“Ow!” he exclaimed as he picked himself up, and relieved himself of a mouthful of mud. “Did you see my back come up an’ me walk down the mountain on my mouth? I think a snake would be ashamed of himself to see how easy it was. I didn’t try a bit, I just went slip, slop, bunk! to the bottom.”
“An’ you didn’t get scolded for dytyin’ your clothes, either.” said Toddie. “Let’ sing ‘Gloly, Gloly, Hallehelyah.”
The subject of dirt upon juvenile raiment began to trouble the mind of Mrs. Burton. Could it be possible that children had a natural right to dirtier clothing than adults, and without incurring special blame? Was dirtiness sinful? Well, yes—that is, it was disgusting, and whatever was disgusting was worse in the eyes of Mrs. Burton than what was sinful. Could children be as neat as adults? Had they either the requisite sense, perception or the acquired habit of carefulness? Again Mrs. Burton went into a study of the brownest description, while the children improved her moments of preoccupation to do all sorts of things which would have seemed dreadful to their aunt but were delightful to themselves. At length, however, they reached the Burton dining-table, and managed a series of rapid disappearances for whatever was upon it.
BUDGE LOST HIS BALANCE
“Aunt Alice,” said Budge, after finishing his meal, “what are you going to do to make us happy this afternoon?”
“I think,” said Mrs. Burton,” I shall allow you to amuse yourselves. I shall be quite busy superintending the baking. Our cook has only recently come to us, you know, and she may need some help from me.”
“I fought bakin’ wazh alwaysh in mornin’?” said Toddie. “My mamma says dat only lazy peoplesh bakesh in affernoonzh.”
“The cook was too busily engaged otherwise this morning, Toddie,” said Mrs. Burton. “Besides, people bake mornings because they are compelled to; for, when they put bread to rise overnight, they must bake in the morning. But there is a new kind of yeast now that lets us make our bread whenever we want to, within a couple of hours from the time of beginning.”
“Do you know, Aunt Alice,” said Budge, “that we can bake? We can—real nice. We’ve helped mamma make pies an’ cakes lots of times, only hers are big ones an’ ours are baby ones.”