Mrs. Bo-gardus’s head again cocked towards the left, and a slightly pained expression gathered between her brows.
“Isn’t it plant, my dear?” corrected Mrs. Hudson. “Since the first word is shoots it certainly must be an india-rubber plant?”
“No,” I said, “ball is right.”
“And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all,”
persisted Robin, bravely.
Mrs. Bo-gardus pursed her lips.
“Well, well,” concluded Mrs. Hudson, hurriedly. “This is a very pretty piece, no doubt, and we are much obliged; but Mrs. Bo-gardus can’t sit here all the afternoon listening to one little boy recite, when she might hear twenty any day she pleased, all with kindergarten training, too! There are some photographs we have planned to look over upstairs, so if you will excuse us——” And the two ladies, rising with majestic accord, swept from the room.
It was rather dampening, to be sure, but Bobsie bore it well. Only his lower lip trembled a little as he asked,—
“It couldn’t have been a rubber-plant, now could it, Ellie?” That is his pet name for me. He uses it when he stands in need of comfort.
“No, honey,” I answered. “It certainly couldn’t.”