa about that. But when they all
got over they began to grumble some more, for along came Pharaoh’s army
right after ’em.”
“I fink they was a lot of good-for-nothing cry-babies,” Toddie
exclaimed.
“Huh!” grunted Budge. “I guess you’d have yowled if you’d have been
trudgin’ along through the mud ever so long, an’ then seen some
soldiers an’ chariots an’ spears an’ bows an’ arrows comin’ to kill
you. But the Lord knew just how to manage. He always did. Papa says He
always comes in when you think He can’t. He said to Moses, ‘Lift up
your cane an’ point it across the ocean again.’s An’ Moses done it,
an’ down came that big fence of water on both sides kerswosh! An’ it
drownded old Pharaoh an’ the whole good-for-nothin’ lot.”
“Then did the Izzyrelites go to cryin’ some more?”
“Not much! They all got together an’ had a big sing.”
“I know what they sung,” said Toddie. “They all sung
‘TurnbackPharo’army-hallelujah.’”
“No, they didn’t,” said Budge. “They sung that splendid thing mamma
sings sometimes, ‘Sound the--loud tim--brel o’er--Egypt’--Egypt’
dark----’”
Budge had with great difficulty repeated the line of the glorious old
anthem, then he broke down and burst out crying.
“What’s you cryin’ about?” asked Toddie. “Is you playin’ you’s an
Izzyrelite?”
“No,” said Budge; “but whenever I think about that song, somethin’
comes up in my throat and makes me cry.”
The door of the room flew open, there was a rustle and a hurried tread,
and Mrs. Burton, her face full of tears, snatched Budge to her breast,
and kissed him repeatedly, while Toddie remarked:
“When fings come up in my froat I just fwallows ’em.”
Mrs. Burton conducted her nephews to the parlor floor, and said:
“Now, little boys, it’s nearly lunch time, and I am going to have you
nicely washed and dressed, so that if any one comes in you will look
like little gentlemen.”
“Ain’t we to be punished any more for bein’ bad?” asked Budge.
“No,” said Mrs. Burton, kindly; “I’m going to trust you to remember and
be good.”
“That isn’t what bothers me,” said Budge; “I told a great, long Bible
story to Tod up-stairs, so’s to be like big folks when they get bad, as
much as I could. But Tod didn’t tell any; I don’t think he’s got his
punish.”
“He may tell his to-night, after Uncle Harry gets home,” said Mrs.
Burton.
“An’ sit in a chair in the corner of the up-stairs room?” asked Budge.
“I hardly think that will be necessary this time,” answered the lady.
“Then I don’t think you punish fair a bit,” said Budge, with an
aggrieved pout.
“I’ll be dzust as sad as I can ’bout it, Budgie,” said Toddie, with a
brotherly kiss.
The boys were led off by the chambermaid to be dressed and Mrs.
Burton seated herself and devoted herself to earnest thought. Time
was flying, her husband had been between dark and breakfast-time most
exasperatingly solicitous as to the success of his wife’s theories of
government, and not even her genius of self-defense had prevailed
against him. She felt that so far she had been steadily vanquished. Her
husband had told her in other days that it was always so with the best
generals in their first engagements, so she determined that if men had
snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, she should be able to do so
as well. Her desperation at the thought of a long lifetime of “I told
you so’” from her husband made her determine that no discomfort should
prevent the most earnest endeavor for success.
The luncheon bell aroused her from what had become a reverie in the
valley of humiliation, and she found awaiting her at the table her
nephews--Budge in a jaunty sailor-suit and Toddie in a clean dress and
an immaculate white apron. An old experience caused her to promptly end
some researches of Toddie’, instituted to discover whether his aunt’
dishes were really “turtle-pyates,” and an attempt by Budge to drop
oysters in the mouth of the dog Terry, as he had seen his uncle do with
bread-crusts in the morning, was forcibly brought to a close. Beyond
the efforts alluded to, the children did nothing worse than people in
good society often do at table. After luncheon, Mrs. Burton said:
“Now, boys, this is Aunt Alice’s receptionday. I will probably
have several calls, and every one will want to know about that dear
little new baby, and you must be there to tell them. So you must keep
yourselves very neat and clean. I know you wouldn’t like to see any
dirty people in my parlor!”
