The baby gazed, with round, astonished eyes, while mother, with some difficulty, rescued the bill from his grasp; but, before any one could at all anticipate his purpose, he dashed in among the small change with such zeal as to send it flying all over the table.
“Hurra!—Bob’s a smasher!” said the father, delighted; “he’ll make it fly, he thinks;” and, taking the baby on his knee, he laughed merrily, as Mary and her mother pursued the rolling coin all over the room.
“He knows now, as well as can be, that he’s been doing mischief,” said the delighted mother, as the baby kicked and crowed uproariously;—“he’s such a forward child, now, to be only six months old!—O, you’ve no idea, father, how mischievous he grows,” and therewith the little woman began to roll and tumble the little mischief-maker about, uttering divers frightful threats, which appeared to contribute, in no small degree, to the general hilarity.
“Come, come, Mary,” said the mother, at last, with a sudden burst of recollection; “you mustn’t be always on your knees fooling with this child!—Look in the oven at them biscuits.”
“They’re done exactly, mother,—just the brown!”—and, with the word, the mother dumped baby on to his father’s knee, where he sat contentedly munching a very ancient crust of bread, occasionally improving the flavor thereof by rubbing it on his father’s coat-sleeve.
“What have you got in that blue dish, there?” said George, when the whole little circle were seated around the table.
“Well, now, what do you suppose?” said the little woman, delighted;—“a quart of nice oysters,—just for a treat, you know. I wouldn’t tell you till this minute,” said she, raising the cover.
“Well,” said George, “we both work hard for our money, and we don’t owe anybody a cent; and why shouldn’t we have our treats, now and then, as well as rich folks?”
And gayly passed the supper hour; the tea-kettle sung, the baby crowed, and all chatted and laughed abundantly.
“I’ll tell you,” said George, wiping his mouth, “wife, these times are quite another thing from what it used to be down in Georgia. I remember then old Mas’r used to hire me out by the year; and one time, I remember, I came and paid him in two hundred dollars,—every cent I’d taken. He just looked it over, counted it, and put it in his pocket-book, and said, ‘You are a good boy, George,’—and he gave me half-a-dollar!”