endured a spasm of sense. There forced itself upon her mind the idea
that it might be possible that the soiling of garments was not the
sin of all sins, and that Toddie had really been affected by her
information about the noble origin and nature of the animal physique.
Certainly nothing but a sincere passion for investigation could have
led Toddie between the feet of a horse, and a person so absorbed in
scientific pursuits might possibly be excused for being regardless of
personal appearance. But clean clothing ranked next to clean hearts in
the Mayton family, and such acquirements as Mrs. Burton possessed she
determined to lovingly transmit to her nephews, so far as was in her
power. Toddie seemed in earnest in his indignation, and she respected
mistaken impressions which were honestly made, so she determined to try
to console the weeping child. Going into his room, she found her nephew
lying on his back, kicking, screaming, and otherwise giving vent to his
rage.
“Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton, “it is too bad that you should have so much
trouble just after you have been to see your mamma and little sister.”
“I know it!” screamed Toddie, “an’ you can dzust go down-stairs again
if dat’s all you came to tell me.”
“But, Toddie, dear,” said Mrs. Burton, kneeling and smoothing the hot
forehead of her nephew, “aunty wants to see you feeling comfortable
again.”
“Den put me back under the horsie again, so folksh’ll ’espec’s me,”
sobbed Toddie.
“You’ve learned enough about the horse for to-day,” said Mrs. Burton.
“I’ll ask your papa to teach you more when you go back home. Poor
little boy, how hot your cheeks are! Aunt Alice wishes she could see
you looking happy again.”
Toddie stopped crying for a moment, looked at his aunt intently, sat
up, put on an air of importance, and said:
“Did de Lord send you up-stairsh to tell me you was sorry for what you
done to me?” asked Toddie. “Den I forgives you, only don’t do dat baddy
way any more. If you want to put a clean dwess on me, you can.”
“Aunt Alice,” said Budge, who had sauntered into the room, “you told
Uncle Harry at the breakbux table that you was goin’ to tell us about
Daniel to-day. Don’t you think it’s about time to do it?”
“Oh, yes,” said Toddie, hurrying his head into his clean dress, “an’
how de lions et up de bad men dat made de king frow Daniel in de deep
dark hole. Gwon.”
“There was a very good young man whose name was Daniel,” said Mrs.
Burton, “and although the king made a law that nobody should pray
except to the gods that his people worshiped, Daniel prayed every day
to the same Lord that we love.”
“He was up in heaven then, like he is now, wasn’t he?” said Budge.
“Yes.”
“Then where was the other people’s god?”
“Oh, on shelves and in closets, and all sorts of places,” said Mrs.
Burton. “They were only bits of wood and stone; idols, in fact.”
“And wasn’t they good?”
“Not at all.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s very nice, for papa sometimes says that I
am mamma’ idol. Am I sticky or stony?”
“Certainly not, dear. He means that your mother cares a great deal for
you; that is all. And Daniel prayed just as he chose and when he chose,
and the people that didn’t like him hurried up the king and said, ‘Just
see, that young man for whom you care so much is praying to the Lord
that the Jews believe in.’s The king was sorry to hear this, but Daniel
wouldn’t tell a lie; he admitted that he prayed just as he wanted to,
so the king had to order some men to throw Daniel into the den of
lions. He felt very badly about it, for Daniel had been always very
good and honest, and very good people are hard to find anywhere.”
“Musht tell mamma dat, nexsht time she saysh I must be very good,” said
Toddie. “Gwon.”
“They threw poor Daniel in among the lions, and he must have felt
dreadful on the way to the den, for he knew that lions are very savage
and hungry. Why, one single lion will often eat up a whole man, yet
there were a great many lions in the den Daniel was taken to.”
“He wouldn’t make much of a supper for all of them, poor fellow, would
he?” Budge asked.
[Illustration: “TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT IT”]
“No,” said Mrs. Burton, “so he did what sensible people always do
when they find themselves in trouble. He prayed. As for the king, I
imagine he didn’t sleep much that night. People who take the advice of
others and against their own better judgment, generally have to feel
uncomfortable about it. At any rate, the king was awake very early next
morning, and hurried off to the den alone, and looked in, and shouted,
‘Daniel! the Lord that you believe in, was he strong enough to keep the
lions from eating you?’ And then Daniel answered the king--think of how
happy it must have made the king to hear his voice, and know he was
not dead! The unkindness of the king had not made Daniel forget to be
respectful, so he said, ‘Oh, king, I hope you may live for ever.’s Then
he told the king that he had not been hurt at all, and the king was
very glad, and he had Daniel taken out, and then the bad men who had
been the cause of Daniel being given to the lions were all thrown into
the den themselves, and the lions ate every one of them.”
“I know why they let Daniel alone an’ ate up all the other fellows,”
said Budge, with an air of comprehension.
“I felt sure you would, dear little boy,” said Mrs. Burton; “but you
may tell me what you think about it.”
“Why, you see,” said Budge, “Daniel was only one man, and he would be
only a speck apiece for all those lions--just like one single bite of
cake to a little boy. When there were plenty of men, so that each
lion could have one for himself, they made up their minds it was
dinner-time, an’ so they went to work.”
Somehow this reply caused Mrs. Burton to forget to enforce the great
moral application of the story of Daniel, and she found it convenient
to make a sudden tour of inspection in the kitchen. She was growing
desperately conscious that, instead of instructing and controlling the
children, she had thus far done little but supply material for their
active minds and bodies to employ in manners extremely distasteful to
her. More than once she found her mind wavering between two extremes of
the theories of government--it seemed to her that she must either be
very severe, or must allow the children to naturally develop their own
faculties, within reasonable bounds. At the first she rebelled, partly
because she was not cruel by nature, as severe rulers of children
often are, and partly because the children were not her own. The other
extreme was equally distasteful, however. Were not children always made
to mind in well-regulated families? To be sure, they seldom in such
cases fulfilled, in adult years, the promise of their youth, but that,
of course, was their own fault--whose else could it be? Should adults,
should she, whose will had never been brooked by parent or husband,
set aside her own inclinations for the sake of a couple of unformed,
unreasoning minds?
Like most other people in doubt, Mrs. Burton did nothing for a few
hours and succeeded thereby in entirely losing sight of her nephews
until nearly sunset, when, drawn by that instinct which is strongest
in the most immature natures, the boys returned for something to eat.
Though quiet, there could be no doubt about their contentment; their
clothes were very dirty, and so were their faces, but out of the latter
shone that indefinable something that is the easily read indication of
the consciousness of rectitude and satisfaction with the results of
right-doing. They were not communicative, even under much questioning,
and Mr. Burton finally said, as one in a soliloquy:
“I wonder what it was?”
“What are you talking about, Harry?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“I am merely wondering what original and expensive experiment they’ve
been up to now,” replied the head of the household.
“None whatever,” said Mrs. Burton, with an energy almost startling. “I
often wonder how men can be so blind. Look at their dear, pure little
faces, dirty though they are; there’s no more consciousness of wrong
there than there could be in an angel’s face.”
“Just so, my dear,” said Mr. Burton. “If they were oftener conscious of
misdeeds they would be worse boys, but a great deal less troublesome.
Come see uncle, boys--don’t you want a trot on my knees?”
Both children scrambled into their uncle’ arms, and Budge began to
whisper very earnestly.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Mr. Burton answered.
“Goody, goody, goody!” exclaimed Budge, clapping his hands. “I’m going
to give you a birthday present to-morrow, Aunt Alice.”
“So am I,” said Toddie.
“It’s something to eat,” said Budge.
“Mine, too,” said Toddie.
“Be careful, Budge,” said Mr. Burton. “You’ll let the secret out if
you’re not careful.”
“Oh, no, I won’t. I only said ’twas something to eat. But say, Aunt
Alice, how do bananas grow?” [said] Toddie, with brightening eyes and a
confident shake of his curly head.
“And I know,” said Mr. Burton, lifting Toddie suddenly from his knee,
“that either a certain little boy is breaking to pieces and spilling
badly, or something else is. What’ this?” he continued, noticing a very
wet spot on Toddie’s apron, just under which his pocket was. “And”
(here he opened Toddie’ pocket and looked into it) “what is that vile
muss in your pocket?”
Toddie’s eyes opened in wonder, and then his countenance fell.
“’Twash only a little bunch,” said he, “an’ I was goin’ to eat it on
de way home, but I forgotted it!”
“They’re white grapes, my dear,” said Mr. Burton. “The boys have been
robbing somebody’s hothouse; Tom has no grapes in his. Where did you
get these, boys?”
“Sh--h--h!” whispered Toddie, impressively. “Nobody musht never tell
secretsh.”
“Where did you get those grapes?” demanded Mrs. Burton, hastening to
the examination of the dripping dress.
Toddie burst into tears.
“I should think you would cry!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton; “after stealing
people’ fruit.”
“Isn’t cryin’ ’bout dat,” sobbed Toddie. “I’ze cryin’ ’caush youze
a-spoilin’ my s’prise for your bifeday ev’ry minute you’ a-talkin’!”
“Alice, Alice!” said Mr. Burton, softly. “Remember that the poor child
is not old enough to have learned what stealing means.”
“Then he shall learn now!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, all of her righteous
sense upon the alert. “What do you suppose would become of you if you
were to die to-night?”
“Won’t die!” sobbed Toddie. “If angel comes to kill me like he did the
’Gyptians, I’ll hide.”
“No one could hide from the angel of the Lord,” said Mrs. Burton,
determined that fear should do what reason could not.
“Why, he doesn’t carry no lanternzh wif him in de night-time, does he?”
said Toddie.
Mr. Burton laughed but his wife silenced him with a glance and answered:
“He can see well enough to find bad little boys when he wants them.”
“Ain’t bad,” screamed Toddie, “an’ I won’t give you de uvver grapes
now, dat we brought home in a flower-pot.”
“Come to uncle, old boy,” said Mr. Burton, taking the doleful child
upon his knee again, and caressing him tenderly. “Tell uncle all about
it, and he’ll see if you can’t be set all right.”
“An’ not let de killey angel come catch me?” asked Toddie.
[Illustration: “WE GOT THREE OR FOUR NICE BUNCHES”]
“I’ll tell you, Uncle Harry,” said Budge. “We was goin’ to give Aunt
Alice fruit for her birthday--me bananas an’ Tod white grapes. We
didn’t know where any bananas growed, but Mr. Bushman, way off along
the mountain, has got lots of lovely grapes in his greenhouse, ’cause
we went there once with papa, and they talked ’bout grapes an’ things
’most all afternoon, an’ he told him to come help himself whenever
he wanted any. So we made up a great secret, an’ we went up there
this afternoon to ask him to give us some for our aunt, ’cause ’twas
goin’ to be her birthday. But he wasn’t home, and the greenhouse man
wasn’t there either; but the door was open, an’ we went in an’ saw
the grapes, an’ we made up our minds that he wouldn’t care if we took
some, ’cause he told papa to. So we got three or four nice bunches, and
put ’em in a flower-pot with leaves in it, and each of us got a little
bunch to eat ourselves; but we found lots of wild strawberries on the
way back, so Tod forgot his grapes, I guess, but mine’s safe in my
stomach. An’ ’twas awful hot an’ dusty, an’ I never got so tired in
my life. But we wanted to make Aunt Alice happy, so we didn’t care.”
