For reply, Bobby flung both arms about her neck and squeezed with all his might until he squeezed a sob right out of her throat. She took him up in her arms and carried him out into a room with a big shiny red table with two red chairs by it. Then she rang a bell and soon a girl with a little white apron came in.
"Sarah, bring me a glass of milk, some bread and butter and jam."
"Why does that girl wear a little white apron?" asked Bobby. "Is she a 'tendant?"
"No, she's the maid," replied the lady.
The girl seemed hardly to have had time to leave the room before she was back, bringing on a tray the bread, the milk, two little cakes of butter and a dish all ready to run over with red jam. The lady put lots and lots of butter on the bread, besides all the jam it could hold without running over the edges, and watched Bobby eat it all up. She didn't tell him to pick up the crumbs,—just kept smiling at him and asked if he could eat another piece. Of course he could! But, as it happened, he couldn't, for he hadn't eaten half of it when the prickling in his eyelids got so bad he had to close them.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in a little white bed in a little white room, and there—it couldn't be! He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Yes, it was! A little train with an engine and a whole string of cars! He looked around.
In one corner of the room stood a baseball bat with a catcher's glove, and there on the little stand by the window was a box all full of marbles, "glassies" and agates and many other kinds. He felt queer and looked down at himself and found he no longer had on his own clothes but a nice clean nighty.
"What made you wake, dear?"
He twisted his head and there sat the Lady Who Likes Little Boys, smiling at him.