“Papa! Ow! pa-pa!”
Again Tom hurried to the door, this time with Budge clinging around his neck. As the door opened, Toddie crept in on his hands and knees, exclaiming:
“De old bed wazh all empty, only ’cept me, an’ I kwawled down de stepsh ’cauzh I didn’t want to be loneshome no more. And Ize all empty too, and I wantsh somefin’ to eat.”
Helen went to the dining-room closet and brought in a piece of light cake.
“There goes all my good instructions,” groaned Mrs. Burton. “To think of the industry with which I have always labored to teach those children that it’s injurious to eat between meals, and, worse yet, to eat cake!”
“And to think of how you always ended by letting the children have their own way!” added Mr. Burton.
“Eating between meals is the least of two evils,” said Tom. “When a small boy is kept in bed with a sprained ankle, and on a short allowance of food—— Oh, dear! I see my subject nosing around again, Alice. Do you know that most of the wickednesses of children come from the lack of proper attention to their physical condition?”
“Save me! Pity me!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “I’m convinced already that I don’t know a single thing about children, and I’ll know still less if I take another lesson to-day.”
“Izh you takin’ lessons, Aunt Alish?” asked Toddie, who had caught a fragment of the conversation. “What book is you lynin’ fwom?”
“A primer,” replied Mrs. Burton; “the very smallest, most insignificant of A B C books.”