“Hatesh to shtay in parlors,” said Toddie. “Wantsh to go and get some
jacks” (“Jack-in-the-pulpit”--a swamp plant).
“Not to-day,” said Mrs. Burton, kindly, but firmly. “No one with nice
white aprons ever goes for jacks. What would you think if you saw me in
a swampy, muddy place, with a nice white apron on, hunting for jacks!”
“Why, I’d fink you could bring home more’n me, ’cause your apron would
hold the mosht,” Toddie replied.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Budge, calling Toddie into a corner and
whispering earnestly to him. The purity of Budge’s expression of
countenance and the tender shyness with which he avoided her gaze when
he noticed that it was upon him, caused Mrs. Burton to instinctively
turn her head away, out of respect for what she believed to be a
childish secret of some very tender order. Glancing at the couple
again for only a second, she saw that Toddie, too, seemed rather
less matter-of-fact than usual. Finally both boys started out of the
doorway, Budge turning and remarking with inflections simply angelic:
“Will be back pretty soon, Aunt Alice.”
Mrs. Burton proceeded to dress; she idly touched her piano, until one
lady after another called, and occupied her time. Suddenly, while
trying to form a good impression on a very dignified lady of the
old school, both boys marched into the parlor from the dining-room.
Mrs. Burton motioned them violently away, for Budge’s trousers and
Toddie’ apron were as dirty as they well could be. Neither boy saw the
visitor, however, for she was hidden by one of the wings which held the
folding-doors, so both tramped up to their aunt, while Budge exclaimed:
“Folks don’t go to heaven the second day, anyhow, for we just dug up
the bird to see, an’ he was there just the same.”
“And dere wazh lots of little ants dere wiv him,” said Toddie. “Is dat
’cause dey want to got to hebben, too, an’ wantsh somebody wif wings
to help ’em up?”
“Budge!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, in chilling tones; “how did all this
dirt come on your clothes?”
“Why, you see,” said the boy, edging up confidentially to his aunt,
and resting his elbows on her knee as he looked up into her face, “I
couldn’t bear to put the dear little birdie in the ground again without
sayin’ another little prayer. And I forgot to brush my knees off.”
“Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton, “you couldn’t have knelt down with your
stomach and breast. How did you get your nice white apron so dirty?”
Toddie looked at the apron and then at his aunt--looked at a picture
or two, and then at the piano--followed the cornice-line with his eye,
seemed suddenly to find what he was looking for, and replied:
“Do you fink dat apron’s dyty? Well, I don’t. Tell you watsh de matter
wif it--I fink de white’s gropped off.”
“Go into the kitchen!” Mrs. Burton commanded, and both boys departed
with heavy pouts where pretty lips should have been. Half an hour
later their uncle, who had come home early with the laudable desire of
meeting some of his wife’s acquaintances, found his nephew Toddy upon
the scaffolding of an unfinished residence half-way between his own
residence and the railway station. Remembering the story, dear to
all makers of school reading-books, of the boy whose sailor father saw
him perched upon the mainyard, Mr. Burton stood beneath the scaffolding
and shouted to Toddie:
[Illustration: “JUMP!” SHOUTED MR. BURTON]
“Jump!”
“I can’t,” screamed Toddie.
“Jump!” shouted Mr. Burton, with increased energy.
“Tell you I can’t,” repeated Toddie. “Wezh playin’ Tower of Babel,
an’ hazh had our talks made different like de folks did den, an’ when
I tells Budge to bring buicksh, he only buingzh mortar, an’ when I
wantsh mortar he buings buicksh. An’ den we talksh like you an’ Aunt
Alice did yestuday at de table.”
“Yes,” said Budge, appearing from the inside of the building with
an armful of blocks. “Just listen.” And the young man chattered for
a moment or two in a dialect never even dimly hinted at except by a
convention of monkeys.
