"Read aloud to us," suggested grandma, "and perhaps Eunice will hold the wool for me while you do."
Cricket liked to read aloud, and she got a book very willingly.
"Here's a lovely story," she said, "all about battles and fighting, and exciting things. 'How Captain Jack Won His Epauplets.'"
"Won his—what?" asked grandma, holding her ball suspended.
"His epauplets. He was just a plain, every-day soldier, you know, to start with."
"Oh! won his epaulets, you mean," said grandma, gravely.
"Won his—oh, of course! how stupid of me!" looking more closely at the word. "Now I've always thought that word was epauplets, grandma, truly I did."
"Go on and begin," said Eunice; "how did he win them?"
The reading proceeded quietly for a time. Eunice held the wool, grandma wound it off, and Zaidee and Helen played tonka on the piazza steps. Tonka was a little Japanese game on the order of jackstones, only, instead of hard, nobby stones, that spoil the dimpled knuckles, tiny bags of soft, gay silk, half full of rice, are used. Six little bags are made with the ends gathered, and one more, the tonka, is made flat and square of some different coloured silk, to distinguish it, as the gay little bags fly up and down. It was a very favourite amusement with all the children. Eliza was with Kenneth, and auntie was lying down, for the poor baby had been wakeful and in much pain the night before, and auntie had had little sleep.
Nearly an hour slipped by, when suddenly grandma stopped Cricket.