“An’ then she said we was fiefs!” sobbed Toddie. “Bad old fing!”
“Never mind, Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton, all her moral purpose taking
flight as she kissed the tear-stained, dirty little cheeks, and carried
her nephew to the dinner-table.
[Illustration: “SO I PUTTED CROSSES ON THE DOOR”]
Toddie’s meal was quickly dispatched. He seemed preoccupied, and
hurried away from the table, though he was quite ready to go to bed
when summoned by his aunt. Half an hour later Mr. Burton, sauntering
out to the piazza to smoke, saw a large, rude cross, in red ink,
on either side of the door-frame. Even men have weaknesses, and a
fastidiousness about the appearance of his house was one of Mr.
Burton’. He dashed up the stairs, three steps at a time, and burst into
his nephew’s room, exclaiming:
“Who daubed the door with ink?”
“Me,” said Toddie, boldly. “I was afraid you’d forget to tell dat
killey angel I wasn’t any fief, so I putted crosses on de door, like de
Izzyrelites did, so he would go a-past. He wouldn’t know de ink wasn’t
blood, I guess, in de night-time.”
Toddie suddenly found himself alone again.
CHAPTER IV
Mrs. Burton’s birthday dawned brightly, and it is not surprising that
as it was her first natal anniversary since her marriage to a man who
had no intention or ability to cease being a lover, her ante-breakfast
moments were too fully and happily occupied to allow her to even
think of two little boys who had already impressed upon her their
willingness and general ability to think for themselves. As for the
boys themselves, they woke with the lark, and with a heavy sense of
responsibility also. The room of Mrs. Burton’s chambermaid joined their
own, and the occupant of that room having been charged by her mistress
with the general care of the boys between dark and daylight, she had
grown accustomed to wake at the first sound in the boys’s room. On the
morning of her mistress’s birthday the first sound she heard was:
“Tod?”
No response could be heard; but a moment later the chambermaid heard:
“T--o--o--od!”
“Ah--h--h--ow!” drawled a voice, not so sleepily but it could sound
aggrieved.
“Wake up, dear old Toddie budder. It’ Aunt Alice’s birthday now.”
“Needn’t bweak my earzh open, if ’tis,” whined Toddie.
“I only holloed in one ear, Tod,” remonstrated Budge, “an’ you ought
to love dear Aunt Alice enough to have that hurt a little rather than
not wake up.”
A series of groans, snarls, whines, grunts, snorts, and remonstrances
semi-articulate were heard, and at length some complicated wriggles and
convulsive kicks were made manifest to the listening ear, and Budge
said:
“That’s right! Now let’s get up an’ get ready. Say; do you know
that we didn’t think anything about having some music? Don’t you
remember how papa played the piano last mamma’s birthday when she came
down-stairs, an’ how happy it made her, an’ we danced around?”
“Aw wight,” said Toddie. “Let’.”
“Tell you what,” said Budge. “Let’ both bang the piano, like mamma an’
Aunt Alice does together sometimes.”
“Oh, yesh!” Toddie exclaimed. “We can make some awful big bangsh
before she can get down to tell us to don’t.”
Then there was heard a scurrying of light feet as the boys picked
up their various articles of clothing from the corners, chairs,
bureau, table, etc., where they had been tossed the night before.
The chambermaid hurried to their assistance, and both boys were soon
dressed. A plate containing bananas, and another with the hard-earned
grapes, were on the bureau, and the boys took them and tiptoed down the
stair and into the dining-room.
“Gwacious!” said Toddie, as he placed his plate on the sideboard;
“maybe the gwapes an’ buttonanoes has got sour. I guesh we’d better
try ’em, like mamma does de milk on hot morningsh when the baddy
milkman don’t come time enough.” Toddie suited the action to the word
by plucking from a cluster the handsomest grape in sight. “I fink,”
said he, smacking his lips with the suspicious air of a professional
taster; “I fink dey is gettin’ sour.”
“Let’s see,” said Budge.
“No,” said Toddie, plucking another grape with one hand while with the
other he endeavored to cover his gift. “Ize bid enough to do it all
myself. Unless,” he added, as a happy inspiration struck him, “you’ll
let me help see if your buttonanoes is sour.”
“Then you can only have one bite,” said Budge. “You must let me taste
about six grapes, ’cause ’twould take that many to make one of your
bites on a banana.”
“Aw wight,” said Toddie; and the boys proceeded to exchange duties,
Budge taking the precaution to hold the banana himself, so that his
brother should not abstractedly sample a second time, and Toddie doling
out the grapes with careful count.
“They are a little sour,” said Budge, with a wry face. “Perhaps some
other bunch is better. I think we’d better try each one, don’t you?”
“An’ each one of the buttonanoes, too,” suggested Toddie. “Dat one
wazh pretty good, but maybe some of the others isn’t.”
The proposition was accepted, and soon each banana had its length
reduced by a fourth, and the grape-clusters displayed a fine
development of wood. Then Budge seemed to realize that his present was
not as sightly as it might be, for he carefully closed the skins at the
ends, and turned the unbroken ends to the front as deftly as if he
were a born retailer of fruit.
[Illustration: “THEN YOU CAN ONLY HAVE ONE BITE,” SAID BUDGE]
This done, he exclaimed: “Oh! we want our cards on ’em, else how will
she know who they came from?”
“We’ll be here to tell her,” said Toddie.
“Huh!” said Budge; “that wouldn’t make her half so happy. Don’t you
know how when cousin Florence gets presents of flowers, she’s always
happiest when she’ lookin’ at the card that comes with ’em?”
“Aw wight,” said Toddie, hurrying into the parlor, and returning with
the cards of a lady and gentleman, taken haphazard from his aunt’s
card-receiver.
“Now, we must write ‘Happy Birthday’ on the backs of ’em,” said Budge,
exploring his pockets, and extracting a stump of a lead pencil. “Now,”
continued Budge, leaning over the card, and displaying all the facial
contortions of the unpractised writer, as he laboriously printed, in
large letters, speaking, as he worked, a letter at a time:
“H--A--P--P--E B--U--R--F--D--A--Happy Birthday. Now, you must hold the
pencil for yours, or else it won’t be so sweet; that’s what mamma says.”
Toddie took the pencil in his pudgy hand, Budge guided it, and two
juvenile heads touched each other and swayed and twisted and bobbed in
unison until the work was completed.
“Now, I think she ought to come,” said Budge. (Breakfast-time was still
more than an hour distant.) “Why, the rising-bell hasn’t rung yet!
Let’s ring it!”
The boys fought for possession of the bell, but superior might
conquered and Budge marched up and down the hall, ringing with the
enthusiasm and duration peculiar to the amateur.
“Bless me!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, hastening to complete her toilet.
“How time does fly--sometimes!”
Mr. Burton saw something in his wife’ face that called for lover-like
treatment, but it was not without a sense of injury that he exclaimed,
immediately after, as he drew forth his watch:
“I declare! I would make an affidavit that we hadn’t been awake half an
hour. Ah! I forgot to wind my watch last night.”
The boys hurried into the parlor.
“I hear ’em trampin’ around!” exclaimed Budge, in great excitement.
“There!--the piano’s shut! Isn’t that too mean? Oh, I’ll tell you;
here’s Uncle Harry’s violin.”
“But whatsh I goin’ to play on?” asked Toddie, dancing frantically
about.
“Wait a minute,” said Budge, dropping the violin, and hurrying to the
floor above, from which he speedily returned with a comb. A bound
volume of the _Portfolio_ lay upon the table, and opening this, Budge
tore the tissue paper from one of the etchings and wrapped the comb in
it.
“There!” said he, “you fiddle an’ I’ll blow the comb. Goodness! why
don’t they come down? Oh, we forgot to put pennies under the plate, and
we don’t know how many years old to put ’em for.”
“An’ we ain’t got no pennies,” said Toddie.
“I know,” said Budge, hurrying to a cabinet in a drawer of which his
uncle kept the nucleus of a collection of American coinage. “This kind
of pennies,” Budge continued, “isn’t as pretty as our kind, but they’re
bigger, an’ they’ll look better on a table-cloth. Now, how old do you
think she is?”
“I dunno,” said Toddie, going into a reverie of hopeless conjecture.
“She’s about as big as you an’ me put togevver.”
“Well,” said Budge, “you’re four an’ I’m six, an’ four an’ six is
ten--I guess ten’ll be about the thing.”
Mrs. Burton’s plate was removed, and the pennies were deposited in
a circle. There was some painful counting and recounting, and many
disagreements, additions and subtractions. Finally, the pennies were
arranged in four rows, two of three each and two of two each, and Budge
counted the threes and Toddie verified the twos, and Budge was adding
the four sums together, when footsteps were heard descending the stairs.
Budge hastily dropped the surplus coppers upon the four rows, replaced
the plate, and seized the comb as Toddie placed the violin against
his knee as he had seen small, itinerant Italians do. A second or two
later, as the host and hostess entered the dining-room, there arose a
sound which caused Mrs. Burton to clap her fingers to her ears, while
her husband exclaimed:
“’Scat!”
Then both boys dropped their instruments, Toddie finding the ways of
his own feet seriously compromised by the strings of the violin, while
both children turned happy faces toward their aunt, and shouted:
“Happy Burfday!”
Mr. Burton hurried to the rescue of his darling instrument, while his
wife gave each boy an appreciative kiss, and showed them a couple of
grateful tears. Her eye was caught by the fruit on the sideboard, and
she read the cards aloud:
“Mrs. Frank Rommery--this is just like her effusiveness. I’ve never met
her but once, but I suppose her bananas must atone for her lack of
manners. Why, Charley Crewne! Dear me! What memories some men have!”
A cloud came upon Mr. Burton’s brow. Charley Crewne had been one of his
rivals for Miss Mayton’s hand, and Mrs. Burton was looking a trifle
thoughtful, and her husband was as unreasonable as newly made husbands
often are, when Mrs. Burton exclaimed:
“Some one has been picking the grapes off in the most shameful manner.
Boys!”
“Ain’t from no Rommerys an’ Crewnes!” said Toddie. “Devsh from me an’
Budgie, an’ we dzust tasted ’em to see if dey’d got sour in the night.”
“Where did the cards come from?” asked Mrs Burton.
“Out of the basket in the parlor,” said Budge. “But the back is the
nice part of ’em.”
Mrs. Burton’s thoughtful expression and her husband’s frown disappeared
together as they seated themselves at the table. Both boys wriggled
vigorously until their aunt raised her plate, and then Budge exclaimed:
“A penny for each year, you know.”
“Thirty-one!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, after counting the heap. “How
complimentary!”
“What doesh you do for little boys on your bifeday?” asked Toddie,
after breakfast was served. “Mamma does lots of fings.”
[Illustration: “WHERE DID THE CARDS COME FROM?”]
