"I'll come," said Fred, laughing, "and if I happen to be carrying a creel of lobsters, I suppose you won't set your dogs at me?"
"Oh, no, because father talks about the dignity of labour, and that would be the dignity of labour. And you know—'a man's a man for a' that.'"
"Bravo! Frank Fielding," cried the old fisherman, entering the room, "How I love your sentiments, my boy. Why they are noble—noble. Shake the old bard's hand."
"Now," said Toddie, "evelybody must hold his tongue, I'se goin' to 'cite a piece."
And this little waif and stray that the Atlantic waves had tossed up on the beach as if she had been seaweed, stepped boldly into the arena, that is, into the middle of the sanded floor.
She was a beautiful child, this Toddie, with large eyes, delicate features, and such a wealth of glossy hair that one could not but wonder how it could have grown on a head so young.
She held one wee arm aloft, and in slow and measured tones, with many a brief but impressive pause, spoke as follows:
"There once was a leetle, leetle dirl,
Who—lived—in a shoe,
And she had so many tsilden,
She—didn't—know—what to do.
But the Dood Lord sent a wild, wild stolm,
An' the waves wose—mountains high.
An lightenin's dleamed acloss the hills,
An' sunders shook the sky.
An' a dleat big whale dot vely sick,
Wi' the wobblin' o' the sea,
An' so he tumbled on the beach,
As dead as dead tould be.