True enough, the twins were coming around by the back way. They approached softly, and made a motion of warning to Mrs. Danby, as they drew nearer, for they could hear Fandy Danby's voice, and wished to enjoy the fun. Mrs. Danby, smiling and nodding, pointed to a place where they could stand unobserved and hear the sermon.
It was the hour for the afternoon "cleaning-up." Eight of the little Danbys, including Charity with Baby Jamie in her arms, had assembled to wash their hands and faces at the battered green pump under the shed, where, on a long, low bench, were two yellow earthenware basins, and a saucer containing a few fragments of brown soap, while on the wall hung a roller-towel that already was on very familiar terms with Danby faces and hands. The general toilet had been rather a noisy one, owing partly to the baby objecting to having soap in its eyes, and partly to the fact that too many required the services of the Danby roller at the same instant, to say nothing of Miss Helen insisting upon slapping the water in a most unladylike way, and so splashing Master Gregory.
This combination having brought matters to a crisis, Fandy had been inspired to mount a small step-ladder, and, with many original gestures, address the crowd in the following fashion:—
"Chil'ren! I'm ashamed of you! I don't know when I've been so—so umpressed with the badness of this family. How often, my hearers, do you 'spect me to stop my dressing to extort you! I didn't mean to preach no more sermons this week, but you do behave so awful bad, I must.
"Now, first, don't you know speakin' saucy is a sin? Don't you know it? It makes us hateful, an' it makes us cross, an' it makes people tell Ma. It ain't right for Chrisshen chil'ren to do such things. It don't never say in our Bible-lesson that folks can call peoples 'mean uglies' just for wantin' the roller. An' it don't say that a good Chrisshen child can say 'Pshaw for you!' for havin' not to make quite so much noise, which you, my beloved 'Gory, said just now to Charity.
"Now, we must be good an' perlite, if we want to do right and have things Chrissmas, an' if we want to be loved on earth and in heaven. (No, sir, that ain't talkin' big, and I do know what I mean, too.) I say, we must be perlite. We mussent get mad unless we can't help it. It's natural for big folks to rub our noses the wrong way when they wash our faces, an' to comb hair hard—they're born so. An' all we can do is to be patient, an' wait till we get big an' have chil'ren of our own.
FANDY "PREACHES A SERMON" TO HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
"But what I say—what I mean, what I—what I—(Now you, Gregory, give Helen back her dolly right away, or I'll come down to you!)—what I mean is, that we all ought to be good and perlite. It's wicked to be saucy. We ought to be able to stand one another. An' nudgin' is wicked, an' shovin' is wicked, an' makin' faces ain't the way to do. No more ain't bullyin', nor mockin', nor any of those things. I go in for bein' pleasant and kind, an' havin' fun fair; only, my beloved hearers, I can't do it all alone. If we'd all be good Chrisshen chil'ren, things would go better, an' there wouldn't be such a racket.