“Yes,” said Budge, “she says she thinks people ought to get their own
happy by makin’ other people happy. An’ mamma knows better than you,
you know, ’cause she’s been married longest.”
Although Mrs. Burton admitted the facts, the inference seemed scarcely
natural, and she said so.
“Well--a--a--a--a--anyhow,” said Toddie, “mamma always has parties on
her bifeday, an’ we hazh all de cake we want.”
“You shall be happy to-day,” said Mrs. Burton; “for a few friends will
be in to see me this afternoon, and I am going to have a nice little
luncheon for them, and you shall lunch with us, if you will be very
good until then, and keep yourselves clean and neat.”
“Aw wight,” said Toddie. “Izhn’t it most time now?”
“Tod’s all stomach,” said Budge. “Say, Aunt Alice, I hope you won’t
forget to have some fruit-cake. That’s the kind we like best.”
“You’ll come home very early, Harry?” asked Mrs. Burton, ignoring her
nephew’ question.
“By noon, at furthest,” said the gentleman. “I only want to see my
morning letters, and fill any orders that may be in them.”
“What are you coming so early for, Uncle Harry?” asked Budge.
“To take Aunt Alice riding, old boy,” said Mr. Burton.
“Oh! just listen, Tod! Won’t that be jolly? Uncle Harry’s going to take
us riding!”
“I said I was going to take your Aunt Alice, Budge,” said Mr. Burton.
“I heard you,” said Budge, “but that won’t trouble us any. She always
likes to talk to you better than she does to us. Where are we going?”
Mr. Burton asked his wife, in German, whether the Lawrence-Burton
assurance was not charmingly natural, and Mrs. Burton answered in the
same tongue that it was, but was none the less deserving of rebuke,
and that she felt it her duty to tone it down in her nephews. Mr.
Burton wished her joy of the attempt, and asked a number of searching
questions about success already attained, until Mrs. Burton was glad to
see Toddie come out of a brown study and hear him say:
“I fink dat placesh where de river is bwoke off izh de nicest placesh.”
“What does the child mean?” asked his aunt.
“Don’t you know where we went last year, an’ you stopped us from
seein’ how far we could hang over, Uncle Harry?” said Budge.
“Oh! Passaic Falls!” exclaimed Mr. Burton.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Budge.
“Old riverzh bwoke wight in two dere,” said Toddie, “an’ a piece of
it’s way up in de air, an’ anuvver piece izh way down in big hole in
de stones. Datsh where I want to go widin’.”
“Listen, Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton. “We like to take you riding with
us at most times, but to-day we prefer to go alone. You and Budge will
stay at home. We sha’n’t be gone more than two hours.”
“Wantsh to go a-widin’,” exclaimed Toddie.
“I know you do, dear, but you must wait until some other day.”
“But I wantsh to go,” Toddie explained.
“And I don’t want you to, so you can’t,” said Mrs. Burton in a tone
which would reduce any reasonable person to hopelessness. But Toddie,
in spite of manifest astonishment, remarked:
“Wantsh to go a-widin’.”
“Now the fight is on,” murmured Mr. Burton to himself. Then he arose
hastily from the table and said:
“I think I’ll try to catch the earlier train, my dear, as I am coming
back so soon.”
Mrs. Burton arose to bid her husband good-by, and was kissed with
more than usual tenderness, and then held at arm’ length, while
manly eyes looked into her own with an expression which she found
untranslatable--for two hours, at least. Mrs. Burton saw her husband
fairly on his way, and then she returned to the dining-room, led Toddie
into the parlor, took him on her lap, wound her arms tenderly about
him, and said:
“Toddie, dear, listen carefully to what Aunt Alice tells you. There
are some reasons why you boys should not go with us to-day, and Aunt
Alice means what she says when she tells you you can’t go with us. If
you were to ask a hundred times it would not make the slightest bit of
difference. You cannot go, and you must stop thinking about it.”
Toddie listened intelligently from beginning to end, and replied:
“But I wantsh to go.”
“And you can’t. That ends the matter.”
“No, it don’t,” said Toddie; “not a single bittie. I wantsh to go
badder dan ever.”
“But you are not going.”
“I wantsh to go so baddy,” said Toddie, beginning to cry.
“I suppose you do, and auntie is very sorry for you, but that does not
alter the case. When grown people say ‘No!’ little boys must understand
that they mean it.”
“But what I wantsh izh to go a-widin’ wif you.”
“And what I want is, that you shall stay at home; so you must. Let
us have no more talk about it now. Shouldn’t you like to go into the
garden and pick some strawberries all for yourself?”
“No, I’d like to go widin’.”
“Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton, “don’t let me hear one more word about
riding.”
“Well, I want to go.”
“Toddie, I will have to punish you if you say any more on this subject,
and that will make me very unhappy. You don’t want to make auntie
unhappy on her birthday, do you?”
“No; but I do want to go a-widin’.”
“Listen, Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton, with an imperious stamp of her
foot, and a sudden loss of her entire stock of patience. “If you say
one more word about that trip, I shall lock you in the attic chamber,
where you were the day before yesterday, and Budge shall not be with
you.”
Toddie gave vent to a torrent of tears, and screamed:
“A--h--h--h! I don’t want to be locked up, an’ I do want to go
a-widin’!”
[Illustration: HE KICKED, PUSHED, SCREAMED AND ROARED]
Toddie suddenly found himself clasped tightly in his aunt’ arms, in
which position he kicked, pushed, screamed and roared during the
passage of two flights of stairs. The moment of his final incarceration
was marked by a piercing shriek which escaped from the attic-window,
causing the dog Terry to retire precipitately from a pleasing lounging
place on the well-curb, and making a passing farmer to rein up his
horses and maintain a listening position for the space of five minutes.
Meanwhile Mrs. Burton descended to the parlor, more flushed, untidy and
angry than any one had ever seen her. She soon encountered the gaze of
her nephew Budge, and it was full of solemnity, inquiry and reproach.
“How would you like to be carried up-stairs screamin’ an’ put in a
lonely room, just ’cause you wanted to go ridin’?” Budge asked.
Mrs. Burton was unable to imagine herself in any such position, but
replied:
“I should never be so foolish as to keep on wanting what I knew I could
not have.”
“Why!” exclaimed Budge. “Are grown folks as smart as all that?”
Mrs. Burton’s conscience smote her not overlightly, and she hastened
to change the subject, and to devote herself assiduously to Budge, as
if to atone for some injury which she might have done his brother. An
occasional howl which fell from the attic-window increased her zeal for
Budge’s comfort; under each one, however, her resolution grew weaker,
and, finally, with a hypocritical excuse to Budge, she hurried up to
the door of Toddie’s prison and said through the keyhole:
“Toddie?”
“What?”
“Will you be a good boy, now?”
“Yesh, if you’ll take me a-widin’.”
Mrs. Burton turned abruptly away, and simply flew down the stairs.
Budge, who awaited her at the foot, instinctively stood aside, and
exclaimed:
“I thought you was goin’ to tumble! Why didn’t you bring him down?”
“Bring who?”
“Oh, I know what you went up-stairs for,” said Budge. “Your eyes told
me all about it.”
“You’re certainly a rather inconvenient companion,” said Mrs. Burton,
averting her face, “and I want you to run home and ask how your mamma
and baby-sister are. Don’t stay long: remember that luncheon will be
earlier than usual to-day.”
Away went Budge, and Mrs. Burton devoted herself to thought.
Unquestioning obedience had been her own duty since she could
remember, yet she was certain that her will was as strong as Toddie’.
If she had been always able to obey, certainly the unhappy little boy
in the attic was equally capable; why should he not do it? Perhaps, she
admitted to herself, she had inherited a faculty in this direction, and
perhaps--yes, certainly, Toddie had done nothing of the sort. How was
she to overcome the defect in his disposition; or was she to do it at
all? Was it not something with which no one temporarily having a child
in charge should interfere?
An occasional scream from Toddie helped to unbend the severity of her
principles, but suddenly her eye rested upon a picture of her husband,
and she seemed to see in one of the eyes a quizzical expression. All
her determination came back in an instant with heavy re-enforcements,
and Budge came back a few moments later. His bulletins from home, and
his stores of experiences _en route_ consumed but a few moments, and
then Mrs. Burton proceeded to dress for her ride. To exclude Toddie’s
screams she closed her door tightly, but Toddie’s voice was one with
which all timber seemed in sympathy, and it pierced door and window
apparently without effort. Gradually, however, it seemed to cease, and
with the growing infrequency of his howls and the increasing feebleness
of their utterance, Mrs. Burton’s spirits revived. Dressing leisurely,
she ascended to Toddie’s prison to receive his declaration of penitence
and to accord a gracious pardon. She knocked softly at the door and
said:
“Toddie?”
There was no response, so Mrs. Burton knocked and called with more
energy than before, but without reply. A terrible fear occurred to
her; she had heard of children who screamed themselves to death when
angry. Hastily she opened the door, and saw Toddie, tear-stained and
dirty, lying on the floor, fast asleep. She stooped over him to be sure
that he still breathed, and then the expression on his sweetly parted
lips was such that she could not help kissing it. Then she raised the
pathetic, desolate little figure softly in her arms, and the little
head dropped upon her shoulder and nestled close to her, and one little
arm was clasped tightly around her neck, and a soft voice murmured:
“I wantsh to go a-widin’.”
Just then Mr. Burton entered, and, with an exasperating affectation of
ingenuousness and uncertainty asked:
“Did you conquer his will, my dear?”
His wife annihilated him with a look, and led the way to the
dining-room; meanwhile, Toddie awoke, straightened himself, rubbed his
eyes, recognized his uncle, and exclaimed:
“Uncle Harry, does you know where we’ goin’ dis afternoon? We’s goin’
a-widin’.”
Mr. Burton hid in his napkin the half of his face that was below his
eyes, and his wife wished that his eyes might have been hidden too, for
never in her life had she been so averse to having her own eyes looked
into.
The saintliness of both boys during the afternoon’s ride took the
sting out of Mrs. Burton’s defeat. They gabbled to each other about
flowers and leaves and birds, and they assumed ownership of the few
summer clouds that were visible, and made sundry exchanges of them with
each other. When the dog Terry, who had surreptitiously followed the
carriage and grown weary, was taken in by his master they even allowed
him to lie at their feet without kicking, pinching his ears or pulling
his tail.
[Illustration: THE JARDINIÈRE CAME DOWN WITH A CRASH]
As for Mrs. Burton, no right-minded husband could wilfully torment his
wife upon her birthday, so she soon forgot the humiliation of the
morning, and came home with superb spirits and matchless complexion
for the little party. Her guests soon began to arrive, and after the
company had assembled Mrs. Burton’s chambermaid ushered in Budge and
Toddie, each in spotless attire, and the dog Terry ushered himself in,
and Toddie saw him and made haste to interview him, and the two got
inextricably mixed about the legs of a light jardinière, and it came
down with a crash, and then the two were sent into disgrace, which
suited them exactly, although there was a difference between them as to
whether the dog Terry should seek and enjoy the seclusion upon which
his heart was evidently intent.
