"I'm the eldest," thought Lancey. "I think it's only fair I should get the mushrooms for Mamma's birthday."
"Lancey's bigger and stronger than I am," thought Dick. "If he went with me, he'd gather ever so many more, and Mamma wouldn't think it was me at all that had got them."
Monday morning came. The boys slept in separate rooms at Auntie's. Each had a tiny dressing-room with a sofa-bed, so it was easy to get up and dress without "brother" knowing. Lancey was first, but it took him some little time to find Griffith, and to ask him again where to go, which he had partly forgotten. Dick was luckier, for Nicholls was waiting for him, and took him by what he called a short cut, to the field he had described, and helped him over the hedge, telling him the mushrooms grew thickest "a bit up the field."
Up the field trotted Dick, but he had not gone far before he stopped short in surprise. Who was that coming towards him from the other end?
And "who can that be?" thought the new-comer, as a small, stout figure caught his eye—a round, brown-holland little person, not unlike a mushroom button on two legs. "I do believe," he said aloud, "I do believe it's Dick."
"I do believe," said Dick. "I do believe it's Lancey."
They stared at each other for a few minutes, not quite sure what to say or do. Then they thought better of it and burst out laughing.
"It's no good doing without each other," said both together.
The mushrooms were plentiful, and the gathering of them proved quite as nice as Mamma had told them. And it was two very happy little boys who carried up a splendid plateful with "many happy returns" to her door that morning.