“Yes, Dee, you are a bullabulloo. Auntie Mard’rit don’t know it, and you don’t know it; but you are.”
This idea was so hopelessly dreadful that poor little Dee could control himself no longer. He dropped his apronful of blocks upon the floor, and burst into a howl of despair.
Margaret flew to the rescue, and, lifting him in her arms, carried him off to the window, muttering soothing denials of his remotest connection with bullabulloos. When he was in some slight measure comforted, Margaret called Amy to her and rebuked her sternly for teasing her little brother. What was her amazement to see Amy, as soon as she had finished, look up at her with the same serious gaze, and say, gravely:
“Auntie Mard’rit, he is a bullabulloo. You don’t know it, and Dee don’t know it; but he is.”
At this poor Dee began to howl again, refusing to be comforted, until it occurred to Margaret to suggest that if he was a bullabulloo Amy must be one, too, as she was his sister. This idea, once mastered, proved consoling, and Dee stopped crying. Margaret, to try to banish the remembrance of his trouble, turned him around to the window and called his attention to the children next door, who were running about the back yard in the rain and apparently enjoying it immensely. Ethel and Amy had joined them at the window, the latter standing on tip-toe to look.
“That’s Jack and Cora,” she said, still grasping her doll with one arm, while she held on to the window-ledge with the other. “Oh, Auntie Mard’rit, they’re such awful bad children. They don’t mind their mamma nor nuthin’. You jes’ ought to see how bad they are. I jes’ expeck they’ll all grow up to be Yankees.”
Margaret burst into a peal of laughter.
“What makes you think they’ll grow up to be Yankees, Amy?” she said. “Did anybody ever tell you so?”
“No, Auntie Mard’rit, but they’re so awful bad; and if they’re that bad when they’re little, I bet they will grow up to be Yankees.”
At this point Mrs. Guion entered, and Margaret related the story to her with great zest.