“Ow, Ow, OW!” was the rÉveillÉ of the Burton family on the next morning, and it was sounded from the room of the juvenile guests.

“Another fight, I suppose,” grunted Mr. Burton in his room, “and as I’m dressed I might as well go and see which one was whipped and which ought to be.”

Arrived at his nephew’s room, Mr. Burton found Toddie curled up in the middle of the bed sound asleep, and his brother with his eyes shut, but wriggling restlessly.

“What’s the matter, Budge?” asked Mr. Burton.

“My side hurts, where I bunked it, stoppin’ in the gutter, when I slid down the mountain,” drawled Budge. “An’ the hard part of the bed comes up to it and hurts it. As soon as I find a soft part of the bed, the hard part begins to come up through it and hurt me.”

“Suppose you were to turn and lie on the other side?”

“I—why—I—then—I—” stammered Budge, arising slowly and rubbing his eyes, “then I wouldn’t have any soft parts to look for, an’ I wouldn’t have anythin’ to do.”

“Oh, no,” Mr. Burton muttered, turning abruptly and quitting the room; “the faculty for hugging misery isn’t born in people; not at all! I’ll have to tell this to our parson. A lot of good people that need it might get a sound thrashing over somebody else’s shoulders.”

At the breakfast table Budge ate quietly, but with characteristic American industry, before he said:

“Aunt Alice, too much tea isn’t good for people, is it?”

“Oh, no! It’s very bad.”

“And one cup is enough for pretty much every one, isn’t it?”

“I think so.”

“Sometimes my papa drinks three or four.”

“That must be when he has a headache.”

“Oh, yes, ’tis. People need more then, don’t they?”

“Yes, indeed!”

“Well, don’t you think a sideache is as bad as a headache?”

Mrs. Burton guessed the sequel, but refrained from replying.

“An awful sideache,” Budge continued, “when a little boy’s side has been bumped real hard by a great big mountain side.”

Mrs. Burton bit her upper lip and reached for Budge’s mug, which the young man accommodatingly pushed toward her, saying:

“And I think when it’s a little boy that’ got to drink it ’cause he’s sick, there ought to be lots an’ lots of sugar in it, to keep it from being too strong.”

Budge’ mug was filled according to his liking, Mr. Burton’s eyes dancing over it so busily that they could not stop when Mrs. Burton accidentally detected them. A few moments of adult silence was the natural result, and the boys improved the opportunity to disappear without being questioned; after which Mr. Burton, starting for the city, gave shortly the monosyllable “No!” in reply to the question whether he should bring anything home.

Mrs. Burton found herself soon in the depth of another inspection of her career as a manager of children, and began to realize that she was as faulty in being too indulgent as she was in being too severe. Recalling the many tricks of the children to overcome her rules, she could not remember a single one at which they had not succeeded, and the realization of this was as mortifying to her sense of duty as it was to her pride. To be firm when her sense of humor was touched was a phase of ability of which she found herself to be as destitute as people usually are; but the existence of such a failing she had never even imagined before, and it doubled her sense of responsibility and—humility.

But the latter quality soon was lost in one which comes more naturally, and is always fully developed—pride. What wouldn’t she have given to have that breakfast-scene to manage again? To think that she, who had in every other department of life, discerned sly attempts afar off, and successfully circumvented them, should have been outwitted by two very small boys! Oh, for just one more attempt by either of them! Mrs. Burton instinctively bit her lip until pain caused her to stop. Upon this, at any rate, she was determined—she would not only prevent her nephews accomplishing their artfully laid purposes, but she would explain to them how dishonest such attempts were, and endeavor to shame them into ingenuousness.

At this instant the sound of a wordy altercation, momentarily growing livelier, floated up from the kitchen windows, and Mrs. Burton started to act as arbitrator.

“We want it. That’s why,” was heard from Budge, as Mrs. Burton entered the kitchen.

“Want what?” asked the mistress of the house.

“Why,” said Budge, his face lighting with the anticipation of assistance close at hand, “we’ve found a big nest full of eggs in the grass, a good way off, an’ we want to boil ’em and eat ’em, and I’ve asked Bridget over an’ over again for a pail to boil ’em in, and all she says is, ’Niver a bit.’”

“Which she is perfectly right in saying,” said Mrs. Burton,” when, as I assume from what I overheard as I came in, you did not tell her what you wanted of the pail.”

“Well, I couldn’t help remembering what you said to Uncle Harry the other evening—that you had the most utter contempt for people that always wanted to know about other people’s business. I don’t know what ’utter contempt’s means, but I thought, from the way you said it, you meant folks who was always askin’ questions about what other folks was doin’.”

Mrs. Burton hastily took a small pail from a shelf and gave it to Budge, who walked off while his aunt, recollecting her good resolutions, retired and wept despairingly. The idea of letting two small children eat a lot of eggs between meals! No one knew where they were or how many eggs they had; probably they had built a fire where no fire should be, and what damage they were threatening to property and life only Heaven knew. She wished herself within the councils of Heaven; she committed a dozen frightful heresies while she wondered, but came back by necessity to the virtue of resignation, for how to find her nephews would have puzzled a head more experienced than her own in the ways of small boys.

