Monday evening was too late to begin the important paper for Uncle Ted. But on Tuesday the children were up with the lark, armed with a long ruled sheet, divided by lines across the other way, into what Ted called several "compartments," a pencil or two, for though Cissy could not make figures, she could make little strokes, each of which stood for a one something. The words at the head of the "compartments" comprised everything which, with the slightest probability, could be expected to journey along the highroad. Men, women, boys, girls, babies in perambulators, babies in nurses' arms; old women with baskets were considered a separate genus, and had a row to themselves; carts with one horse, waggons with two, donkeys, dogs, pigs, cats, wheelbarrows. And at one side Ted carefully marked the hour at which began and ended the "observations." For, alas! the children could not be all day at their post, though they did gravely purpose that they should take it in turn to go in to dinner, so that no passers-by should be unrecorded. But that mother could not agree to. Dinner must be eaten, and with as much deliberation and propriety as usual, or else what was an interest and a pleasure would have to be discouraged. And after all it was rather nice to have the paper exhibited and commented upon as they all sat round the luncheon-table, though Cissy looked as if she were not quite sure that she should not take offence for Ted, when one of the big people inquired why there wasn't a row for elephants and another for dancing-bears.
The long summer afternoon was spent in the same way. Never surely had such a delightful occupation for two small people brimming over with life and energy, been discovered. Two birds busied with arranging their nest could not have been more completely content.
"If this goes on," said the children's mother, laughing, when they did condescend to come in to tea, "I think we had better send a mattress and a pillow up to your seat, and let you stay there all night."
Ted and Cissy smiled, and in their hearts I rather think they were of opinion that what their mother proposed would be very nice. But, eager as they were, they were both very hungry, and it was evident that living in a tree did not destroy their appetite, for the quantity of slices of bread and butter which disappeared would have alarmed any one unaccustomed to the feats of little people in that way.
And tea over, off they set again. It was almost as if they were away on a visit somewhere, the house seemed so quiet, and the garden, so often at that time of day the scene of tremendous romps in which even nurse herself was coaxed to join, quite deserted. Unless—that is to say—you had passed under a certain tree and stood still to listen to the clatter going on overhead, though, thanks to the leafy branches, there was nothing to be seen.
"Can there be magpies up in that tree?" would, I think, have been your first idea. And then, listening a little more attentively, you would have come to think that whether human or feathered they were very funny magpies indeed.
"Fifteen, sixteen, that makes. Hurrah, sixteen dogs since ten o'clock this morning. And, let's see, seven old women with baskets, and——"
"Them wasn't all old," corrects the small voice of magpie number two; "Jessie wif the eggs isn't old."
"Never mind; if they've got baskets they should be old," replies Ted. "An old woman with a basket sounds right. Then there's five p'rambulators, oh, it is a long word to spell—it goes right out of its place into the other rows. I wish I'd just put 'babies in p'rams.' And then there's three pigs and horses, oh dear I can't count how many. It's getting too dark to see the strokes on the paper. I say, Cissy, just you get down and run in and ask for two or three dips. We can stick them up on the wall and have a beautiful lighting up, and then we can see everybody that passes."
Down clambered obedient Cissy—she was growing very alert by this time at making her way up and down—off she set to the house with her message.