Mr. Burton cautiously climbed the ladder, brought down one boy at a
time, kissed them both and shook them soundly, after which the three
wended homeward, the boys having sawdust on every portion of their
clothes not already soiled by dirt, and most of Mrs. Burton’s callers
meeting the party _en route_.
Mr. Burton found his wife brilliantly conversational, yet averse to
talking about her nephews. The exercise which they had been compelled
to take in their emulation of the architects of the incomplete building
on the plain of Shinar gave them excellent appetites and silenced
tongues; but after his capacity had been tested to the uttermost Budge
said:
“It’s time for Tod to do his punishment now, Aunt Alice. Don’t you
know?”
Mrs. Burton winked at her husband, and nodded approvingly to Budge.
“Come, Tod,” said Budge, “you must tell your awful sad story now, an’
feel bad.”
“Guesh I’ll tell ’bout Peter Gray,” said Toddie; “thatsh awful sad.”
“Who was Peter Gray?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“He’s a dzentleman dat a dyty little boy in the nexsht street to us
sings ’bout,” said Toddie, “only I don’t sing ’bout him--I only tellsh
it. It’s dzust as sad that-a-way.”
“Go on,” said Budge.
“Once was a man,” said Toddie, with great solemnity, “an’ his name was
Peter Gray. An’ he loved a lady. An’ he says to her papa, ‘I wantsh
to marry your little gyle.’ An’ what you fink dat papa said? He said,
‘No!’” (this with great emphasis). “That izhn’t as hard as he said it,
eiver, but it’s azh hard as I can say it. It’s puffikly dzedful when
Jimmy sings it. An’ Peter Gray felt awful bad den, an’ he went out
Wesht, to buy de shkinzh dat comes off of animals an’ fings, dough
how dat made him feel nicer Jimmy don’t sing ’bout. An’ bad Injuns
caught him an’ pulled his hair off, djust like ladies pull deirsh off
sometimezh. An’ when dat lady heard ’bout it, it made her feel so bad
dat she went to bed an’ died. Datsh all. Uncle Harry, ain’t you got to
be punished for somefin’, so you can tell ush a story?”
“It’s time little boys were in bed now,” said Mrs. Burton, arising and
taking Toddie in her arms.
“Oh, dear!” said Budge. “I wish I was a little boy in China, an’ just
gettin’ up.”
“So does I,” said Toddie; “’cause den you would have a tay-al on your
head an’ I could pull it!”
The boys retired, and Mrs. Burton broke her reticence so far as to tell
her husband the story she had heard in the morning, and to insist that
he was to arise early enough in the morning to unearth the buried bird
and throw it away.
“It’s perfectly dreadful,” said she, “that those children should be
encouraged in making trifling applications of great truths, and I am
determined, as far as possible, to prevent the effects by removing the
causes.”
And her husband put on an exasperating smile and shook his head
profoundly.
CHAPTER III
The sun of the next morning arose at the outrageously unfashionable
hour that he affects in June, but Mrs. Burton was up before him.
Her husband had attended a town meeting the night before, and the
forefathers of the hamlet had been so voluble that Mr. Burton had not
returned home until nearly midnight. He needed rest, and his wife
determined that he should sleep as long as possible; but there were
things dearer to her than even the comfort of her husband, and among
these were the traditions she had received concerning things mystical.
She had an intuition that her nephews would examine the grave of the
bird they had interred two days before, and she dreaded to listen to
the literal conversation and comments that would surely follow. Had
the bird been a human being, the remarks of its tender-hearted little
friends would have seemed anything but materialistic to Mrs. Burton;
but it was only a bird, and the lady realized that to answer questions
as to the soullessness of an innocent being and the comparative value
of characterless men and women was going to be no easy task.
She therefore perfected a plan which should be fair to all concerned;
she would arouse her husband only when she heard her nephews moving;
then she would engage the young men in conversation while her husband
desecrated the grave. She would have saved considerable trouble by
locking the young men in their chamber and allowing her husband to
slumber content, but having failed to remove the key on the advent of
the boys they had found use for it themselves, and no questioning had
been able to discover its whereabouts. Meanwhile the boys were quiet,
and Mrs. Burton devoted the peaceful moments to laying out the day in
such a manner as to have the least possible trouble from her nephews.
