“W-w-what were they doing?” said Titus, seriously. He did not dare to jest upon such a subject, though sometimes his boyish soul was sorely tempted to do so.
“Ellen, she had a little basket in her hands, and she was going to pick blueberries,” replied Bethany. “She said, ‘Bethany, come with us.’”
“And did you go?” asked Titus.
“’Course I did; I, and Ellen, and Susie set out. We hadn’t gone far when we met a lion.”
“A-a-a lion!” ejaculated Titus.
“Yes, a truly lion,” said Bethany, smiling enough to show two rows of white little teeth; “a kind Mr. Lion. Said he, ‘Little girls, come with me. I’ll show you where the blueberries grow.’ Ellen said, ‘Mr. Lion, how do you know where the blueberries grow, because we haven’t any lions in America.’ Mr. Lion said he had run away from a circus because the men beat him and fired pistols at him, and he was living on blueberries, and they were very sweet.”
“N-n-now, Bethany,” interposed Titus, “a lion is a meat-eating animal; it couldn’t live on berries.”
“But, boy,” she replied (she often called him boy), with an obstinate little shake of her head, “this was a ghost lion.”
“A dream lion, you mean,” said Titus.
She turned her clear eyes on the Judge. “You understand me, Daddy Grandpa?”