Budge closed his eyes again. Mrs. Burton picked him up tenderly, sat upon a large stone, rocked back and forth, kissed him repeatedly, cried over him, while Toddie turned upon his stomach, surveyed the scene with apparent satisfaction, and said:
“Say, Aunt Alish, it’s djolly to be a shotted soldier.”
Budge slowly recovered, put his arm around his aunt tightly, and said:
“Oh, Aunt Alice, ’twas awful!”
“Tell me all about it, dear, when you feel well enough. Where have you been all day? Aunty’s heart has been almost broken about you.”
“Why, you see, we wanted to do something nice for you, ’fore we went home to stay, ’cause you’ve been so nice to us. Why, when we talked about it, we couldn’t think of a single unpleasant thing you’d done to us—though I’m sure you done a lot. Anyhow, we couldn’t ’member any.”
“’Cept sayin’ ‘Don’t!’s lotzh of timesh,” said Toddie.
“Well,” said Budge, “Tod thought ’bout that, but we made up our minds perhaps we needed that said to us. An’ we couldn’t think of anything nicer than to get you some wild flowers. Ev’rybody’s got tame flowers, you know, so we thought wild ones would be nicer. An’ we thought we could get ’em ’fore breakbux if we’d hurry, so off we came right up to the foot of the mountains, but there wasn’t any. I guess they wasn’t awake yet, or else they’d gone to sleep. Then we didn’t know what to do.”
“’Cept get you some bych [birch] bark,” said Toddie.
“Yes,” said Budge; “but birch bark is to eat, an’ not to look at; an’ we wanted to give you somethin’ you could see, an’ remember us a few days by.”