Barney the donkey was harnessed, and Tattine sat in the little donkey-cart waiting, and as she waited she was saying aloud, “What, Grandma Luty? Yes, Grandma Luty. No, Grandma Luty. What did you say, Grandma Luty?” and this she said in the most polite little tone imaginable. Meantime Rudolph and Mabel, discovering that Tattine did not see them, came stealing along under cover of the apple-trees.
“Whatever is Tattine doing, talking to herself like that?” whispered Mabel, and then they came near enough to hear what she was saying.
“She’s out of her head,” said Rudolph, when they had listened some moments, and then Tattine turned round and saw them.
“No, I’m not out of my head at all,” she laughed; “I was just practicing a little while I waited for you.”
“Practicing your GRANDMOTHER,” which as you have observed was a pet expression with Rudolph, whenever he wished to intimate that he considered your remarks to be simply absurd.
“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Tattine answered good-naturedly. “I am practicing my Grandmother. Grandma Luty, that’s Mamma’s mother, has come to make us a visit, and Mamma has discovered that I’m not very polite to old people. Children used to be taught, you know, to say, ‘Yes’m,’ and ‘Yes, sir,’ but now that is not considered nice at all, and you must always say the name of the person you are speaking to, especially if they are older people, to whom you ought to be respectful,” and Tattine sounded quite like a little grandmother herself as she talked.
“Yes, we know, and it’s an awful bother,” sighed Rudolph. “We’re fairly nagged about it, Mabel and I, but Mother says she’s going to keep it up until we always do it. Perhaps we would get on faster if we practised by ourselves as you do, but really, Tattine, it did sound as though you were out of your head, to hear you saying all those sentences over to yourself.”
While the children were having this little talk about politeness, Rudolph and Mabel had climbed into the wagon, and the donkey, acting upon a suggestion from Tattine’s whip, had started down the roadway. The trio were off for Patrick’s, for this was to be the day of the Kirks’ “At Home,” and, dressed in kis Sunday-best, Patrick that very minute was waiting at his door to receive them.
Full two miles lay ahead of the children, and though Barney fortunately seemed to be in the mood for doing his best, Patrick would still have a full half-hour to wait. At last the donkey-cart drew up at the Kirks’ door and two happy old people welcomed three happy little people into their comfortable little home. It would take another book, the size of this one, to tell you all the doings of that August day. First they went into the house and laid their wraps on the white coverlid of the great high feather-bed in the little spare room, and then Mrs. Kirk sat them down to three little blue bowls of bread-and-milk, remarking, “shure you must be after being hungry from your long drive,” and the children ate it with far more relish than home bread-and-milk was ever eaten.
“Now I’m doubting,” said Patrick, standing with his back to the cooking-stove and with a corn-cob pipe in his mouth, “if it’s the style to have bread-and-milk at ‘At Homes’ in the city.”