A violent kicking at the front door and some vigorous rings of the bell
aroused the lady from her meditation and her husband from his dreams,
while the dog Terry, who usually slept on the inner mat at the front
door, began to howl piteously.
“Goodness!” growled Mr. Burton, rubbing his eyes, as his wife pulled
the bell-cord leading to the servants’s room. “To whom do we owe
money?”
“Oh, I’m afraid Helen is worse, or the baby is poorly!” exclaimed Mrs.
Burton, opening the chamber-window, and shouting, “Who is there?”
“Me,” answered a voice easily recognizable as that of Budge.
“Me, too!” screamed a thinner but equally familiar voice.
“We’ve got somethin’ awful lovely to tell you, Aunt Alice,” shouted
Budge. “Let us in, quick!”
“Lovelier dan cake or pie or candy!” screamed Toddie.
One of the servants hurried down the stairs, the door opened, light
footsteps hurried up the steps, and the dog Terry, pausing for no
morning caress from his master, hurried under the bed for refuge, from
which locality he expressed his apprehension in a dismal falsetto.
Then, with a tramp which only children can execute, and which horses
cannot approach in noisiness, came Budge and Toddie. Arrived at their
aunt’s chamber-door, each boy tried to push the other away, that he
might himself tell the story of which both were full. At last, from the
outer side of the door:
“Dear little bydie’s gone to hebben.”
“Yes,” said Budge, “the angels took him away.”
“An’ de little ants all went to hebben wif him,” said Toddie.
“Only the angels didn’t take the gravestone, too,” said Budge. “Say,
Aunt Alice, what’s the use of gravestones after folks is gone to
heaven?”
“I know,” said Toddie. “I fought everybody knowed dat; it’s so’s folks
know where to plant lovely flowers for deir angel what was in the grave
to look down at.”
“Now,” said Budge, with the air of a champion of a newly discovered
doctrine, “I’m just goin’ to ask papa who the folks are that don’t
believe deaders go to heaven. I’ll jist tell ’em what geese they are.”
“Angels is dzust like birdies, isn’t they, Aunt Alice?” Toddie asked.
“’Cause dey’ got winghs an’ clawshes, too.”
“How do you know they have claws?” asked Mr. Burton.
“’Cause I saw deir scratch-holes in the dyte at the grave,” said
Toddie. “Dey was dzust little bits of scratchy cracks like little
bydies make. I guesh dey was little baby-angels.”
Mr. Burton winked at his wife, who was looking greatly mystified, and
he uttered the single monosyllable:
“Cats.”
“How did you get out of the house, children?” Mr. Burton asked.
“Jumped out of one of the kitchen windows,” said Budge. “But it was
so high from the ground that we couldn’t get in again that way. And I
think it’s breakfast-time; we’ve been up ’bout two hours.”
“Now’s the time for orthodox teaching, my dear,” suggested Mr. Burton.
“Physiologists say that the mind is more active when the stomach’s
empty.”
[Illustration: “CATS,” UTTERED MR. BURTON]
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Burton, starting for the kitchen, “but the minds
of those boys are too active, even on full stomachs.”
Breakfast was on the table in due time, and the boys showed
appreciation of it. After they were partly satisfied, however, Budge
asked:
“Aunt Alice, how much longer do you suppose we can live without seeing
that dear little sister?”
“Dear little girl sister,” said Toddie, by way of correction.
“Oh, quite a while,” Mrs. Burton replied. “I know you love it and your
mamma too much to make either of them any trouble, and both of them are
quite feeble yet. You love them better than you love yourself, don’t
you?”
“Certainly,” said Budge. “That’s why I want to see ’em so awful much.”
“I fink it’s awful mean for little sishterzh not to have deir budders
to play wif,” said Toddie.
“Well, I will think about it, and if you will both be very good, we
will go there to-day.”
“Oh!” said Budge. “We’ll be our very goodest. I’ll tell you what, Tod;
we’ll have a Sunday-school right after breakbux; that’ll be good.”
