"Or how many old women with baskets, and how many without, passed down the road this morning—eh, Ted?" said his other uncle, laughing heartily.
"Yes, I suppose so," said Ted. "Are stick-sticks any good?" he inquired, consideringly.
"It's to be hoped so," said Uncle Ted.
A bright idea struck the little fellow. He must talk it over with Cissy. If only that delightful seat between the tree and the wall was arranged they might make "stick-sticks"! What fun, and how pleased Uncle Ted would be! Already Ted's active brain began to plan it all. They should have a nice big ruled sheet of paper and divide it into rows, as for columns of sums: one row should be for horses alone, and one for horses with carts, and one for people, and one for children, and another for dogs, and another for wheelbarrows perhaps. And then sometimes donkeys passed, and now and then pigs even, on their way to market—yes, a lot of rows would be needed. And at the top of the paper he would write in nice big letters "stick"—no, mother would tell him how to write it nicely, he knew that wasn't quite the real word, mother would spell it for him: "St—something—of what passed the tree." It would be almost like writing a book.
He was so eager about it that he could hardly finish his dinner. For a great deal was involved in his plan, as you shall hear.
In the first place, it became evident to him after an examination of the bits of wood in the unused coach-house, that there was nothing there that would do. He could get a nice little plank, a plank that would not scratch poor Cissy's legs or tear her frocks, from the carpenter, but then it would cost money, for Ted had gained some worldly wisdom since the days when he thought the kind shopkeepers spread out their wares for everybody to help themselves as they liked. And Ted was rather short of money, and Ted was of rather an independent spirit. He would much prefer not asking mother for any. The seat in the tree would be twice as nice if he could manage it all his own self, as Cissy would say.
Ted thought it all over a great deal, and talked about it to Cissy. It was a good thing, they agreed, that it was holiday-time just now, even though Ted had every day some lessons to do. And though Cissy was very little, it was, after all, she who thought of a plan for gaining some money, as you shall hear.
Some few times in their lives Ted and Cissy had seen Punch and Judy, and most delightful they thought it. Perhaps I am wrong in saying Cissy had seen it more than once, but Ted had, and he used to amuse Cissy by acting it over to please her. And I think it was from this that her idea came.
"Appose, Ted," she said the next day when they were out in the garden having a great consultation—"appose we make a show, and all the big people would give us pennies."
Ted considered for a minute. They were standing, Cissy and he, by the railing which at one side of their father's pretty garden divided it from some lovely fields, where sheep, with their dear little lambs skipping about beside them, were feeding. Far in the distance rose the soft blue outlines of a lofty hill, "our precious hill" Ted's mother used to call it, and indeed it was almost worthy of the name of mountain, and for this she valued it still more, as it seemed to her like a reminder of the mountain home she had loved so dearly. Ted's glance fell on it, and it carried back his thoughts to the mountain of his babyhood and the ogre stories mixed up with it in his mind. And then his thoughts went wandering away to his old "hymn book," still in a place of honour in his bookshelves, and to the fairy stories at the end of it—Cinderella and the others. He turned to Cissy with a beaming face.