Waiting for a Pinch of Salt. Page 149.
“Miss, good Miss Brown, I—I—I mean Artie, Daisy and ——”
“Wait a moment, dearies,” interrupted the kind farmer’s wife, feeling relieved from her fears that Artie had fallen into the duck-pond or Daisy from the hay-mow, “you’ve run all the little breaths out of your pipes. Just rest yourselves, and then tell your Auntie and me.”
“Can’t wait, Ma’am, we’re losing time,” said Charlie.
“Oh, good Mr. Brown’s wife, won’t you please to give me, I mean Artie and my sister Daisy, a peck of salt?”
“No, Jack, ’tis a pinch of salt to put on the horse’s,—oh, dear! I mean”—and Rosie stopped.
“She means Artie’s and Daisy’s birds’ tails they are catching; that is, they are going to, when they get the salt.”
“Yes, yes, Pets, I understand,” and in less time than it takes me to tell it, the children were off, with generous “pinches” of salt, on the way to a large tree in the next meadow, where Artie and Daisy were guarding a little song sparrow.