“I know something gooder dan that,” said Toddie. “We’ll play Daniel in
de lions’s den, and you be de king an’ take me out. Dat’ a good deal
gooder dan dzust playin’ Sunday-school; ’caush takin’ folks away from
awful bitey lions is a gooder fing dan dzust singin’ an’ prayin’, like
they do in Sunday-school.”
“Another frightful fit of heterodoxy to be overcome, my dear,” observed
Mr. Burton. “That dreadful child is committed to the doctrine of the
superior efficacy of works over faith.”
“I shall tell him the story of Daniel correctly,” said Mrs. Burton,
“and error will be sure to fly from the appearance of truth.”
Mr. Burton took his departure for the day, and while his wife busied
herself in household management, the children discussed the etiquette
of the promised visit.
“Tell you what, Tod,” said Budge, “we ought to take her presents,
anyhow. That was one of the lovaly things about Jesus being a little
baby once. You know those shepherds came an’ brought him lots of
presents.”
“What letsh take her?” asked Toddie.
“Well,” said Budge, “the shepherds carried money and things that
smelled sweet, so I guess that’s what we ought to do.”
“Aw wight,” said Toddie. “’Cept, houzh we goin’ to get ’em?”
“We can go into the house very softly when we get home, you know,” said
Budge, “an’ shake some pennies out of our savings-bank; them’ll do for
the money. Then for things that smell sweet we can get flowers out of
the garden.”
“Dat’ll be dzust a-givin’ her fings that’s at home already. I fink
’twould be nicer to carry her somefin’ from here, just as if we was
comin’ from where we took care of de sheep.”
“Tell you what,” said Budge. “Let’ tease Aunt Alice for pennies. We
ought to have thought about it before Uncle Harry went away.”
“Oh, yes!” said Toddie. “An’ dere’s a bottle of smelly stuff in Aunt
Alice’s room; we’ll get some of dat. Shall we ask her for it, or dzust
make b’lieve it’s ours?”
“Let’s be honest ’bout it,” said Budge. “It’s wicked to hook things.”
“’Twouldn’t be hookin’ if we took it for dat lovaly little sister
baby, would it?” asked Toddie. “’Sides, I want to s’prise Aunt Alice
an’ everybody wif de lots of presentsh I makesh to de dear little
fing.”
“Oh! I’ll tell you what,” said Budge, forgetting the presents entirely
in his rapture over a new idea. “You know how bright the point of the
new lightning-rod on our house is? Well, we’ll make b’lieve that’s
the star in the East, an’ it’s showin’ us where to come to find the
baby.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Toddie. “An’ maybe Aunt Alice’ll carry us on
her back, and then we’ll make b’lieve we’re ridin’ camels, like
the shepherds in the picture we had Christmas, an’ tore up to make
menageries of.”
The appearance of a large grasshopper directly in front of the boys
ended the conversation temporarily, for both started in chase of it.
[Illustration: BOTH STARTED IN CHASE OF IT]
Half an hour later both boys straggled into the house, panting and
dusty, and flung themselves upon the floor, when their aunt, with that
weakness peculiar to the woman who is not also a mother, asked them
where they had been, why they were out of breath, how they came by so
much dust on their clothes, and why they were so cross. Budge replied,
with a heavy sigh:
“Big folks don’t know much about little folks’s troubles.”
“Bad old hoppergrass, just kept a-goin’ wherever he wanted to, an’
never comed under my hat,” complained Toddie.
“Perhaps he knew it would not be best for you to have him, Toddie,”
said Mrs. Burton. “What would you have done with him if you had
succeeded in catching him?”
“Tookted his hind hoppers off,” said Toddie, promptly.
“How dreadful!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “What would you have done that
for?”
“So’s he’d fly,” said Toddie. “The idea of anybody wif wings goin’
awound on their hoppersh! How’d you like it if I had wings, an’ only
trotted and jumped instead of flied?”
“My dear little boy,” said Mrs. Burton, taking her nephew on her lap,
“you must know that it’s very wrong to hurt animals in that way. They
are just as the Lord made them, and just as he wants them to be.”
