“Goodness!” growled Mr. Burton, rubbing his eyes, as his wife pulled the bell-cord leading to the servants’s room. “To whom do we owe money?”
“Oh, I’m afraid Helen is worse, or the baby is poorly!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, opening the chamber-window, and shouting, “Who is there?”
“Me,” answered a voice easily recognizable as that of Budge.
“Me, too!” screamed a thinner but equally familiar voice.
“We’ve got somethin’ awful lovely to tell you, Aunt Alice,” shouted Budge. “Let us in, quick!”
“Lovelier dan cake or pie or candy!” screamed Toddie.
One of the servants hurried down the stairs, the door opened, light footsteps hurried up the steps, and the dog Terry, pausing for no morning caress from his master, hurried under the bed for refuge, from which locality he expressed his apprehension in a dismal falsetto. Then, with a tramp which only children can execute, and which horses cannot approach in noisiness, came Budge and Toddie. Arrived at their aunt’s chamber-door, each boy tried to push the other away, that he might himself tell the story of which both were full. At last, from the outer side of the door:
“Dear little bydie’s gone to hebben.”
“Yes,” said Budge, “the angels took him away.”
“An’ de little ants all went to hebben wif him,” said Toddie.