“I’d have all your marbles,” Toddie answered, promptly, “and the goat-cawwiage would be all mine. Gwon!”
“Well, the Lord told Moses about it, an’ Moses told the folks; an’ he told ’em all to kill a little lamb, an’ dip their fingers in the blood, an’ make a cross on their door-posts, so when the angel came along an’ saw it he wouldn’t kill the biggest boy in their houses. An’ that night down came the angel, an’ everybody woke up an’ cried awful—worse than you did when you fell down-stairs the other day, because all the biggest died. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearin’ papas an’ mammas cryin’.”
“Did dey all have funerals den?”
“Of course.”
“Gwacious! Den the little ’Gyptian boys dat didn’t get killed could look at deaders all day long! What did Pharo’s do ’bout it den?”
“He sent right after Moses an’ his brother, in a hurry, an’ he told ’em that he’d been a bad king—just as if they didn’t know that already! An’ he told ’em to take all the Izzyrelites, an’ all their things, an’ go right straight away—he was in such a hurry that he didn’t even invite Moses to the funeral, though he had a dead biggest boy himself. An’ all the Egyptian people came too, and begged the Izzyrelites to hurry an’ go—they didn’t see what they was waitin’ for. They was so glad to get rid of ’em that they lent ’em anything they wanted.”
“Pies an’ cakes?”
“No!” said Budge, contemptuously. “You don’t s’pose folks that’s goin’ off travelin’ for forty years is goin’ to think ’bout eatin’ first thing, do you? They borrowed clothes, an’ money, an’ everything else they could get, an’ left the Egyptians awful poor. An’ off they started.”
“Did they have a ’cursion train?”
“No! All the excursion trains in the world couldn’t have held such lots of people. They rode on camels and donkeys, but lots of ’em walked.”