“All animals?” asked Toddie.
“Certainly,” answered Mrs. Burton.
“Then what for doesh you catch pitty little mices in traps an’ kill
’em?”
Mrs. Burton hastened to give the conversation a new direction.
“Because they’re very troublesome,” she said. “And even troublesome
people have to be punished when they meddle with other people’s things.”
“We know that, I guess,” interposed Budge, with a sigh.
“But,” said Mrs. Burton, hurrying forward to her point, “the animals
have nerves and flesh and blood and bones, just like little boys do,
and are just the way the Lord made them.”
“I’ll look for the hoppergrass’s blood next time I pull one’s legsh
off,” said Toddie.
“Don’t,” said Mrs. Burton. “You must believe what aunty tells you, and
you mustn’t trouble the poor things at all. Why, Toddie, there are real
smart men, real good men that everybody respects, that have spent their
whole lives in study of insects, like grasshoppers, and flies, and
bees----”
“An’ never got stung?” asked Toddie. “How did dey do it?”
“They don’t care if they are stung,” said Mrs. Burton. “They are deeply
interested in learning how animals are made. They study all kinds
of animals, and try to find out why they are different from people;
and they find out that some wee things, like grasshoppers, are more
wonderful than any person that ever lived!”
“I should think so,” said Budge. “If I could hop like a grasshopper,
I could jump faster than any boy in the kindergarten, an’ if I could
sting like a hornet, I could wallop any boy in town.”
“Does they adzamine big animals, too?” asked Toddie.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton. “One of them has been away out West among the
dreadful Indians, just to find out what horses were like a good many
years ago.”
“If I find out all ’bout horsesh,” said Toddie, “will everybody like
me?”
“Very likely,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Then I’m goin’ to,” said Toddie, sliding out of his aunt’s lap.
“Never mind about it now, dear,” said Mrs. Burton. “We are going to see
mamma and baby now. Go and dress yourselves neatly, boys.”
Both children started, and Mrs. Burton, who was already prepared for
her trip, opened a novel, first giving herself credit for having turned
at least one perverted faculty of Toddie’s into its heaven-ordained
channel.
“Another triumph to report to my husband,” said she, with a fine air
of exultation, as she opened her novel. “And yet,” she continued,
absent-mindedly, laying the book down again, “I believe I have found no
occasion on which to report yesterday’s victories!”
The boys were slow to appear; but when they came down-stairs they
presented so creditable an appearance as to call for a special
compliment from their aunt. On their way to their mamma’s house they
seemed preoccupied, and they sought frequent occasions to whisper to
each other.
Arrived at home, their impatience knew no restraint; and when the nurse
appeared with a wee bundle, topped with a little face, and lying on a
big pillow, both boys pounced upon it at once, Budge trying to crowd
several pennies into the baby’s rose-leaves of hands, while Toddie held
to its nose a bottle labeled “Liquid Bluing.” At the same time the
baby sneezed alarmingly and a strong odor of camphor pervaded the room.
“Where can that camphor be?” asked the nurse. “There is nothing that
Mrs. Lawrence hates so intensely!”
The baby stopped sneezing and began a pitiful wail, while Toddie
hastened to pick up the bluing-bottle; then the nurse saw that upon
the baby’s hitherto immaculate wraps there was a large stain of a
light-blue tint and emitting a strong odor of camphor. Meanwhile,
Toddie had dragged upon his aunt’s sack, held his precious bottle up to
his aunt’s nose, and exclaimed:
“Izhn’t dat too baddy! Baby gropped it, and spilled mosht every bit of
it on her c’ozhes an’ on de floor!”
“Where did you get that camphor, Toddie?” asked Mrs. Burton, “and why
did you bring it here?”
“Tizhn’t campiffer,” said Toddie. “It’ pyfume; I got it out of a big
bottle on your bureau, where you makes your hankafusses smell sweet
at. Budgie an’ me done dzust what dem sheepmen did when dey came to
Beflehem to see de dear little Jesus-baby: we brought our baby money
an’ fings dat smelled sweet.”
