"You haven't thought of brother Daniel—"
True; for nobody ever had, in connection with the active employments of life.
"No, Billy," I replied, "I forgot him; but then, you know, Daniel is more of a student than a business man, and—"
"O Uncle Teddy! you don't think I mean he'd support them? I meant I'd have to take care of father and mother, and him too, when they'd all got to be old people together. Just think! I'm eleven, and he's twenty-two so he is just twice as old as I am. How old are you?"
"Forty, Billy, last August."
"Well, you aren't so awful old, and when I get to be as old as you, Daniel will be eighty. Seth Kendall's grandfather isn't more than that, and he has to be fed with a spoon, and a nurse puts him to bed, and wheels him round in a chair like a baby. That takes the stamps, I bet! Well, I'll tell you how I'll keep my accounts; I'll have a stick, like Robinson Crusoe, and every time I make a toadskin I'll gouge a piece out of one side of the stick, and every time I spend one I'll gouge a piece out of the other."
"Spend a what?" said the gentle and astonished voice of my sister Lu, who, unperceived, had slipped into the room.
"A toadskin, ma," replied Billy, shutting up Colburn with a farewell glance of contempt.
"Dear, dear! Where does the boy learn such horrid words?"
"Why, ma, don't you know what a toadskin is? Here's one," said Billy, drawing a dingy five-cent stamp from his pocket. "And don't I wish I had lots of 'em!"