Then Budge retired with a face full of brotherly solicitude, and Mrs.
Burton was enabled to devote herself to the friends to whom she had not
previously been able to address two consecutive sentences.
Mrs. Burton occasionally suggested to her husband that it might be
well to see where the boys were and what they were doing, but that
gentleman had seldom before found himself the only man among a dozen
comely and intelligent ladies, and he was too conscious of the rarity
of such experiences to trouble himself about a couple of people who had
unlimited ability to keep themselves out of sight, so the boys were
undisturbed for the space of two hours. A sudden summer shower came up
in the meantime, and a sentimental young lady requested the song “The
Rain upon the Roof,” and Mrs. Burton and her husband began to render it
as a duet; but in the middle of the second stanza Mrs. Burton began to
cough, and Mr. Burton sniffed the air apprehensively, while several of
the ladies started to their feet, while others turned pale. The air of
the room was evidently filling with smoke.
“There can’t be any danger, ladies,” said Mrs. Burton. “You all know
what the American domestic servant is. I suppose our cook, with her
delicate sense of the appropriate, is relighting her fire, and has the
kitchen door wide open, so that all the smoke may escape through the
house instead of the chimney. I’ll go and stop it.”
The mere mention of servants had its usual effect; the ladies began at
once that animated conversation which this subject has always inspired,
and which it will probably continue to inspire until all housekeepers
gather in that happy land, one of whose charms it is that the American
kitchen is undiscernible within its borders, and the purified domestic
may stand before her mistress without needing a scolding. But one
nervous young lady, whose agitation was being manifested by her feet
alone, happened to touch with the toe of her boot the turn-screw of
a hot-air register. Instantly she sprang back and uttered a piercing
scream, while from the register there arose a thick column of smoke.
“Fire!” screamed one lady.
“Water!” shrieked another.
“Oh!” shouted several in chorus.
Some ran up-stairs, others into the rainy street, the nervous young
lady fainted, a business-like young matron, who had for years been
maturing plans of operation in case of fire, hastily swept into a
table-cover a dozen books in special morocco bindings, and hurried
through the rain with them to a house several hundred feet away, while
the faithful dog Terry, scenting the trouble afar off, hurried home
and did his duty to the best of his ability by barking and snapping
furiously at every one, and galloping frantically through the house,
leaving his mark upon almost every square yard of carpet. Meanwhile
Mr. Burton hurried up-stairs coatless, with disarranged hair, dirty
hands, smirched face, and assured the ladies that there was no danger,
while Budge and Toddie, the former deadly pale, and the latter almost
apoplectic in color, sneaked up to their own chamber.
The company dispersed; ladies who had expected carriages did not wait
for them, but struggled to the extreme verge of politeness for the
use of such umbrellas and waterproof cloaks as Mrs. Burton could
supply. Fifteen minutes later the only occupant of the parlor was the
dog Terry, who lay, with alert head, in the centre of a large Turkish
chair. Mrs. Burton, tenderly supported by her husband, descended the
stair, and contemplated with tightly compressed lips and blazing eyes
the disorder of her desolated parlor. When, however, she reached the
dining-room and beheld the exquisitely set table, to the arrangement of
which she had devoted hours of thought in preceding days and weeks, she
burst into a flood of tears.
“I’ll tell you how it was,” said Budge, who appeared suddenly and
without invitation, and whose consciousness of good intention made him
as adamant before the indignant frowns of his uncle and aunt, “I always
think bonfires is the nicest things about celebrations, an’ Tod an’
me have been carryin’ sticks for two days to make a big bonfire in the
back yard to-day. But it rained, an’ rainy sticks won’t burn. So we
thought we’d make one in the cellar, ’cause the top is all tin, an’
the bottom’s all dirt, an’ it can’t rain in there at all. An’ we got
lots of newspapers and kindlin’-wood, an’ put some kerosene on it,
an’ it blazed up beautiful, an’ we was just comin’ up to ask you
all down to look at it, when in came Uncle Harry, an’ banged me against
the wall an’ Tod into the coal heap, an’ threw a mean old dirty
carpet on top of it, an’ wetted it all over.”
“Little boysh never can do anyfing nysh wivout bein’ made to don’t,”
said Toddie. “Dzust see what an awful big splinter I got in my hand
when I was froin’ wood on de fire! I didn’t cry a bit about it den,
’cause I fought I was makin’ uvver folks happy, like de Lord wants
little boysh to. But dey didn’t get happy, so now I’m goin’ to cry
’bout de splinter!”
And Toddie raised a howl which was as much superior to his usual cry as
things made to order generally are to the ordinary supply.
“We had a torchlight procession too,” said Budge. “We had to have it in
the attic, but it wasn’t very nice. There wasn’t any trees up there for
the light to dance around on, like it does on ’lection-day nights. So
we just stopped, an’ would have felt real doleful if we hadn’t thought
of the bonfire.”
“Where did you leave the torches?” asked Mr. Burton, springing from his
chair, and lifting his wife to her feet at the same time.
[Illustration: “THREW A MEAN OLD DIRTY CARPET ON TOP OF IT”]
“I--I dunno,” said Budge, after a moment of thought.
“Froed ’em in a closet so’s not to dyty de nice floor wif ’em,” said
Toddie.
Mr. Burton hurried up-stairs and extinguished a smoldering heap of
rags, while his wife, truer to herself than she imagined she was, drew
Budge to her, and said, kindly:
“Wanting to make people happy, and doing it, are two very different
things, Budge.”
“Yes, I should think they was,” said Budge, with an emphasis which
explained much that was left unsaid.
“Little boysh is goosies for tryin’ to make big folksh happy at all,”
said Toddie, beginning again to cry.
“Oh, no, they’re not, dear,” said Mrs. Burton, taking the sorrowful
child on her lap. “But they don’t always understand how best to do it,
so they ought to ask big folks before they begin.”
“Den dere wouldn’t be no s’prises,” complained Toddie. “Say, izh we
goin’ to eat all dis supper?”
“I suppose so, if we can,” sighed Mrs. Burton.
“I guesh we can--Budgie an’ me,” said Toddie. “An’ won’t we be glad
all them wimmens wented away!”
That evening, after the boys had retired, Mrs. Burton seemed a little
uneasy of mind, and at length she said to her husband:
“I feel guilty at never having directed the boys’s devotions since they
have been here, and I know no better time than the present in which to
begin.”
Mr. Burton’s eyes followed his wife reverently as she left the room.
The service she proposed to render the children she had sometimes
performed for himself, with results for which he could not be grateful
enough, and yet it was not with unalloyed anticipation that he softly
followed her up the stair. Mrs. Burton went into the chamber and found
the boys playing battering-ram, each with a pillow in front of him.
“Children,” said she, “have you said your prayers?”
“No,” said Budge; “somebody’s got to be knocked down first. Then we
will.”
A sudden tumble by Toddie was the signal for devotional exercises, and
both boys knelt beside the bed.
“Now, darlings,” said Mrs. Burton, “you have made some sad mistakes
to-day, and they should teach you that, even when you want most to do
right, you need to be helped by somebody better. Don’t you think so?”
“I do,” said Budge. “Lots.”
“I don’t,” said Toddie. “More help I getsh, de worse fings is. Guesh
I’ll do fings all alone affer dish.”
“I know what to say to the Lord to-night, Aunt Alice,” said Budge.
“Dear little boy,” said Mrs. Burton. “Go on.”
“Dear Lord,” said Budge, “we do have the awfullest times when we try to
make other folks happy. Do, please, Lord, please teach big folks how
hard little folks have to think before they do things for ’em. An’ make
’em understand little folks every way better than they do, so that they
don’t make little folks unhappy when they try to make big folks feel
jolly. Make big folks have to think as hard as little folks do. Amen!
Oh yes, an’ bless dear mamma an’ the sweet little sister baby. How’s
that, Aunt Alice?”
Mrs. Burton did not reply, and Budge, on turning, saw only her
departing figure, while Toddie remarked:
“Now it’s my tyne. Dear Lord, when I getsh to be a little boy anzel up
in hebben, don’t let growed-up anzels come along whenever I’m doin’
anyfing nysh for ’em, an’ say ’don’t’s or tumble me down in heaps of
nashty old black coal. Dere! Amen!”
CHAPTER V
It was with a sneaking sense of relief that Mrs. Burton awoke on the
following morning, and realized that the day was Sunday.
“Even school-teachers have two days of rest in every seven,” she said
to herself, “and no one doubts that they deserve them. How much more
deserving of rest and relief must be the volunteer teacher who, not for
a few hours only, but from dawn to twilight, has charge of two children
whose capacity for both learning and mischief surely equals any school
full of boys.”
The feeling that she was attempting for a few days only that which
mothers everywhere were doing without hope of rest excepting in heaven,
made her feel humble and worthless, but it did not banish her wish to
turn the children over to the care of their uncle for the day. Thoughts
of a Sunday excursion, from participation in which she should in some
way excuse herself; of volunteering to relieve her sister-in-law’s
nurse during the day, and thus leaving her husband, in charge of the
house and the children; of making that visit to her mother which is
always in order with the young wife--all these, and other devices not
so practicable, came before her mind’s eye for comparison, but they all
and together took sudden wing when her husband awoke and complained of
a raging toothache. Truly pitiful and sympathetic as Mrs. Burton was,
she exhibited remarkable resignation in the face of the thought that
her husband would probably need to remain in his room all day, and
that it would be absolutely necessary to keep the children out of his
sight and hearing. Then he could find nothing to criticise; she might
fail frequently, as she probably would, but he would know only of her
successes.
A light knock was heard at Mrs. Burton’s door, and then, without waiting
for invitation there came in two fresh, rosy faces, two heads of
disarranged hair, and two long white night-gowns, and the occupant of
the longer gown exclaimed:
“Say, Uncle Harry, do you know it’s Sunday? What are you going to do
about it? We always have lots done for us Sundays, ’cause it’s the only
day papa’s home.”
“Yes, I--think I’ve heard--something of the kind--before,” mumbled Mr.
Burton, with difficulty, between the fingers that covered his aching
tooth.
[Illustration: TODDIE PLAYING BEAR]
“Oh--h,” exclaimed Toddie, “I b’lieve he’s goin’ to play bear! Come
on, Budgie, we’s got to be dogs.” And Toddie buried his face in the
bed-covering and succeeded in fastening his teeth in his uncle’s calf.
A howl from the sufferer did not frighten off the amateur dog, and
he was finally dislodged only by being clutched by the throat by his
victim.
“Dat izhn’t de way to play bear,” complained Toddie. “You ought to
keep on a-howlin’, an’ let me keep on a-bitin’, an’ den you give me
pennies to stop. Dat’s de way papa does.”
“Can you see how Tom Lawrence can be so idiotic?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“I suppose I could,” replied the sufferer, “if I hadn’t such a
toothache.”
“You poor old fellow!” said Mrs. Burton, tenderly. Then she turned to
her nephews, and exclaimed: “Now, boys, listen to me! Uncle Harry is
very sick to-day--he has a dreadful toothache, and every particle of
bother and noise will make it worse. You must both keep away from his
room, and be as quiet as possible wherever you may be in the house.
