are real rowdyish. Where did you learn them?"
"Round the corner from our housh," said Toddie, "an' you can shing your
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, and 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."
Mrs. Burton opened her Bible with a sense of utter helplessness. With
the natural instinct of a person given to thoroughness, she opened at
the beginning of the book, but she speedily closed it again--the first
chapter of Genesis had suggested many a puzzling question even to her
orthodox mind. Turning the leaves rapidly, passing, for conscience sake,
the record of many a battle, the details of which would have delighted
the boys, and hurrying by 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 to be.
"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 some 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 knows 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,
entirely ignoring her nephew's questions.
"But wasn't there lotzh of little boyzh then?" asked Toddie, "an' didn't
they used to be comforted as well as big folks?"
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Burton. "But He knew if He comforted grown
people, they would make the children happy."
"I wiss He'd comfort you an' Uncle Harry every mornin', then," said
Toddie. "G'won."
"So He sent His own Son--his only Son--down to the world to be a dear
little baby."
"_I_ should think He'd have made Him a _sister_ baby," said Budge, "if
He'd wanted to make everybody happy."
"He knew best," said Mrs. Burton. "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' limpy an' wabbley?"
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Burton.
"_Poor_ folks," said Toddie clasping, his hands over his waistband:
"Izhe sorry for 'em."
"While smart folks were trying to think out what should be done,"
continued Mrs. Burton, "some simple 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 up 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 there for, an' it ought to
have twinkled, 'cauzh twinkley star bobs open and shut that way 'cauzh
they're laughin' and 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 so 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 they _would_ be," said Toddie. "Everybody gets afraid when
they see good people around. I 'spec' they thought the 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 dear little 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?" said Budge. "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, "but I 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 and sang together. The poor 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 then the horses
would kick anybody that made me put on clean clothezh when I didn't want
to. They 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. He was the Lord."
"What! The Lord once a dear little baby?" exclaimed Toddie.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Burton, shuddering to realize that Toddie had not
before been taught of the nature of the Holy Trinity.
"An' played 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 any diffwelence," said Toddie. "The better a little
boy triesh to be, the more folks say '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, the
papa of Jesus, and Mary, His mamma, got up in the middle of the night,
and started off to Egypt."
"Seems to me that Egypt was 'bout as bad in those days as Europe is
now," remarked Budge. "Whenever papa tells about anybody that nobody can
find, he says, 'Gone to Europe, I s'pose.' What did they find when they
got there?"
"I don't know," said Mrs. Burton, musing. "I suppose the papa worked
hard for money to buy good food and comfortable resting-places for his
wife and 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, finally, failed her
entirely. Budge came in front of her, scrutinized her intently, but with
great sympathy, also, and, finally, leaned his elbows on her knees,
dropped his face into his own hands, looked up into her face, and
remarked:
"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 hastily 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 remarked:
"_I_ fink 'twould be nicer if you'd see if dinner was bein' got ready,
instead of stoppin' tellin' stories an' huggin' Budge. My tummuk's 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 Jerry, who had divined the
peaceful nature of the occasion so far as to feel justified in reclining
beneath his mistress's 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
the news to Budge, and both boys were soon in pursuit; noticing which
the dog Jerry speedily betook himself to that distant retirement which
the dog who has experience in small boys knows so 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 key-hole."
"Go on, Allie," 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."
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--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
is my wife, and that she 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 bull-frogs, 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?" asked Mr.
Burton.
"N--n--no," said Budge, "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--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
at this honest avowal of one of humanity's prominent weaknesses, 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's 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 were going 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 the
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 find us pfingster apples (the
seed-balls of the wild azalea), 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 and have a little
picnic. I fink that would be dzust the fing for a man wif the toothache.
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 tell you storiezh," said Toddie. "_Them's_ what sick folks alwayzh
likesh."
"Very well," said Mr. Burton. "Begin right away."
"Aw wight," said Toddie. "Do you want a sad story or a d'zolly one?"
"Anything," said Mr. Burton. "Men with the toothache can stand nearly
anything. Don't draw on your imagination _too_ hard."
"Don't _never_ draw on madzinasuns," said Toddie; "I only draws on
slatesh."
"Never mind; give us the story."
"Well," said Toddie, seating himself in a rocking-chair, and fixing his
eyes on the ceiling, "guesh I'll tell about AbrahammynIsaac. Onesh the
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
to do it. An' he made his little boy Isaac, that he was going to chop
and burn up carry the kindlin' wood he was goin' to set him a-fire wiz.
An' I want to know if you fink that wazh very nysh of him?"
