“Oh, dear!” said Budge. “I wish I was a little boy in China, an’ just gettin’ up.”
“So does I,” said Toddie; “’cause den you would have a tay-al on your head an’ I could pull it!”
The boys retired, and Mrs. Burton broke her reticence so far as to tell her husband the story she had heard in the morning, and to insist that he was to arise early enough in the morning to unearth the buried bird and throw it away.
“It’s perfectly dreadful,” said she, “that those children should be encouraged in making trifling applications of great truths, and I am determined, as far as possible, to prevent the effects by removing the causes.”
And her husband put on an exasperating smile and shook his head profoundly.
CHAPTER III
The sun of the next morning arose at the outrageously unfashionable hour that he affects in June, but Mrs. Burton was up before him. Her husband had attended a town meeting the night before, and the forefathers of the hamlet had been so voluble that Mr. Burton had not returned home until nearly midnight. He needed rest, and his wife determined that he should sleep as long as possible; but there were things dearer to her than even the comfort of her husband, and among these were the traditions she had received concerning things mystical. She had an intuition that her nephews would examine the grave of the bird they had interred two days before, and she dreaded to listen to the literal conversation and comments that would surely follow. Had the bird been a human being, the remarks of its tender-hearted little friends would have seemed anything but materialistic to Mrs. Burton; but it was only a bird, and the lady realized that to answer questions as to the soullessness of an innocent being and the comparative value of characterless men and women was going to be no easy task.
She therefore perfected a plan which should be fair to all concerned; she would arouse her husband only when she heard her nephews moving; then she would engage the young men in conversation while her husband desecrated the grave. She would have saved considerable trouble by locking the young men in their chamber and allowing her husband to slumber content, but having failed to remove the key on the advent of the boys they had found use for it themselves, and no questioning had been able to discover its whereabouts. Meanwhile the boys were quiet, and Mrs. Burton devoted the peaceful moments to laying out the day in such a manner as to have the least possible trouble from her nephews.
A violent kicking at the front door and some vigorous rings of the bell aroused the lady from her meditation and her husband from his dreams, while the dog Terry, who usually slept on the inner mat at the front door, began to howl piteously.