“The kiddie-car wouldn’t be any fun in the country,” she said. “There are no stone pavements, you see, dear, and it wouldn’t run on the grass. As for the woolly dog, why you will have a real dog to play with—a collie dog that will run after sticks and bring them to you and take walks with you. That will be fun, won’t it?”
Sunny Boy slid to the floor and stood up. He was excited.
“I am simply crazy to have a real dog,” he declared.
Mrs. Horton stared at him, but Aunt Bessie, bending over the trunk, sat down on the edge and laughed.
“Where in the world did you hear that, Sunny Boy?” asked Mother. “Who talks like that?”
Aunt Bessie swooped down upon her nephew.
“I do,” she told her sister. “But I’ll have to be more careful when little pitchers with big ears are about. Why don’t you copy the nice things I say, Sunny?”
“Isn’t that nice?” puzzled Sunny. “Shouldn’t I say it? Why not, Mother?”
“It isn’t wrong, dear,” Mrs. Horton assured him. “Aunt Bessie only means that speaking that way is rather a bad habit to get into. We call it exaggeration. Let me see, how shall I make you understand? Well, if I say ‘I’m starving to death,’ when I mean that I am hungrier than usual for dinner, that’s exaggeration. I couldn’t be starving, unless I had had nothing to eat for several days.”
“And though some people think I’m crazy, I’m really not,” concluded Aunt Bessie gayly. “You think I’m rather nice, don’t you, Sunny? And now I wonder if there’s a young man about who would be kind enough to take this skirt down to Harriet and ask her to please press the hem?”