Mrs. Burton kissed Toddie; then the nurse fell on the floor and
displayed the baby’s face, and then the face was shadowed from the
light, and baby opened two little eyes and regarded her brothers with
a stare of queenly gravity and gentleness, and the adoration expressed
by the faces of the two boys was such as no old master ever put into
the faces in an “Adoration of the Magi,” and above them bent a face
more mature but none the less suffused with tender awe. The silence
seemed too holy and delightful to be broken, but Toddie soon looked up
inquiringly into his aunt’s face and asked:
“Aunt Alice, why don’t dere be a lovely sun around her head like dere
is in pictures of dear little Jesus-babies?”
The quartet became human again, and the nurse offered each of the party
a five-minute interview with the mother. Mrs. Burton emerged from the
sick-chamber with a face which her nephews could not help scrutinizing
curiously; Budge came out with the remark that he would never worry his
sweet mamma again while he lived, but Toddie exclaimed:
“If I had a little new baby I wouldn’t stay in bed in dark roomsh all
day long. I dzust get up an’ dansh awound.”
“Aunt Alice,” asked Budge, on the way back to his uncle’s residence,
“now there’ somebody else at our house to have a birthday, isn’t there?
When will baby sister’ birthday come--how many days?”
“About three hundred and sixty,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Goodness!” exclaimed Budge. “And how long ’fore Christmas’ll come
again?”
“Nearly two hundred days.”
“Well, I think I will die if somebody don’t have a birthday pretty
soon, so I can give ’em presents.”
“Why, you dear, generous little fellow,” said Mrs. Burton, stooping to
kiss him, “my own birthday will come to-morrow.”
“Oh--h--h--h!” exclaimed Budge. “Say Toddie----” The remainder of
the conversation was conducted in whispers and with countenances of
extreme importance. The boys even took a different road for home, Budge
explaining to his aunt that they had a big secret to talk about.
Mrs. Burton stopped _en route_ to ask a neighborly question or two,
and arrived at home somewhat later than her nephews. She saw a horse
and wagon at the door, and rightly imagined that they belonged to the
grocer. But what a certain white mass on the ground under the horse
could consist of Mrs. Burton was at a loss to conjecture, and she
quickened her pace only to find the white substance aforesaid resolve
itself into the neatly clothed body of her nephew, Toddie, who was
lying on his back in the dirt, and contemplating the noble animal’s
chest with serene curiosity.
There are moments in life when dignity unbends in spite of itself, and
grace of deportment becomes a thing to be loathed. Such a moment Mrs.
Burton endured, as, dropping her parasol, she cautiously but firmly
seized Toddie and snatched him from his dangerous position.
“Go into the house, this instant, you dirty boy!” said she, with an
imperious stamp of her foot.
The fear in Toddie’s countenance gave place to expostulation, as he
exclaimed:
“I was only dzust----”
“Go into the house this instant!” repeated Mrs. Burton.
“Ah--h--h--h!” said Toddie, beginning to cry, and rolling out his under
lip as freely as if there were yards of it yet to come. “I was only
studyin’ how the horsie was made togevver, so’s everybody’d espec’s
an’ love me. Can’t go to where dem Injuns is, so I fought a gushaway’s
[grocery] man’ horsie would be dzust as good. Ah--h--h!”
“There was no necessity for your lying on the ground, in your clean
piqué dress, to do it,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Ah--h--h!” said Toddie again. “I studied all de west of him fyst, an’
I couldn’t hold him up so as to look under him. I tried to, an’ he
looked at me dweadful cwosh, an’ so I didn’t.”
“Go into the house and have another dress put on,” said Mrs. Burton.
“You know very well that nothing excuses little boys for dirtying their
clothes when they can help it. When your Uncle Harry comes home we
shall have to devise some way of punishing you so that you may remember
to take better care of your clothing in the future.”
“Ah--h--h--h--! I hope de Lord won’t make any more horsesh, den, nor
any little boys to be told to find out about ’em, an’ be punnissed
dzust for gettin’ deir c’oshes a little dyty!” screamed Toddie,
disappearing through the doorway and filling the house with angry
screams.