"Sit down, sit down, children," said Mrs. Devering in a quiet voice. "Not another word, please, from anybody till every boy and girl is seated."
The children were on fire. Their eyes flashed, their tongues were going, but they obeyed their mother.
Biddy not liking my slippery back had shifted her position to a stick laid crosswise in the lilacs and she clucked in my ear, "Those children love their pets. They hate to see us go to the Good-Bye House."
Struck by the name, I asked, "What is that?"
"It's the place where hens walk in after tid-bits in somebody's hand and never walk out again. Nothing hurts them. They just stop eating and go to another poultry yard."
I thought this over a minute. Probably the Deverings had some very merciful way of killing their stock; then I listened to Mrs. Devering, who was saying, "Is everybody still? Now you may go on, Dallas."
However, Mr. Devering interrupted, "There's nothing much to tell. We found your Lammie-noo, bairns, and he is at present in the woodshed in his usual sleeping place."
Another rain of questions fell on his devoted head. "Where had he found Lammie-noo? Was he hungry? Why had he left the sheep?"
"There you have me," said Mr. Devering with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "Why do human lambs and sheep and goats and kids do the queer things they do? He's home anyway—Mother, what have you been doing this afternoon?"
The children turned to Dallas. They didn't wish to talk about anything but the lamb, and my young master, whose cheeks had been getting redder and redder, and whose eyes had been devouring the faces of these lively children, burst now into a flood of talk.