Even the sound of people talking is very annoying to a person with the
toothache.”
“Den you’s a baddy woman to stay in here an’ keep a-talkin’ all de
whole time,” said Toddie, “when it makes poor old Uncle Harry hurt so.
G’way.”
Mrs. Burton’s lord and master was not in too much pain to shake with
silent laughter at this rebuke, and the lady herself was too startled
to devise an appropriate retort, so the boys amused themselves by a
general exploration of the chamber, not omitting the pockets of their
uncle’s clothing. This work completed to the full extent of their
ability, they demanded breakfast.
“Breakfast won’t be ready until eight o’clock,” said Mrs. Burton, “and
it is now only six. If you little boys don’t wish to feel dreadfully
hungry you had better go back to bed and lie as quiet as possible.”
“Is dat de way not to be hungry?” asked Toddie, with the wide-open
eyes, which always accompany the receptive mind.
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Burton. “If you run about, you agitate your
stomachs, and that makes them restless, so you feel hungry.”
“Gwacious!” said Toddie. “What lots of fings little boys has got to
lyne, hazn’t dey? Come on, Budgie; let’s go put our tummuks to bed,
an’keep ’em from gettin’ ajjerytated.”
“All right,” said Budge. “But say, Aunt Alice, don’t you s’pose our
stomachs would be sleepier an’ not so restless if there was some
crackers or bread an’ butter in ’em?”
“There’s no one down-stairs to get you any,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Oh,” said Budge, “we can find ’em. We know where everything is in the
pantries and storeroom.”
“I wish I were so clever,” sighed Mrs. Burton. “Go along; get what you
like, but don’t come back to this room again. And don’t let me find
anything in disorder down-stairs, or I shall never trust you in my
kitchen again.”
Away flew the children, but their disappearance only made room for a
new torment, for Mr. Burton stopped in the middle of the operation of
shaving himself, and remarked:
“I’ve been longing for Sunday to come, for your sake, my dear. The
boys, as you have frequently observed, have very strange notions about
good things; but they are also, by nature, quite spiritually minded.
You are not only this latter, but you are free from strange doctrines
and the traditions of men. The mystical influences of the day will make
themselves felt upon those innocent little hearts, and you will have an
opportunity to correct wrong teachings and instill new sentiments and
truths.”
Mr. Burton’s voice had grown a bit shaky as he reached the close
of this neat little speech, so that his wife scrutinized his face
closely to see if there might not be a laugh somewhere about it. A
friendly coating of lather protected one cheek, however, and the
troublesome tooth had distorted the shape of the other, so Mrs.
Burton was compelled to accept the mingled ascription of praise and
responsibility, which she did with a sinking heart.
“I’ll take care of them while you’re at church, my dear,” said Mr.
Burton. “They’re always saintly with sick people.”
Mrs. Burton breathed a sigh of relief. She determined that she would
extemporize a special “Children’s Service” immediately after breakfast,
and impress her nephews as fully as possible with the spirit of the
day; then if her husband would but continue the good work thus begun,
it would be impossible for the boys to fall from grace in the few hours
which remained between dinner time and darkness. Full of her project,
and forgetting that she had allowed her chambermaid to go to early
service, and promised herself to see that the children were dressed
for breakfast, Mrs. Burton, at the breakfast-table, noticed that her
nephews did not respond with their usual alacrity to the call of the
bell. Recalling her forgotten duty, she hurried to the boys’s chamber,
and found them already enjoying a repast which was remarkable for
variety. On a small table, drawn to the side of the bed, was a pie, a
bowl of pickles, a dish of honey in the comb, and a small package of
cinnamon bark; with spoons, knives and forks and fingers the boys were
helping themselves to these delicacies. Seeing his aunt, Toddie looked
rather guilty, but Budge displayed the smile of the fully justified,
and remarked:
“Now, you know what kind of meals little boys like, Aunt Alice. I hope
you won’t forget it while we’re here.”
“What do you mean!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, sternly, “by bringing such
things up-stairs?”
“Why,” said Budge, “you told us to get what we wanted, an’ we supposed
you told the troof.”
“An’ I ain’t azh hungry azh I wazh,” said Toddie, “but my tummuk feels
as if it growed big and got little again, every minute or two, an’ it
hurts. I wishes we could put tummuks away when we get done usin’ ’em,
like we do hats an’ over-shoes.”
To sweep the remains of the unique morning lunch into a heap and away
from her nephews, was a work which occupied but a second or two of Mrs.
Burton’s time; this done, two little boys found themselves robed more
rapidly than they had ever before been. Arrived at the breakfast-table,
they eyed with withering contempt an irreproachable cutlet, some crisp
brown potatoes of waferlike thinness, and a heap of rolls almost as
light as snowflakes.
“We don’t want none of this kind of breakfast,” said Budge.
“Of coursh we don’t,” said Toddie, “when we’s so awful full of uvver
fings. I don’t know where I’zhe goin’ to put my dinner when it comes
time to eat it.”
“Don’t fret about that, Tod,” said Budge. “Don’t you know papa says
that the Bible says somethin’ that means ‘don’t worry till you have
to’?”
Mrs. Burton raised her eyebrows with horror not unmixed with inquiry,
and her husband hastened to give Budge’s sentiment its proper biblical
wording, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Mrs. Burton’
wonder was allayed by the explanation, although her horror was not, and
she made haste to say:
“Boys, we will have a little Sunday-school, all by ourselves, in the
parlor immediately after breakfast.”
“Hooray!” shouted Budge. “An’ will you give us a ticket an’ pass
around a box for pennies, just like they do in big Sunday-schools?”
“I--suppose so,” said Mrs. Burton, who had not previously thought of
these special attractions of the successful Sunday-school.
“Let’s go right in, Tod,” said Budge, “’cause the dog’s in there. I saw
him as I came down, and I shut all the doors so he couldn’t get out. We
can have some fun with him ’fore Sunday-school begins.”
Both boys started for the parlor-door, and, guided by that marvellous
instinct with which Providence arms the few against the many, and the
weak against the strong, the dog Terry, also approached the door from
the inside. As the door opened there was heard a convulsive howl, and
a general tumbling of small boys, while at almost the same instant
Terry flew into the dining-room and hid himself in the folds of his
mistress’s morning robe. Two or three minutes later Budge entered the
dining-room with a very rueful countenance, and remarked:
“I guess we need that Sunday-school pretty quick, Aunt Alice. The dog
don’t want to play with us, and we ought to be comforted some way.”
“They’re grown people, all over again,” remarked Mr. Burton, with a
laugh.
“What do you mean?” demanded Mrs. Burton.
“Only this; when their own devices fail, they’re in a hurry for the
consolations of religion. May I visit the Sunday-school?”
“I suppose I can’t keep you away,” sighed Mrs. Burton, leading the way
to the parlor. “Boys,” said she, greeting her nephews, “first we’ll
sing a little hymn. What shall it be?”
“Ole Uncle Ned,” said Toddie.
“Oh, that’s not a Sunday song.”
“I fink tizh,” said Toddie, “’cause it sayzh, free or four timezh,
‘He’s gone where de good niggers go,’s an’ dat’s hebben, you know. So
it’s a Sunday song.”
“I think ‘Glory, glory, hallelujah!’s is nicer,” said Budge, “an’ I
know it’s a Sunday song, ’cause I’ve heard it in church.”
“Aw wight,” said Toddie; and he started the old air himself, with the
words, “There liezh de whiskey-bottle, empty on de sheff,” but was
suddenly brought to order by a shake from his aunt, while his uncle
danced about the front parlor in an ecstasy not directly traceable to
toothache.
“That’s not a Sunday song, either, Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton. “The
words are real rowdyish. Where did you learn them?”
“Round the corner from our housh,” said Toddie; “an’ you can shing you
ole shongs yourseff, if you don’t like mine.”
Mrs. Burton went to the piano, rambled among chords for a few seconds,
and finally recalled a Sunday-school air in which Toddie joined as
angelically as if his own musical taste had never been impugned.
“Now, I guess we’d better take up the collection before any little
boys lose their pennies,” said Budge, hurrying to the dining-room, and
returning with a strawberry-box which seemed to have been specially
provided for the occasion; this he passed gravely before Toddie, and
Toddie held his hand over it as carefully as if he were depositing
hundreds, and then Toddie took the box and passed it before Budge, who
made the same dumb show, after which Budge retook the box, shook it,
listened, remarked, “It don’t rattle--I guess it’s all paper-money
to-day,” placed it upon the mantel, reseated himself, and remarked:
“Now bring on your lesson.”
[Illustration: BUDGE TAKING UP THE COLLECTION]
Mrs. Burton opened her Bible with a sense of helplessness. With the
instinct of a person given to thoroughness, she opened at the beginning
of the book, but she speedily closed it again. Turning the leaves
rapidly; passing, for conscience’s sake, the record of many a battle,
the details of which would have delighted the boys, and hurrying past
the prophecies as records not for the minds of children, she at last
reached the New Testament and the ever-new story of the only boy who
ever was all that his parents and relatives could wish him.
“The lesson will be about Jesus,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Little-boy Jesus or big-man Jesus?” asked Toddie.
“A--a--both,” replied the teacher, in confusion.
“Aw wight,” said Toddie. “G’won.”
“There was once a time when all the world was in trouble, without
knowing exactly why,” said Mrs. Burton; “but the Lord understood it,
for He understands everything.”
“Does He know how it feels to be a little boy,” asked Toddie, “an’ be
sent to bed when He don’t want to go?”
“And He determined to comfort the world, as He always does when the
world finds out it can’t comfort itself,” continued Mrs. Burton,
ignoring her nephew’s questions.
“But wasn’t dere lotsh of little boyzh den?” asked Toddie, “an’
didn’t they need to be comforted as well as big folks?”
“I suppose so. But He knew that if He comforted grown people, they
would make the children happy.”
“I wiss He’d comfort you an’ Uncle Harry ev’ry mornin’, den,” said
Toddie. “G’won.”
“So He sent His own Son--His only Son--down to the world to be a dear
little baby. And while smart people everywhere were wondering what
would or could happen to quiet the restless heart of people----”
“Izh restless hearts like restless tummuks?” interrupted Toddie. “Kind
o’ pumpy an’ wabbley?”
“I suppose so.”
“Poor folks!” said Toddie, clasping his hands over his waistband.
“I’zhe sorry for ’em.”
“While smart folks were trying to think out what should be done,”
continued Mrs. Burton, “some shepherds, who used to sit around at night
under the moon and stars, and wonder about things which they could not
understand, saw a wonderfully bright star in the sky.”
“Was it one of the twinkle-twinkle kind, or one of the stand-still
kind?” asked Toddie.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Burton, after a moment’s reflection. “Why do
you ask?”
“’Cauzh,” said Toddie, “I know what ’twazh dere for, an’ it ought to
have twinkled, ’cauzh twinkley stars bob open an’ shut dat way ’cauzh
dey’re laughin’ an’ can’t keep still, an’ I know I’d have laughed
if I’d been a star an’ was goin’ to make a lot of folks awful happy.
