“What are you boys and your auntie going to do with yourselves to-day?” asked Mr. Burton, anxious to clear away the cloud of reticence which, since the night before, had been marring his matrimonial sky.
“I guess,” said Budge, looking out through the window, “it’s going to rain; so the best thing will be for Aunt Alice to tell us stories all day long. We never do get enough stories.”
“Just the thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, her face coming from behind the clouds, and with more than its usual radiance.
“Hazh you got plenty of stories in your ’tomach?” asked Toddie, poising his fork in air, regardless of the gravy which trickled down upon his hand from the fragment of meat at the end.
“RAGGED, DIRTY MEN TALK TO MY PAPA SOMETIMES”
“Dozens of them,” said Mrs. Burton. “I listened to stories in Sunday-school for about ten years, and I’ve never had anybody to tell them to.”
“I don’t think much of Sunday-school stories,” said Budge, with the air of a man indulging in an unsatisfactory retrospect. “There’s always somethin’ at the end of ’em that spoils all the good taste of ’em—somethin’ about bein’ good little boys.”
“Aunt Alice’s stories haven’t any such endings,” said Mr. Burton, with a sneaking desire to commit his wife to a policy of simple amusement. “She knows that little boys want to be good, and she wants to see them happy, too.”
“Aunt Alice will tell you only what you will enjoy, Budge—she promises you that,” said Mrs. Burton. “We will send Uncle Harry away right after breakfast and then you shall have all the stories you want.”