Bobbert’s uncle fell upon the book. “By George!” he said, “but that’s a beauty! Rather wasted on Bobbert, isn’t it? Doesn’t know an ostrich from a canary, does he?”
“Well, that’s what Father Robertson wants him to learn!” they cried in chorus.
He nodded doubtfully. “Pity he can’t come in and help,” he suggested, “he’d enjoy this rumpus.”
They stared at him in consternation.
“Why, Francis Robertson, what are you thinking of? Have Bobbert help on his own tree? Are you crazy?”
“I suppose it wouldn’t do,” he admitted, “but you see that’s just what a little fellow likes—all the noise and fuss and running about and the—smells,” he added vaguely.
“The smells?” demanded Bobbert’s mother.
“The hemlock and the candy and the new smell of all the things,” he persisted.
“In short,” said the fat one with the yellow mustache, looking up from a box of many-colored baubles with which he and Aunt Helena were playing in undisguised joy, “just what we like!”
“Precisely,” remarked Uncle Frank.