G’won.”
“Then,” said Mrs. Burton, looking alternately and frequently at the two
accounts of the Advent, “they suddenly saw an angel, and the shepherds
were afraid.”
“Should fink dey would be!” said Toddie. “Everybody gets afraid when
dey see good people around. I ’pec dey thought de angel would say
‘Don’t!’ in about a minute.”
“But the angel told them not to be afraid,” said Mrs. Burton, “for he
had come to bring good news. There was to be a baby born at Bethlehem,
and He would make everybody happy.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if that angel would come an’ do it all over
again?” Budge asked. “Only he ought to pick out little boys instead of
sheep fellows. I wouldn’t be afraid of an angel.”
“Neiver would I,” said Toddie. “I’d dzust go round behind him an’ see
how his wings was fastened on.”
“Then a great many other angels came,” said Mrs. Burton, “and they
all sang together. The shepherds didn’t know what to make of it, but
after the singing was over they all started for Bethlehem to see that
wonderful baby.”
“Just like the other day we went to see the sister-baby!”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton; “but instead of finding him in a pleasant home
and a nice room, with careful friends and nurses around him, he was in
a manger out in a stable.”
“That was ’cause he was so smart that he could do just what he wanted
to, an’ be just where he liked,” said Budge, “an’ he was a little
boy, an’ little boys always like stables better than houses. I wish I
could live in a stable always an’ for ever!”
“So do I,” said Toddie, “an’ sleep in mangers, ’cauzh den de horses
would kick anybody dat made me put on clean clozhezh when I didn’t want
to. Dey gaveded him presentsh, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton; “gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”
“Why didn’t they give him rattles and squealey-balls, like folks did
budder Phillie when he was a baby,” asked Toddie.
“Because, Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton, glad of an opportunity to get the
sentiment of the story into her own hands, from which it had departed
very early in the course of the lesson--“because he was no common baby,
like other children.”
“Did he play around, like uvver little boysh?” continued Toddie.
“I--I--suppose so,” said Mrs. Burton, fearing lest in trying to instill
reverence into her nephews, she herself might prove irreverent.
“Did somebody say ‘Don’t’ at him every time he did anyfing?” continued
Toddie.
“N--n--n--o! I imagine not,” said Mrs. Burton, “because he was always
good.”
“That don’t make no diffwelence,” said Toddie. “De better a little boy
triesh to be, de more folks says ‘Don’t’ to him. So I guesh nobody had
any time to say anyfing elsh at all to Jesus.”
“What did he do next?” asked Budge, as deeply interested as if he had
not heard the same story many times before.
“He grew strong in body and spirit,” said Mrs. Burton, “and everybody
loved him; but before he had time to do all that, an angel came and
frightened his papa in a dream, and told him that the king of that
country would kill little Jesus if he could find him. So Joseph and
Mary, the mamma of the baby, got up in the middle of the night and
started off to Egypt.”
“What did they do when they got there?” Budge asked.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Burton. “I suppose the papa worked hard for
money to buy good food and comfortable resting-places for his wife and
the baby; and I suppose the mamma walked about the fields, and picked
pretty flowers for her baby to play with; and I suppose the baby cooed
when his mamma gave them to him, and laughed and danced and played, and
then got tired, and came and hid his little face in his mamma’s lap,
and was taken into her arms and held ever so tight, and fell asleep,
and that his mother looked into his face as if she would look through
it, while she tried to find out what her baby would be and do when he
grew up, and whether he would be taken away from her, while it seemed
as if she couldn’t live at all without having him very closely pressed
to her breast and----”
Mrs. Burton’s voice grew a little shaky and soon failed her entirely.
Budge came in front of her, scrutinized her intently but with great
sympathy also, rested his elbows on her knees, dropped his face into
his own hands, looked up into her face, and said:
“Why, Aunt Alice, she was just like my mamma, wasn’t she? An’ I think
you are just like both of ’em!”
Mrs. Burton took Budge into her arms, covered his face with kisses, and
totally destroyed another chance of explaining the difference between
the earthly and the heavenly to her pupils, while Toddie eyed the
couple with evident disfavor, and said:
“I fink ’twould be nicer if you’d see if dinner was bein’ got ready,
instead of stoppin’ tellin’ stories an’ huggin’ Budgie. My tummuk’
all gotted little again.”
Mrs. Burton came back to the world of to-day from that of history,
though not without a sigh, while the dog Terry, who had divined
the peaceful nature of the occasion so far as to feel justified in
reclining beneath his mistress’ chair, now contracted himself into the
smallest possible space, slunk out of the doorway, and took a lively
quickstep in the direction of the shrubbery. Toddie had seen him,
however, and told Budge, and both boys were soon in pursuit, noticing
which, Terry speedily betook himself to that distant retirement which
the dog who has experience in small boys knows well how to discover and
maintain.
As the morning wore on the boys grew restless, fought, drummed on the
piano, snarled when that instrument was closed, meddled with everything
that was within reach, and finally grew so troublesome that their aunt
soon felt that to lose was cheaper than to save, so she left the house
to the children, and sought the side of the lounge upon which her
afflicted husband reclined. The divining sense of childhood soon found
her out, however, and Budge remarked:
“Aunt Alice, if you’re going to church, seems to me it’s time you was
getting ready.”
“I can’t go to church, Budge,” sighed Mrs. Burton. “If I do, you boys
will only turn the whole house upside down, and drive your poor uncle
nearly crazy.”
“No, we won’t,” said Budge. “You don’t know what nice nurses we can be
to sick people. Papa says nobody can even imagine how well we can take
care of anybody until they see us do it. If you don’t believe it, just
leave us with Uncle Harry, an’ stay home from church an’ peek through
the keyhole.”
“Go on, dear,” said Mr. Burton. “If you want to go to church, don’t
be afraid to leave me. I think you should go, after your experience
of this morning. I shouldn’t think your mind could be at peace until
you had joined your voice with that of the great congregation, and
acknowledged yourself to be a miserable sinner.”
[Illustration: TERRY]
Mrs. Burton winced, but nevertheless retired, and soon appeared dressed
for church, kissed her husband and her nephews, gave many last
instructions, and departed. Budge followed her with his eye until she
had stepped from the piazza, and then remarked, with a sigh of relief:
“Now I guess we’ll have what papa calls a good, old-fashioned time, for
we’ve got rid of her.”
“Budge!” exclaimed Mr. Burton, sternly, and springing to his feet, “do
you know who you are talking about? Don’t you know that your Aunt Alice
has saved you from many a scolding, done you many a favor, and been
your best friend?”
“Oh, yes,” said Budge, with at least a dozen inflections on each word,
“but ev’ry day friends an’ Sunday friends are kind o’ different; don’t
you think so? She can’t make whistles, or catch bullfrogs, or carry
both of us up the mountain on her shoulders, or sing ‘Roll, Jordan.’”
“And do you expect me to do all these things to-day?”
“N--n--no, unless you should get well, an’ feel just like it; but we’d
like to be with somebody who could do ’em if he wanted to. We like
ladies that’s all ladies, but then we like men that’s all men, too.
Aunt Alice is a good deal like an angel, I think, and you--well, you
ain’t. An’ we don’t want to be with angels all the time until we’re
angels ourselves.”
Mr. Burton turned over suddenly and contemplated the back of the
lounge, while Budge continued:
“We don’t want you to get to be an angel, so what I want to know is,
how to make you well. Don’t you think if I borrowed papa’ horse and
carriage an’ took you ridin’ you’d feel better? I know he’d lend ’em
to me if I told him you were goin’ to drive.”
“And if you said you would go with me to take care of me?” suggested
Mr. Burton.
“Y--e--es,” said Budge, as hesitatingly as if such an idea had never
occurred to him. “An’ don’t you think that up to the top of Hawksnest
Rock an’ out to Passaic Falls would be the nicest places for a sick
man to go? When you got tired of ridin’ you could stop the carriage
an’ cut us a cane, or make us whistles, or even send us in swimming in
a brook somewhere if you got tired of us.”
“H’m!” grunted Mr. Burton.
“An’ you might take fings to eat wif you,” suggested Toddie, “an’
when you got real tired and felt bad you might stop an’ have a little
picnic. I fink dat would be dzust de fing for a man wif de toofache.
And we could help you, lotsh.”
“I’ll see how I feel after dinner,” said Mr. Burton. “But what are you
going to do for me between now and then, to make me feel better?”
“We’ll tell you storiezh,” said Toddie. “Dem’s what sick folks alwayzh
likesh.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Burton. “Begin right away.”
“Aw wight,” said Toddie. “Do you wantsh a sad story or a d’zolly one?”
“Anything. Men with the toothache can stand nearly anything. Don’t draw
on your imagination too hard.”
“Don’t never draw on no madzinasuns,” said Toddie; “I only draws on
slatesh.”
“Never mind. Give us the story.”
“Well,” said Toddie, seating himself in a little rocking-chair, and
fixing his eyes on the ceiling, “guesh I’ll tell about AbrahammynIsaac.
Onesh de Lord told a man named Abraham to go up the mountain an’ chop
his little boy’s froat open an’ burn him up on a naltar. So Abraham
started to go do it. An’ he made his little boy Isaac, dat he was
going to chop and burn up, carry de kindlin’ wood he was goin’ to set
him a-fire wif. An’ I want to know if you fink dat wazh very nysh of
him?”
“Well, no.”
“Tell you what,” said Budge, “you don’t ever catch me carryin’ sticks
up the mountain, even if my papa wants me to.”
“When they got up dere,” said Toddie, “Abraham made a naltar an’ put
little Ikey on it, an’ took a knife an’ was goin’ to chop his froat
open, when a andzel came out of hebben, an’ said: ‘Stop a-doin’
dat!’s So Abraham stopped, an’ Ikey skooted. An’ Abraham saw a sheep
caught in de bushes, an’ he caught him an’ killed him. He wasn’
goin’ to climb way up a mountain to kill somebody an’ not have his
knife bluggy a bit. An’ he burned de sheep up. An’ den he went home
again.”
“I’ll bet you Isaac’s mamma never knew what his papa wanted to do with
him,” said Budge, “or she’d never let her little boy go away in the
mornin’. Do you want to bet?”
“N--no, not on Sunday,” said Mr. Burton. “Now, suppose you little boys
go out of doors and play for a while, while uncle tries to get a nap.”
The boys accepted the suggestion and disappeared. Half an hour later,
as Mrs. Burton was walking home from church under escort of old
General Porcupine, and enduring with saintly fortitude the general’s
compliments upon her management of the children, there came screams of
fear and anguish from the general’s own grounds, which the couple were
passing.
“Who can that be?” exclaimed the general, his short hairs bristling
like the quills of his titular godfather. “We have no children.”
“I think I know the voices,” gasped Mrs. Burton, turning pale.
“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the general, with an accent which showed
that he was wishing the reverse of blessings upon souls less needy than
his own. “You don’t mean----”
“Oh, I do!” said Mrs. Burton, wringing her hands. “Please hurry!”