"Well,--no," said Mr. Burton.
"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 there," 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' that.' So
Abraham stopped, an' Ikey skooted; an' Abraham saw a sheep caught in the
bushes, an' he caught _him_ an' killed him. He wasn't goin' to climb way
up a mountain to kill somebody an' not have his knife bluggy a bit. An'
he burned the sheep up. An' then 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, I guess," 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. "Do hurry!"
The general puffed and snorted up his gravel walk and toward the
shrubbery, behind which was a fish-pond, 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 Toddie's finger. The fish was game,
but, with a mighty pull from the general, and a superhuman 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.
"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' then I wanted to
grop him."
"Why didn't you do it, then?" demanded the lady.
"'Cauze he wouldn't grop," said Toddie; "he isn't all gropped yet."
True enough, the claw of the fish still hung at Toddie's 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 Brother Budge?"
"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 with a fiss," 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?"
"_Did_ take care of him," exclaimed Toddie; "told him a lovely Bible
story, an' you didn't, an' he wouldn't have had no Sunday at all if I
hadn't done it. An' we's goin' to take him widin' this 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:
"Henry!"
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."
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? Well, I'm sorry I intruded. 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's eyes danced as he awaited a
reply would, at any other time, have roused 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 anyhow."
And Mrs. Burton found occasion to rearrange the bandage on her husband's
face so as to whisper in his ear:
"Thank Heaven!"
SAILING UP STREAM.
[_The following is quoted, by permission, from Mr. Habberton's popular
book_, "THE BARTON EXPERIMENT," _published by_ G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS, _New
York_.]
The superintendency of the Mississippi Valley Woolen Mills was a
position which exactly suited Fred Macdonald, and it gave him occasion
for the expenditure of whatever superfluous energy he found himself
possessed of, yet it did not engross his entire attention. The faculty
which the busiest of young men have for finding time in which to present
themselves, well clothed and unbusiness-like, to at least one young
woman, is as remarkable and admirable as it is inexplicable. The
evenings which did not find Fred in Parson Wedgewell's parlor were few
indeed, and if, when he was with Esther, he did not talk quite as
sentimentally as he had done in the earlier days of his engagement, and
if he talked business very frequently, the change did not seem
distasteful to the lady herself. For the business of which he talked
was, in the main, a sort which loving women have for ages recognized as
the inevitable, and to which they have subjected themselves with a
unanimity which deserves the gratitude of all humanity. Fred talked of a
cottage which he might enter without first knocking at the door, and of
a partnership which should be unlimited; if he learned, in the course of
successive conversations, that even in partnerships of the most extreme
order many compromises are absolutely necessary, the lesson was one
which improved his character in the ratio in which it abased his pride.
The cottage grew as rapidly as the mill, and on his returns from various
trips for machinery there came with Fred's freight certain packages
which prevented their owner from appearing so completely the absorbed
businessman which he flattered himself that he seemed. Then the
partnership was formed one evening in Parson Wedgewell's own church, in
the presence of a host of witnesses, Fred appearing as self-satisfied
and radiant as the gainer in such transactions always does, while
Esther's noble face and drooping eyes showed beyond doubt who it was
that was the giver.
As the weeks succeeded each other after the wedding, however, no
acquaintance of the couple could wonder whether the gainer or the giver
was the happier. Fred improved rapidly, as the schoolboy improves; but
Esther's graces were already of mature growth, and rejoiced in their
opportunity for development. Though she could not have explained how it
happened, she could not but notice that maidens regarded her
wonderingly, wives contemplated her wistfully, frowns departed and
smiles appeared when she approached people who were usually considered
prosaic. Yet shadows sometimes stole over her face, when she looked at
certain of her old acquaintances, and the cause thereof soon took a
development which was anything but pleasing to her husband.
"Fred," said Esther one evening, "it makes me real unhappy sometimes to
think of the good wives there are who are not as happy as I am. I think
of Mrs. Moshier and Mrs. Crayme, and the only reason that I can see is,
their husbands drink."
"I guess you're right, Ettie," said Fred. "They didn't begin their
domestic tyranny in advance, as _you_ did--bless you for it."
"But why _don't_ their husbands stop?" asked Esther, too deeply
interested in her subject to notice her husband's compliment. "They must
see what they're doing, and how cruel it all is."
"They're too far gone to stop; I suppose that's the reason," said Fred.
"It hasn't been easy work for _me_ to keep my promise, Ettie, and I'm a
young man; Moshier and Crayme are middle-aged men, and liquor is simply
necessary to them."