"Columbus! you crazy child! He's not at all safe even for a man to ride him. Understand, my dear, that's tabooed."
"Oh, auntie!" cried Cricket, clasping her hands, tragically, "If you've any filial affection for me, you won't say that! I do so love to ride a horse bareback. Mopsie is dear, but I like something fiercer."
"If you have any filial affection for me, my dear," returned auntie, laughing, "you will say no more about it. You know I've undertaken to restore all you children, as uninjured as possible, to your father and mother. Riding half-broken horses bareback is not exactly the safest thing in the world."
"What let's do, then?" asked Edna.
"I'm going to take grandma for a nice long ride after breakfast. Suppose two of you come with me, and the other two ride or drive Mopsie and Charcoal," proposed auntie.
"All right. Suppose you and I go in the carriage, Eunice," said Edna, "and let the children take the ponies."
"The children, indeed!" said Hilda, bridling. "I'm as old as you, Edna."
"Cricket's the only trundle-bed trash," said Archie, pulling her hair.
"Goodness me, auntie, if you'd whipped him a little when he was trundle-bed trash, he might have been very much nicer now," said Cricket, pulling away, and, by her hasty movement, upsetting her glass of milk. "There, now! I've done it again. Please excuse me, auntie."
"It was not your fault, dear. It's that bad boy of mine that must be blamed. I read a story a little while ago of a plan where all the small boys were put into a barrel when they were six, and fed and educated through the bung-hole, and not let out till they were twenty-one. Would you like to live there?"