The general puffed and snorted up his gravel walk and toward the
shrubbery, behind which was a fishpond from which direction the sound
came. Mrs. Burton followed in time to see her nephew Budge help his
brother out of the pond while the general tugged at a large crawfish
which had fastened its claw upon Toddies finger. The fish was game,
but, with a mighty pull from the general, and a fiendish shriek from
Toddie, the fish’s claw and body parted company, and the general, still
holding the latter tightly, staggered backward and himself fell into
the pond.
[Illustration: THE GENERAL FELL INTO THE POND]
“Ow--ow--ow!” howled Toddie, clasping the skirt of his aunt’s mauve
silk in a ruinous embrace, while the general floundered and snorted
like a whale in dying agonies and Budge laughed as merrily as if the
whole scene had been provided especially for his entertainment. Mrs.
Burton hurried her nephews away, forgetting, in her mortification, to
thank the general for his service, and placing a hand over Toddie’s
mouth.
“It hurts!” mumbled Toddie.
“What did you touch the fish at all for?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“It was a little baby-lobster,” sobbed Toddie, “an’ I loves little
babies--all kinds of ’em--an’ I wanted to pet him. An’ den I wanted
to grop him.”
“Why didn’t you do it?” demanded the lady.
“’Cauzh he wouldn’t grop,” said Toddie. “He isn’t all gropped yet.”
True enough, the claw of the fish still hung at Toddies finger, and
Mrs. Burton spoiled a pair of four-button kids in detaching it, while
Budge continued to laugh. At length, however, mirth gave place to
brotherly love, and Budge tenderly remarked:
“Toddie dear, don’t you love Bother Budgie?”
“Yesh,” sobbed Toddie.
“Then you ought to be happy,” said Budge, “for you’ve made him awful
happy. If the fish hadn’t caught you, the general couldn’t have pulled
him off, an’ then he wouldn’t have tumbled into the pond, an’ oh,
my--didn’t he splash bully!”
“Then you’s got to be bited wif a fiss yourself,” said Toddie, “an’
make him tumble in again, for me to laugh ’bout.”
“You’re two naughty boys,” said Mrs. Burton. “Is this the way you take
care of your sick uncle?”
“We did take care of him!” exclaimed Toddie. “Told him a lovaly Bible
story, an’ you didn’t, an’ he wouldn’t have had not no Sunday at all
if I hadn’t done it. An’ we’ goin’ to take him widin’ dis afternoon.”
Mrs. Burton hurried home, but it seemed to her that she had never met
so many inquiring acquaintances during so short a walk. Arrived at
last, she ordered her nephews to their room, and flung herself in tears
beside her husband, murmuring:
“Harry!”
And Mr. Burton, having viewed the ruined dress with the eye of
experience, uttered the single word:
“Boys!”
“What am I to do with them?” asked the unhappy woman.
Mr. Burton was an affectionate husband. He adored womankind, and
sincerely bemoaned its special grievances; but he did not resist the
temptation to recall his wife’s announcement of five days before, so he
whispered:
“Train them.”
“I----”
Mrs. Burton’s humiliation by her own lips was postponed by a heavy
footfall, which, by turning her face, she discovered was that of her
brother-in-law, Tom Lawrence, who remarked:
“Tender confidences, eh? There’s nothing like them, if you want to be
happy. But Helen’s pretty well to-day, and dying to have her boys with
her, and I’m even worse with a similar longing. You can’t spare them,
I suppose?”
The peculiar way in which Tom Lawrence’ eyes danced as he awaited a
reply would, at any other time, have aroused all the defiance in Alice
Burton’s nature; but now, looking at the front of her beautiful dress,
she only said:
“Why--I suppose--we might spare them for an hour or two.”
“You poor, dear Spartan,” said Tom, with genuine sympathy, “You shall
be at peace until their bedtime.”
And Mrs. Burton found occasion to rearrange the bandage on her
husband’s face so as to whisper in his ear:
“Thank heaven!”
CHAPTER VI
The boys returned to the Burtons fast asleep, Budge in his father’s
arms, and Toddie’s head pillowed on the shoulder of faithful Mike.
No sound was heard from either of them until the next morning, when
finding that they slept later than usual, their aunt went to their
chamber to arouse them. She found Budge sitting up in bed rubbing his
eyes with one hand, while with the other he shook his brother, and
elicited some ugly grunts of remonstrance.
“Tod!” exclaimed Budge; “Tod! Wake up! We ain’t where we was!”
“Don’t care if we ain’t,” drawled Toddie. “I’zhe in--a--nicer playsh.
I’zhe in--big candy-shop.”
“No, you ain’t,” said Budge, trying to pick his brother’s eyes open.
“You’re at Aunt Alice’, and when you went to sleep you was at mamma’s
house.”
“Pw--w--w--!” cried Toddie, arising slowly; “you’s a hateful bad boy,
Budgie. I was a-dreamin’ I was in a candystore, an’ gotted all my
pockets full an’ bof hands full, too, an’ now you’s woketed me up
an’ my hands is all empty, an’ I hazn’t got any pocket-clozhezh on me
at all.”
“Well, next time you have a dream I won’t wake you at all, even if you
have nightmares an’ dream awful things. Say, Aunt Alice, how do folks
dream, I wonder? What makes everythin’ go away an’ be somethin’
else?”
“It is the result of indistinct impressions upon a semi-dormant brain,”
said Mrs. Burton.
“Oh!”
Mrs. Burton thought she detected a note of sarcasm in her nephew’s
exclamation, but he was so young and he seemed so meek of countenance
that she abandoned the idea. Besides, her younger nephew had been
saying “Aunt Alish--Aunt Alish--Aunt Alish--Aunt Alish--” as rapidly as
he could with an increasing volume of voice. Mrs. Burton found time in
which to say:
“What?”
“Did you say pwessin’ on bwains made us dweam fings, Aunt Alish?”
“Ye--es,” Mrs. Burton replied. “That is the----”
“Well, then,” interrupted Toddie. “Jzust you sit down on my head an’
make dat candy-shop come back again, won’t you?”
“Say, Aunt Alice,” said Budge, “do you know that lots of times I don’t
know any more than I knew before.”
“I don’t understand you, Budge.”
“Why, when folks tell me things--I mean, I ask them how things are,
an’ they tell me, an’ then I don’t know any better than I did before.
Is that the way it is with grown folks?”
[Illustration: “DREAMIN’ I WAS IN A CANDY-STORE”]
Mrs. Burton reflected for a moment and recalled many experiences very
much like that of Budge--experiences, too, in which she had forced the
same impassive face that Budge wore, as she pretended to comprehend
that which had been imperfectly explained. She remembered, too, how
depressing had been the lack of understanding, and how strong was the
sense of injury at being required to act as if her comprehension had
been perfectly reached. Whether the topics had been the simple affairs
of childhood, or the social, æsthetic and religious instructions of
adult age, Mrs. Burton, like every one else, had been told more than
she understood, and misunderstood many things she had been told, and
blamed her friends and the world for her blunders and for lack of
appreciation of the intentions to which proper and fostering training
had never been applied. Was it possible that she was repeating with her
nephews the blunders which others had committed while attempting to
shape her own mind?
The thought threw Mrs. Burton into the profoundest depths of reverie,
from which she was aroused by Budge, who asked:
“Aunt Alice, do you see the Lord?”
“No, Budge!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, with a start. “Why do you ask?”
“Why,” said Budge, “you was lookin’ so hard through the window, an’
right toward where you couldn’t see anythin’ but sky; an’ your eyes
had such an ever-so-far look in them that I thought you must be lookin’
straight at the Lord.”
“If you sees Him,” said Toddie, “I wiss you’d ask him to send that
dream back again to-night; to push on my bwains an’ make it come
back, and then let me stay asleep until I eat up all de candy I gotted
into my pockets an’ hands.”
The appearance of the chambermaid, who came to dress the boys for
breakfast, put an end to the conversation, but Mrs. Burton determined
that it should be renewed at the earliest opportunity, or, rather, that
her discoveries of her own shortcomings as a teacher of children should
lead to an early and practical reformation.
The fit of mental abstraction into which this resolution threw her was
the cause of a silence which puzzled her husband considerably, for
he could plainly see by her face that no affair merely matured was
at the bottom of her reticence, and that what in men would be called
temper was equally absent from her heart. In fact, the result upon Mrs.
Burton’s face and actions was so beneficial that the lady’s husband
determined to plead toothache as an excuse to remain at home for a day
and look at her.
The mere suggestion, however, elicited from Mrs. Burton the mention of
so many absolute necessities which could be procured only in the city
and by her husband, that he departed by a train even earlier than the
one upon which he usually travelled, and with sensations very like
those of a man who has been forcibly ejected from a residence.
Then Mrs. Burton led her nephews into the sitting-room, seated herself,
placed an arm tightly about each little boy, and said: “Children, is
there anything that you would very much like to know?”
“Yesh,” answered Toddie, promptly. “I’d like to know what we’s going to
have for dinner to-day?”
“And I,” said Budge, “would like to know when we’re all goin’ for a
ride again.”
“I don’t mean silly things of that sort,” said Mrs. Burton, “but----”
“Ain’t silly fings!” said Toddie. “Deysh what makesh ush happy.”
Mrs. Burton made a mental note of the justice of the rebuke, and of its
connection with the subject of which her heart was already full; but
she was still Alice Mayton Burton, a lady whose perceptions could not
easily prevent her from following the paths which she had already laid
out for herself, so she replied:
“I know they are; but I want to teach you whatever you want to learn
about matters of more importance.”
“Do you mean that you want to play school?” asked Budge. “Papa don’t
think school is healthy for children in warm weather, an’ neither do
we.”
“No, I don’t want to play school, but I want to explain to you some of
the things which you say you don’t understand, though people tell you
all about them. It makes Aunt Alice very unhappy to think that her dear
little nephews are troubled about understanding things when they want
so much to do so. Aunt Alice was once a little bit of a girl, and had
just the same sort of trouble, and she remembers how uncomfortable it
made her.”
“Oh!” said Budge, changing his position until he could look into his
aunt’s eyes. “Did you ever have to wonder how big moons got to be
little again, an’ then have big folks tell you they chopped up the old
moons an’ made stars of them, when you knew the story must be an awful
whopper?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton.
“An’ didn’t you ever wunner what dinner was goin’ to be made of, an’
den have big folks just say ‘never mind’?” asked Toddie.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton, giving Toddie a light squeeze. “I’ve been
through that, too.”
“Why!” said Budge, “you was awful little once, wasn’t you? Well, did
you ever have to wonder where God stood when he made the world out of
nothing?”
“An’ did you ever have to fink how the sweet outsides got made onto
date-stones an’ peach-pits?” asked Toddie.
“Oh, yes.”
“Then tell us all about ’em.”
“You asked me about dreams this morning, dear,” said Mrs. Burton,
addressing Budge, “and----”
“I know I did,” said Budge; “but I’d rather know about dates an’
peaches now. I can’t dream any more till I go to bed; but I can buy
dates inside of a quarter of an hour, if you’ll give me pennies. Oh,
say--I’ll tell you what--you send me to buy some, and then you can
explain about ’em easier. It’ so much nicer to see how things are than
to have to think about ’em.”
