"Because you have such a cold."
"Wish you never'd been made, mamma!"
"What a naughty, naughty girl," said Ninny.
"It's my mamma's naughty! I'll have to tell her a story," said the child. People told stories to Flaxie when she was naughty; why shouldn't she do the same thing to other people when they were naughty?
"Well," said she, folding her chubby hands, and looking as severe as her father did sometimes,—"Well, once there was a little good girl, and her mother wanted her to stay in the house all the days; and she staid in the house and didn't go ou' doors; and she kep' a-stayin' in the house. And you s'pose what 'came o' that little goorl? She staid in the house, and staid in the house; and in two weeks she di-ed!"
Mrs. Gray turned away suddenly; for Flaxie was spreading her hands and making a grieved lip, as if she pitied the "good goorl;" and it was really too funny.
"See, dear," said Grandma Pressy, "here are some nice summer sweetings in my work-bag. If you'll stay in the house pleasantly, all the morning, you shall have one."
Apples were rare, for it was early in the season, and Flaxie looked delighted.
"I'll stay velly pleasantly," said she, and ran into the kitchen for the chopping-tray, in order to chop up a few of the animals in her Noah's ark and "make some lion hash for breakfast."