Mr. Burton hurried into the back parlor to laugh comfortably, and without visible disrespect, while Mrs. Burton remembered that it was time to ring the cook and chambermaid to breakfast. A moment or two later she returned to the window, but the boys were gone; so was a large stone jar, which was one of those family heirlooms which are abhorred by men but loved as dearly by women as ancestral robes or jewels. Mrs. Burton had that mania for making preserves which posterity has inflicted upon even some of the brightest and best members of the race, and the jar referred to had been carefully scalded that morning and set in the sun, preparatory to being filled with raspberry jam.
“Harry,” said Mrs. Burton, “won’t you step out and get that jar for me? It must be dry by this time.”
Mr. Burton consulted his watch, and replied:
“I’ve barely time to catch the fast train to town, my dear, but the boys won’t fail to get back by dinner-time. Then you may be able to ascertain the jar’s whereabouts.”
Mr. Burton hurried from the front door, and his wife made no less haste in the opposite direction. The boys were invisible, and a careful glance at the adjacent country showed no traces of them. Mrs. Burton called the cook and chambermaid, and the three women took, each one, a roadway through the lightly wooded ground near the house. Mrs. Burton soon recognized familiar voices, and following them to their source, she emerged from the wood near the rear of the boys’s own home. Going closer, she traced the voices to the Lawrence barn, and she appeared before the door of that structure to see her beloved jar in the middle of the floor, and full of green tomatoes, over which the boys were pouring the contents of bottles labeled “Mustang Liniment” and “Superior Carriage Varnish.” The boys became conscious of the presence of their aunt, and Toddie, with a smile in which confidence blended with the assurance of success attained, said:
“We’s makin’ pickles for you, ’cause you told us a nysh little story. This is just the way mamma makes ’em, only we couldn’t make the stuff in the bottles hot.”
Mrs. Burton’s readiness of expression seemed to fail her, and as she abruptly quitted the spot, with a hand of each nephew in her own, Budge indicated the nature of her feelings by exclaiming:
“Ow! Aunt Alice! don’t squeeze my hand so hard!”
“Boys,” said Mrs. Burton, “why did you take my jar without permission?”
“What did you say?” asked Budge. “Do you mean what did we take it for?”