“I can’t spare you now, dear, to go after dates. I may not have time to
talk to you when you get back.”
“Oh, we’d manage not to bother you. I think we could find out all
about ’em ourselves, if we had enough of ’em to do it with.”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Burton, compromising reluctantly. “I’ll tell you
about something else at present; then I will give you some money to
purchase dates, and you may study them for yourselves.”
[Illustration: “WONDER HOW BIG MOONS GOT TO BE LITTLE AGAIN”]
“All right. Now tell us what makes your dog Terry always run away
whenever we want him?”
“Because you tease him so much, whenever you catch him that you
have made him hate you,” said Mrs. Burton, delighted at the double
opportunity to speak distinctly and impart a lesson in humanity.
“Now, you’s gettin’ ready to say ‘Don’t,’” Toddie complained. “Can’t
little boysh lyne noffin’ dat hazn’t got any mean old ‘Don’t’ in it?”
“I hope so, poor little fellow,” said Mrs. Burton, repenting at once of
her success.
“What would you like to know?”
Toddie opened his mouth and eyes, hung his head to one side, meditated
for two or three minutes, and said:
“I--I--I--I--I wantsh to know whatsh de reason dat when a little boy
hazh been eatin’ lotsh of buttananoes he can’t eat any more, when he’s
been findin’ out all the whole time how awful good dey is?”
“Because his little stomach is full, and when one’s stomach is full it
knows enough to stop wanting anything.”
“Then tummuks is gooses. I wiss I was my tummuk dzust once; I’d show it
how never to get tired of buttananoes.”
“What I want to know,” said Budge, “is how we have dreams, ’cause I
don’t know any more about it than I did before, after what you told me
this morning.”
“It’s a hard thing to explain, dear,” said Mrs. Burton, as she
endeavored to frame a simple explanation. “We think with our brain,
and when we sleep our brain sleeps too, though sometimes it isn’t as
sleepy as the rest of our body; and when it is a little wakeful it
thinks the least bit, but it can’t think straight, so each thought gets
mixed up with part of some other thought.”
“That’s the reason I dreamed last night that a cow was sittin’ in your
rockin’-chair readin’ an atlas,” said Budge. “But what made me think
about cows an rockin-chairs an’ atlases at all?”
[Illustration: “A COW READIN’s AN ATLAS”]
“That’s one of the things which we can’t explain about dreams,” said
Mrs. Burton. “We seem to remember something that we have seen at some
other time, and our memories jumble against each other, when two or
three come at a time.”
“Then,” said Toddie, “some night when I’ze asleep I’m goin’ to fink
about buttananoes an’ red-herrin’ an’ ice-cream an’ourgrass an’
hard-boiled eggs an’ candy an’ fried hominy, an’ won’t I hazh a
lovaly little tea-party in bed, if all my finks djumbles togevver? An’
I won’t djeam about any uvver little boy wif me at all.”
“When I dream about dear little dead brother Phillie,” said Budge,
“don’t I do anythin’ but just remember him? Don’t he come down from
heaven and see me in my bed?”
“I imagine not, dear,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Then what makes him look so white and sunny, an’ smile so sweet, an’
flap his dear little white wings close to my face so I can touch ’em?”
“I suppose it is because--because you have thought of him looking that
way,” said Mrs. Burton, drawing Budge closer to her side to hide the
wistfulness of his face from her eyes. “You’ve seen pictures of angels
all in white, with graceful wings, and you’ve thought of little brother
Phil looking that way.”
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Budge, burying his face in his aunt’s robe and
bursting into tears. “I wish I hadn’t tried to find out about dreamin’!
I don’t ever want to learn about anything else. If dear little angel
Phillie is only a piece of a think in my brain when I’m asleep, then
there isn’t nothin’ that’s anythin’. I always thought it was funny
that he began to go away as soon as I began to wake up.”
“Cows don’t go ’way when I wakes up from dreamin’ about ’em,” said
Toddie. “I ’members ’em all day, an’ sees ’em whenever I don’t want
to.”
Mrs. Burton could not repress a smile, while Budge raised his head, and
said:
“Well, I suppose it’s no good to be unhappy. We’d better have fun than
think about things that’s awful sad. Can’t you think of some new kind
of a play for us?”
“I’m afraid I can’t, at this minute,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Suppose you play store,” said Budge, “an’ keep lots of nice things,
like cakes an’ candies, an’ let us buy ’em of you for pins. Oh, yes!
an’ you give us the pins to buy ’em with.
“An’ do it ’fore it getsh dinner-time,” said Toddie, “so de fings you
sell us can get out of the way in time, so we can get empty to get
fullded up at dinner.”
“I can’t do that,” said Mrs. Burton, “because it would give you an
excuse to eat between meals.”
“Then tell us stories,” Budge suggested; “no, make a menagerie for us.
Oh, no!--I’ll tell you what, make believe it was our house, an’ you
was comin’ to visit us, an’ we’ll bring you up cake an’ coffee to
rest yourself with.”
“I’m afraid I smell some little mice!” said Mrs. Burton.
“In the mouse-twap?” inquired Toddie. “Oh! get ’em for ush to play wif!”
“Tell you what,” said Budge. “You can tell us that funny story about
the man that had dogs for doctors.”
“Dogs for doctors?” echoed Mrs. Burton.
“Yes,” said Budge; “don’t you know? He’s in the Bible book.”
“He may be,” said Mrs. Burton, rapidly passing in review such biblical
dogs as she could remember, “but I don’t know where.”
“Why, don’t you know?” continued Budge. “He was that man that was so
poor that he had to eat crumbs, an’ papa don’t think he had any syrup
with ’em, either, like we do when the cook gives us the crumbs out of
the bread-box.”
“Is it possible you mean Lazarus?” exclaimed Mrs. Burton.
“Yesh,” said Toddie, “dat was him. ’Twasn’t de Lazharus that began to
live again after he was buried, though. He didn’t have no dogs.”
“The poor man you mean,” said Mrs. Burton, “was very sick and very
poor, so that he had to be fed with the scraps that a rich man named
Dives left at his own table. But the Lord saw him and knew what
troubles he was having, and determined that the poor man should be
happy after he died, to make up for the trouble he had when he was
alive. So when poor Lazarus died the Lord took him right into heaven.”
“Nobody has to eat table-scraps there, do they?” said Budge. “But say,
Aunt Alice, what do they do in heaven with things that’ left at the
table? Isn’t it wicked to throw them away up there?”
“Should fink they’d cut a hole in the floor of hebben an’ grop de
scraps down froo, for poor people,” said Toddie. “When I gets to be an
andzel, an’ gets done my dinners, I’m goin’ to get up on the wall
an’ froe the rest over down into the world. Only I must be careful not
to grop off myself an’ tumble into the wylde again.”
“What I want to know is,” said Budge, “how do they get things to eat
for the angels? Do they have grocery stores, an’ butcher shops, an’
milk wagons up there?”
“Gracious, no!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, her fingers instinctively moving
toward her ears. “The Lord provides food in some way that we don’t
understand. But this poor Lazarus, after he became an angel, looked
out of heaven, and saw, away off in the bad place, the rich man whose
leavings he used to eat, for the rich man had died too. And the rich
man begged Abraham----”
“I fought his name was Lazharus?” said Toddie.
“The poor man was named Lazarus,” said Mrs. Burton; “but when he
reached heaven he found good old Abraham there, and Abraham took care
of him. And the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus just to dip
his finger in water and rub it on the rich man’ lips, for he was so
thirsty.”
“Why didn’t he get a drink for himself?” asked Budge. “Can’t rich
people wait on themselves even when they die?”
“There is no water in the bad place,” said Mrs. Burton. “That was why
he was so thirsty.”
“Goodnesh!” said Toddie. “How does little boysh make mud-pies there?”
“I hope no little boys ever go there,” said Mrs. Burton. “But Abraham
said: ‘Not so, my friend. You had your good things while you were
alive; now you must get along without anything. But poor Lazarus must
be made happy, for he had very bad times when he was alive!’”
[Illustration: “HOW DO THEY GET THINGS TO EAT FOR THE ANGELS?”]
“Is that the way it is?” Budge asked. “Then I guess Abraham will
have to do lots for me when I die, for I have a good many bad times
nowadays. Then what did the bothered old rich man do about it?”
“He told Abraham that he had some brothers that were alive yet, and
he wished that an angel might be sent to tell them to be good, so as
never to have to come to that dreadful place. But Abraham told him
it wouldn’t be of any use to send an angel. They had good books and
preachers that would tell them what to do.”
“An’ did he have to go on bein’ thirsty forever?” asked Budge.
“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Burton, with a shudder, and realizing why it
was that the doctrine of eternal torment was not more industriously
preached from the pulpit.
“G’won!” remarked Toddie.
“That is all there is of it,” said Mrs. Burton.
“Why you didn’t tell us a fing about the doctor-dogs,” complained
Toddie.
“Oh, those are not nice to tell about,” said Mrs. Burton.
“I fink deysh dzust de nicest fing about de story. Whenever I getsh a
sore finger, I goes an’ sits down by the back door an’ calls Terry.
But I don’t fink Terry’s a very good doctor, ’cauzh he don’t come
when I wants him. One of dese days when I getsh lotsh of soresh, like
Jimmy McNally when he had the smallpox, an’ Terry will want to see me
awful, I won’t let him see me a bit. Tell us ’nother story.”
The sound of harp and fiddle came to Mrs. Burton’s rescue, and the boys
hurried to the front of the house to behold two very small Italians,
who were doing their utmost to teach adults the value of peace and
quietness.
Budge and Toddie listened to the whole repertoire of the couple,
encored every selection, bestowed in payment the pennies their aunt
gave them for the purpose, and proposed to follow the musicians on
their route through the town, but their aunt stopped them.
“What do those little fellows do with all the pennies they get?” asked
Budge. “Do they buy candy with them?”
“What lotsh of candy they must have!” exclaimed Toddie.
“I suppose they take their money home to their papas and mammas,” said
Mrs. Burton, “for they are very poor people. Perhaps the parents of
those two little boys are sick at this very moment, and are looking
anxiously for the return of their little boys who are so far away.”
(Mem. The first report of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children had not been published at that time.)
“An’ do the little boys make all that music dzust ’cauzh dey love
somebody?” asked Toddie.
“Yes, dear.”
“But folks always gets paid by the Lord for doin’ things for other
folks, don’t they, Aunt Alice?” asked Budge.
“Yes, dear old fellow,” said Mrs. Burton.
“One fing nysh about dem little boysh,” said Toddie, “ish dat, when
their papas an’ mammas is sick, dere isn’t anybody to tell ’em not to
get deir shoes dusty. Dzust see how dey walksh along in the middle of
the street, kickin’ up de dust, an’ nobody to say ‘Don’t!’s to ’em,
an’ nobody skrong enough to spynk ’em for it when dey gets home. I
wiss I was a musicker.”