The performance received great applause and amid the jests and laughter all turned to follow the summons to breakfast; Herbert restraining the little ones long enough to adjure them to: “Mind, you’ve promised! And you know what happened to some folks you’re named for! No, I shouldn’t have said that, poor innocents! I mean you must do what I told you or you’ll lose what I promised.”
“Yep. We’s do it, we’s do it! I wants my brekkus!” answered one, while the other echoed: “Brekkus, brekkus!”
Herbert placed them at a small low table in the corner where Dinah had decided they must eat, or “take deir meals; fo’ as fo’ eatins, dey’s cwyin’ fo’ dem all de whole endu’in time! ’Peahs lak dem li’l ones nebah would get filled up an’ nebah had ernough yet in dis yere world.”
Yet once at table nobody could find fault with their behavior, except for the extreme rapidity with which they stowed away their rations. They seemed afraid to drop a crumb or mess themselves in any way and the furtive looks they shot out from beneath their long lashes were pitiful, as if they feared their food would be snatched from them and themselves punished with blows. That many blows had been administered, Dinah had early found out, since when bathing them she saw the scars upon their poor little bodies.
This had been sufficient to reconcile her to the extra care and labor their presence imposed upon her; for labor, indeed, they caused. For instance: stealing into the kitchen where Aunt Malinda had set upon the hearth a big pan of bread “sponge,” to rise, they industriously dotted its top with lumps of coal from the hod, in imitation of a huckleberry pudding which had appeared at table. They even essayed to eat the mixture; but finding this impracticable set to work to force one another down into the pan of dough—with sufficient success to ruin the new suits they wore as well as Aunt Malinda’s “risin’.” Having discovered that sugar was sweet they emptied a jar of what looked like it into a fine “floating island” and turned the custard to brine. They hid Ephraim’s glasses, and Dinah’s bandana; they unloosed the dogs, let the chains be fastened ever so securely; they opened the gate to the “new meadow” and let the young cattle wander therein; and with the most innocent, even angelic expressions, they plotted mischief the livelong day. But they redeemed all their wickedness by their entire truthfulness. Despite their handicap of names, they acknowledged every misdemeanor and took every punishment without a whimper.
“They’re regular little imps! But, alanna, what’d this big house be widout ’em and their pranks?” cried poor Norah, laughing and frowning together, when called upon for the third time that morning to change the youngsters’ clothes; the last necessity arising from the fact that they had filled the bathtub and taken a glorious dip without the formality of removing their garments. “You’re the plague of my life, so you are; but poor motherless darlin’s, I can’t but love you! And sorra the day, when him ’t you belongs to comes for you again!”
When that morning’s meal was over, the Master planned their day as had become his habit. Said he:
“A circus day and the first day of the county fair, as this is, will crowd the streets of the city with all sorts of teams and people. I’ve decided not to risk Mrs. Calvert’s horses in Newburgh to-day. We can all go up by train and have no anxiety about anything. It’s but a down-hill walk, if a rather long one, from here to our own station, and in town there’ll be plenty of stages to carry us to the grounds. Jim has consented to ride over on horseback early and secure our places on the front row of seats, if this is possible. I’ve seen no reserved seats advertised, but I don’t like those insecure upper benches—or boards—of the tiers of scaffolding, where a fellow has to swing his feet in space or jab his toes into the back of the spectator below. Besides, I always did like to be close to the ‘ring’ when I go to the circus.”
“O, Teacher! As if you ever went!” cried Alfaretta, giggling.