“That’s easier said than done,” replied Little Mr. Thimblefinger, fidgeting about a little. “You have to take the tales as they come. Sometimes one will pop into your head in spite of yourself. You remember it just because you didn’t like it when you first heard it.”
“Tell us one, anyway, just to pass away the time,” said Sweetest Susan.
“If I tell you one,” Little Mr. Thimblefinger replied, “I’ll not promise it will be one that I like. That would be promising too much. But the talk about the Moon, that I heard before I dozed off just now, reminded me of a tale I heard when I was a good deal smaller than I am now.
“Once upon a time there was a man who had two sons. They were twins, but they were just as different from each other as they could possibly be. One was dark, and the other was light complected. One was slim, and the other was fat. One was good, and the other was what people call bad. He was lazy, and full of fun and mischief. They grew up that way until they were nineteen or twenty years old. The good boy would work hard every day, or pretend to work hard, and then he’d go back home and tell his mother and father that his brother hadn’t done a stroke of work. Of course, this made the old people feel very queer. The mother felt sorrowful, and the father felt angry. This went on, until finally, one day, the father became so angry that he concluded to take his bad son into some foreign country, and bind him out to some person who could make him work and cure him of his mischievousness. In those days people sometimes bound out their children to learn trades and good manners and things of that sort.”
“I wish dey’d do it now,” exclaimed Drusilla. “Kaze den I wouldn’t hafter be playin’ nuss, an’ be gwine in all kind er quare places whar you dunner when ner whar you kin git out.”
“Stuff!” cried Buster John. “Why don’t you be quiet and listen to the story?”
“It go long too slow fer ter suit me,” said Drusilla in a grumbling tone.
“Well,” remarked Mr. Thimblefinger, turning to Buster John, “you’ve come mighty close to telling a part of the tale I had in my mind.”
“I don’t see how,” replied Buster John with some surprise.
“You said ‘stuff!’” responded Mr. Thimblefinger, “and that’s a part of my story. If you listen, you’ll soon find out. As I was saying, people in old times bound out their sons to some good man, who taught them a good trade or something of that kind. Well, this man that I was telling you about took his bad son off to a foreign country, and tried to find some one to bind him out to. They traveled many days and nights. They went over mountains and passed through valleys. They crossed plains, and they went through the wild woods.