“Let your little boy and girl ride in our carriage,” begged Robert Day, seizing on this relief from monotony.
“Yes do,” said his grandmother, turning her glasses upon the little boy and girl. Aunt Corinne had been inspecting them as they stood at their father's heels, and bestowing experimental smiles on them. The boy was a clear brown-eyed fellow with butternut trousers up to his arm-pits, and a wool hat all out of shape. The little girl looked red-faced and precise, the color from her lips having evidently become diluted through her skin. Over a linsey petticoat she wore a calico belted apron. The belt was as broad as the length of aunt Corinne's hand, for in the course of the morning aunt Corinne furtively measured it. Although it was June weather, this little girl also wore stout shoes and yarn stockings.
“Well, they might get in if they won't crowd you,” assented their father. “You're all to take dinner with us, my wife says.”
The children were hoisted up the steps, which they climbed with agile feet, as if accustomed to scaling high cart wheels. Bobaday sat by his grandmother, and the back seat received this addition to the party without at all crowding aunt Corinne. She looked the boy and girl over with great satisfaction. They were near her own age.
“Do you play teeter in the woods?” she inquired with a fidget, by way of opening the conversation.
The boy rolled his eyes towards her and replied in a slow drawl, sometimes they did.
Robert Day then put it to him whether he liked moving.
“I like to ride the leaders for fawther,” replied the boy.
“What's your name?” inquired aunt Corinne, directing her inquiry to both.
The little girl turned redder, answering in a broad drawl like her brother, “His name's Jonathan and mine's Clar'sy Ellen.”