“Yes, in course I do,” said Mary. “But papa were a little boy then, so I might call him the poor little boy.”
“That’s right, Mary,” said her father. “Stick up for yourself when you know what you mean to say. Yes, indeed, I did feel a very poor little boy that day: the thought of it has always made me so sorry for children who are lost, or think they’re lost. It’s a dreadful feeling.”
“Papa,” said Mary—she was trotting beside her father, holding his hand very tight,—“I think, please, I don’t want never to go to London, for fear I should get losted; and, please, never take Leigh or Artie either—not to London—’cos, you see, it was when you was a little boy your papa nearly losted you, and Leigh and Artie are little boys.”
“Rubbish, Mary,” said Leigh. “I’m eight, and papa was only six, not much bigger than you are now. If I was with papa in London at a shop I could find my way home ever so far; there’s always people in the street you can ask. It’s not like getting lost when there’s nobody to tell you the way.”
“The worst kind of getting lost,” said Artie, “is in the snow. Up on those mountains, you know, where the snow comes down so thick that you can’t see, and then it gets so deep that you are buried in it.”
“Oh, how dedful!” said Mary; “you won’t ever take us to that place, will you, papa? I’d be more f’ightened than in London! Where is that country, papa?”
“I suppose Artie means Switzerland,” said their father.
“I mean the picture in my book,” said Artie; “where there’s dogs, you know, snuffing to find the poor people under the snow.”
“Oh, the great Saint Bernard mountain you mean!” said papa; “it’s sure to be that. You often see pictures of it in children’s books; there are such pretty stories about the good dogs and the kind monks who live there.”
“Can you teach any dogs to do things like that?” asked Leigh.