“Budge!” exclaimed Mr. Burton, sternly, and springing to his feet, “do you know who you are talking about? Don’t you know that your Aunt Alice has saved you from many a scolding, done you many a favor, and been your best friend?”
“Oh, yes,” said Budge, with at least a dozen inflections on each word, “but ev’ry day friends an’ Sunday friends are kind o’ different; don’t you think so? She can’t make whistles, or catch bullfrogs, or carry both of us up the mountain on her shoulders, or sing ‘Roll, Jordan.’”
“And do you expect me to do all these things to-day?”
“N—n—no, unless you should get well, an’ feel just like it; but we’d like to be with somebody who could do ’em if he wanted to. We like ladies that’s all ladies, but then we like men that’s all men, too. Aunt Alice is a good deal like an angel, I think, and you—well, you ain’t. An’ we don’t want to be with angels all the time until we’re angels ourselves.”
Mr. Burton turned over suddenly and contemplated the back of the lounge, while Budge continued:
“We don’t want you to get to be an angel, so what I want to know is, how to make you well. Don’t you think if I borrowed papa’ horse and carriage an’ took you ridin’ you’d feel better? I know he’d lend ’em to me if I told him you were goin’ to drive.”
“And if you said you would go with me to take care of me?” suggested Mr. Burton.
“Y—e—es,” said Budge, as hesitatingly as if such an idea had never occurred to him. “An’ don’t you think that up to the top of Hawksnest Rock an’ out to Passaic Falls would be the nicest places for a sick man to go? When you got tired of ridin’ you could stop the carriage an’ cut us a cane, or make us whistles, or even send us in swimming in a brook somewhere if you got tired of us.”
“H’m!” grunted Mr. Burton.
“An’ you might take fings to eat wif you,” suggested Toddie, “an’ when you got real tired and felt bad you might stop an’ have a little picnic. I fink dat would be dzust de fing for a man wif de toofache. And we could help you, lotsh.”