DOWN THE STAIRS, DASHED TERRY
Then, still obeying the inexorable demands of the string, whose other end was attached to the collar of the dog, it meandered through the parlor, leaving a leg with the piano pedal as a memento of a trifling difference, attempted to ascend the chimney through the fireplace but succeeded only so far as to seriously compromise the positions of the andirons, lodged between the legs of an antique table to the complete prostration of the table itself, and leaving the seat of the chair among the table’s varied contents, struck a jardinière, which came down with a ceramic crash, flew to the dining-room, into a chair, upon and across the table, taking with it a cover with which for a moment or two it was seriously mixed, and went down the kitchen stairs, where it met Mrs. Burton returning from a conference with the greengrocer. As the chair was one of special lightness and exceeding cost, Mrs. Burton was naturally desirous of interviewing Terry; but the animal had evidently formed plans which he did not intend should be thwarted, so with a vicious snap he eluded her, dashed through the kitchen and sought the shady solitude of the forest.
Intuition and experience combined to suggest to Mrs. Burton the original causes of Terry’s excitement; so, waiting only a few moments, that she might be perfectly calm and righteously judicial, she started in search of the culprits. They were not in their room, though a heap of wet clothes and a general displacement of everything proved that they had been there since the chambermaid had put the room in order. A further search disclosed Toddie upon Mrs. Burton’s own bed, so soundly asleep that she had not the heart to wake him. Promptly assuming that Budge was the only culprit, she continued her search, and found him leaning out of a window in a little observatory on the top of the house. The rustle of his aunt’s dress aroused him, and, bending upon her a look of exquisite yet melancholy sensitiveness, he said:
“Aunt Alice, everybody must die, mustn’t they?”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Burton, “and if you had paid the debt of nature before destroying my pretty chair your earthly influence might have been less injurious than it has been this morning.”
“But, Aunt Alice,” said Budge, absorbed in his own thoughts, “do you see that graveyard way off yonder? It’s awful full of dead folks, ain’t it?”
“Very,” said Mrs. Burton; “but what they have to do with a ruined chair I am unable to see.”
“Well, what I want to know,” said Budge, still oblivious to everything but the matter that was occupying his mind—“what I want to know is, who’s goin’ to throw flowers into the last man’ grave, an’ who’s goin’ to make the hole that he’s put into? What if he should be me? I’d feel awful bothered to know how I’d have any funeral at all. I know what I’d do—I’d just pray the Lord to take me straight up to heaven, like he did with the good Elijah. Say, Aunt Alice, what drawed the chariot that Elijah went up in? Did them ravens do it that used to bring him his lunch?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Burton, “but no chariot would ever have come for him if he had been in the habit of breaking up chairs and tying pieces of them to dogs.”