You see she didn't know the Clown belonged to Sidney, and not to either Mirabell or Arnold.
"Come on, we'll have some fun wif him!" said Liza Ann to her brother.
And then, while their mother put the clothes to soak, the children played with the Calico Clown. They were good and gentle children, and the gay toy did not in the least mind clanging his cymbals for them or doing his funny dance. He jiggled and joggled his arms and legs, and went through such funny antics that Jim and Liza Ann laughed again and again.
"Po' li'l honey lambs!" said Mandy with a sigh, as she bent over the wash tub. "I wish dey had some toys of dere own. But den I'se got good clean and soft watah to wash wif, an' dat's a blessin'! Lots of folks hasn't got only hard watah, what won't make no suds."
After the clothes had been put to soak in a tub Mandy dried her hands and sat and looked at Liza Ann and Jim playing with the Calico Clown.
"Come now, you'd better get ready to take him back," she said to Jim, after a while.
"Does you mean to take him back where you got de basket of wash,
Mammy?" asked the colored boy.
"Yes," his mother answered. "You know de big green house. You's been dere befo', honey. You go dere now, Jim—tisn't late yet—an' you take back dis Clown. Tell Mirabell or Arnold dat it got in de wash wif dere daddy's pocket hankowitches."
"All right," said Jim, with a sigh. "I will. But I suah does wish we could keep him!"
"So do I," sighed Liza Ann in a low voice.