But this Johnny was too much alarmed to notice, and, picking up the offender as if he had been made of glass, the amateur nurse felt him very carefully all over, to find out if any bones were broken!
When he came to the little sinner’s ribs, Phil made up his baby mind that he was being tickled instead of scolded, and roared again, but this time with laughter, in which Johnny could not help joining, though he was provoked both with his interesting charge and himself.
“You little rascal!” he said, catching Phil up, and rolling him on the sofa; “don’t you dare to wriggle off there till I straighten up the muss you’ve made—do you hear me?”
“Phil vely good boy now!” saying which, the baby folded his fat hands together, and actually sat still until the table was restored to order.
Johnny gave the whole of his mind to his business, after this, and when Mrs. Waring came back, she paused outside the window to look and listen, and she laughed as she had not laughed for many a day. For there was her “troublesome comfort,” on Johnny’s back, shouting and shrieking with laughter, while Johnny cantered up and down the room, rearing, bolting, plunging, and whinnying.
“I don’t know how to thank you enough, dear,” she said, gratefully, when she at last opened the door. “I’ve got my money, and bought all I shall need for three or four days, and the walk’s done me good, and you’ve given baby such a game of romps as he hasn’t had in a month of Sundays. Poor little soul, it goes to my heart to pen him up so, but how am I to help it? He’ll sleep like a top to-night, and so shall I. You tell your dear mother that I say she has a son to be proud of.”
Johnny colored high with pleasure, and plans for missionary work among unplayed-with babies began to flock into his mind. He said nothing of them, however, remembering, just in time, one of his father’s rules,—
“Never promise the smallest thing which you are not sure of being able to perform.”
So he only said, heartily,—
“I’m very glad if I’ve helped you, Mrs. Waring; he’s a jolly little chap, and it has really been good fun for both of us. But I ought to tell you—I began to study a little, when he seemed busy with his toys, and next thing I knew, he pulled off the table-cover and that large Bible, and it wasn’t my doings that it didn’t smash him!”