Fanny had come to spend the day with Sallie. She was about a year older than her cousin; she had the same amiable, affectionate ways, and used almost as many long words, so they got on together famously.
It was raining a little, and Fanny said the mud in the streets was very stickery, and she had hard work to keep her boots clean. "I declare," she continued, "such very dirty streets are only fit for esquarians."
"Esquarians!" said Sallie, "what kind of an animal is that? Pigs?"
"My patience!" said Fanny, "did you never hear of esquarian exercise? I take it every day at Mr. Disbrow's. It is riding on horseback."
"Oh!" said Sallie, rubbing her chin, "of course. I was a perfect goose not to know that. I wish, when the streets are muddy, we could fly like birds through the air: how pleasant it must be to be dangling in the air, with nothing to do but stare at the sun! I would not come down for a week. Just fancy! what perfect happiness!"
"And no lessons to learn," said Fanny. "Now, there's grammar—I hate it like pepper, and the hard words in the dictionary nearly discolates my jaw. You ought to be thankful, Sallie, that you don't go to school; for my part, I am always glad when 'chatterday' comes, as you call it."
Sallie knew better than that, but she called Saturday chatterday, because Fanny almost always spent that day with her, and they chattered so much you would hardly believe but what they had breakfasted on two or three dictionaries apiece, and each word was undergoing digestion.
"I think I should like to go to Mr. Abbott's school," said Sallie; "mamma says that they have an intermittent of five minutes in every hour. Only think! you can talk to everybody, or walk with anybody, or put your head in your desk, or eat candy, or drink water all the time, or never stop laughing, or anything else you please till the five minutes are over. That's the school for me. I should think he would have a million of scholars. I am sure if I studied all the time, my head would be cracked in a week. Why, Fanny, I tried to say the alphabet backward the other evening, and it fatwigged me so I had to go to bed."
Here Sallie's mother gave a little laugh, which was instantly changed into a smothered groan, for the laughing hurt her head, that it seemed as if a whole regiment of dragoons was galloping through her brain; but the long words and the wrong words sounded so funny, and the children acted and talked so much like two old ladies over a cup of tea, it was not human nature to keep from being amused; and, in fact, their comical prattle acted like a fairy talisman or distant music; it soothed her, and made her in a measure forget her pain.
Sallie heard only the groan, and coming softly to the bed, she whispered: "Dear mamma, did we talk too loud? I meant to be as moute as a muce. I mean as mute as a mouse."