“Aunt Alice,” said Budge, “do you know I don’t think much of your garden? There ain’t a turtle to be found in it from one end to the other, and no nice grassy place to slide down like there is at our house.”
“Can’t you understand, little boy,” replied Mrs. Burton, “that we arranged the house and grounds to suit ourselves, and not little boys who come to see us?”
“Well, I don’t think that was a very nice thing to do,” said Budge. “My papa says we ought to care as much about pleasing other folks as we do for ourselves. I didn’t want to make you that jar of pickles, but Tod said ’twould be nice for you, so I went and did it, instead of askin’ a man that drove past to give me a ride. That’s the way you ought to do about gardens.”
“Suppose you run out now,” said Mrs. Burton, “I told you not to come in until I called you.”
“But you see I came in for my top—I laid it down in the dining-room when I came in, and now it ain’t there at all. I’d like to know what you’ve done with it, and why folks can’t let little boys’s things alone.”
“Budge,” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, turning suddenly on the piano-stool, “I think there’ a very cross little boy around here somewhere. Suppose I were to lose something?”
“’Twas a three-cent top,” said Budge. “’Twasn’t only a something.”
“Suppose, then, that I were to lose a top,” said Mrs. Burton, “what do you suppose I would do if I wanted it very much?”
“You’d call the servant to find it—that’ what I want you to do now,” said Budge.
“I shouldn’t do anything of the kind. Try to think, now, of what a sensible person ought to do in such a case.”