"Silly boy," said "Budder"; "how could it be a bear or a woof? Auntie said it was something pretty."
And when she had left off laughing, she told us.
"It was the other day," she said, "I was walking along one of the principal streets of Edinburgh, thinking to myself how bitterly cold it was for May. Spring has been late everywhere this year, but down here in the south, though you may think you have had something to complain of, you can have no idea how cold we have had it; and the long light days seem to make it worse somehow! Well, I was walking along quietly, when I caught sight of a poor little boy hopping across the road. I say 'hopping,' because it gives you the best idea of the queer way he got along, for he was terribly crippled, and his only way of moving was by something between a jerk and a hop on his crutches. And yet he managed to come so quickly! You would really have been amused to see the kind of fly he came with, and how cleverly he dodged and darted in and out of the cabs and carriages, for it was the busiest time of the day. And fancy, children, his poor little legs and feet from his knees were quite bare. That is not a very unusual sight in Edinburgh, and not by any means at all times one to call forth pity. Indeed, I know one merry family of boys and girls who all make a point of 'casting' shoes and stockings when they get to the country in summer, and declare they are much happier without. Their father and mother should be so, any way, considering the saving in hosiers' and shoemakers' bills. But in the case of my poor little cripple it was pitiful; for the weather was so cold, and the thin legs and feet so red, and the poor twisted-up one looked so specially unhappy.
"'Poor little boy,' I exclaimed to the lady I was with; 'just look at him. Why he has hopped all across the street merely for the pleasure of looking at the nice things in that window!'
"For by this time the boy was staring in with all his eyes at a confectioner's close to where we were passing.
"'Give him a penny, do,' said my friend, 'or go into the shop and buy him something.'
"We went close up to the boy, and I touched him on the shoulder. He looked up—such a pretty, happy face he had—and I said to him—
"'Well, my man, which shall I give you, a penny or a cookie?'
"He smiled brightly, but you would never guess what he answered. Like our 'honest little man' here," and Auntie patted Baby's head as she spoke, "he held out his hand—not a dirty hand 'considering'—and said cheerfully—
"'Plenty to buy some wi', thank ye, mem;' and spying into his hand I saw, children, one halfpenny."