Her morning was spent in vague attempts to do something, and it was with satisfaction that she beheld her two nephews approaching by a road which led through woods and fields. The borrowed pail was not visible, but Mrs. Burton did not notice its absence. Toddie dropped dejectedly upon a large stone in the back yard, and Budge sauntered into the sitting-room with the air of a man of the world who had squeezed life’s orange and found it juiceless.

“You’re safely back, are you?” asked Mrs. Burton, anxious to know what had happened, but fearing to ask.

“Oh, yes, we’re back, but that don’t do us any good.”

“Why, what can be the matter with my dear little Budge?”

“A good deal,” sighed Budge. “There’ some awful funny things in this world, Aunt Alice, an’ they ain’t nice either.”

“Tell me all about them, dear.”

“Well, I was awful disappointed to-day. We found sixteen eggs in a nest, an’ I came all the way home to get somethin’ to cook ’em in, an’ I carried some salt an’ pepper with me to help ’em to taste nice, an’ when we cooked ’em, what do you think? There was a little chicken inside of each of ’em!”

“Dis—gusting!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton.

“I know it is,” said Budge; “an’ I guess you’d have thought so more yet if you’d been there when we opened ’em. You know how nice eggs smell when you open ’em? Well, those eggs didn’t even smell good a bit.”

“Let’s talk of something else, Budge,” said Mrs. Burton, instinctively raising her handkerchief to her nose.

“But I ain’t through yet,” said Budge. “I want to know why the little chickens didn’t come out of their shell to their mamma, instead of waiting to bother us?”

“Because you scared their mamma away from them, I suppose, when you found the nest.”

“Why, no, we didn’t. She just went away. We said ‘Chick, chick, chick!’s to her, an’ she just ran around an’ cackled, so we s’posed she’d got through with the nest, and we took what was in it to keep ’em from bein’ spoiled. Papa says eggs always spoil when they lie out in the sunshine. What do you s’pose that poor hen mamma’ll think when she comes walkin’ along that way some day an’ sees all her dear little children lyin’ around mussed up in the grass?”

“She will probably think that some meddlesome little boys have been along that way, and haven’t cared for anything or anybody but themselves.”

Budge looked up quickly into his aunt’ face, but finding neither humor nor sympathy there he sighed deeply and started to rejoin his brother.

“Budge!” said Mrs. Burton.

The child arrested his steps, and looked back inquiringly.

“When you want anything, as, for instance, that pail to boil eggs in, the proper way to do is to ask for it honestly and if some grown person refuses to give it to you, you should be satisfied with the reasons they give and make no trouble about it. You ought to love what is right so much that you will be ashamed to get around it in some underhand way.”

“Why, ’tain’t any underhand way to say just what I think, is it?” Budge asked. “Papa says folks ought always to be honest, and say just exactly what they mean, an’ I’m sure I always do it, but I like to say things the way that I think folks listen to ’em best. Ain’t that the way that you do?”

Mrs. Burton could not say “No,” and would not say “Yes,” so she walked off and left her nephew master of the field, from which he himself soon retired in response to repeated shouts of “Budgie!” from his brother.

“Oh, Budgie,” exclaimed Toddie, as the former rejoined him,” izhe got him! Oh, izhe got him! Ain’t you glad?”

“Who you got?”

“Got Terry!” exclaimed Toddie. “Got doggie Terry!”

“Ow!” shouted Budge, clapping his hands and dancing about. “That’s the nicest thing I ever heard of! Just won’t we have fun? How did you catch him?”

“Why, he wazh asleep, an’ I dzust tied a skring to his collar, an’ tied de uvver end to a little tree, an’ dere he is. See him?”

The brothers moved towards the dog; the doomed animal, after one frantic tug at his bonds, recognized the inevitable and shrank whimperingly against the tree.

“Poor doggie’s sick, Tod,” said Budge. “We’ll have to play doctor to him an’ make him well. I think he ought to go to bed, don’t you?”

“Yesh,” said Toddie, “an’ have a night-gown on, like we do when we’s sick.”

“That’s so. You run an’ get yours for him. He needs a little one, you know. I guess you’d better take off your shoes, so’ not to disturb Aunt Alice.”

Toddie cast his shoes and vanished, returning speedily with a robe in which the dog Terry, not without much remonstrance, was soon enveloped; after which Budge lifted him tenderly in his arms, saying,—

“His night-gown hangs down an awful lot, I think. We’d better pin up the bottom part, like nurse did for the sister-baby the other day.”

“Hazhn’t got no pins,” said Toddie.

“Then we’ll tie it up with a string. Besides, when it’s tied up he can’t get his foots out, an’ forget what a poor little sick doggie he is.”

In another moment the superabundant skirts were folded up and tied tightly around the poor animal’s body, while Toddie, who was having great trouble to hold the stout little beast, exclaimed:

“Gwacious! the fwont end of him is awful well! See how it keeps not keepin’ still. I don’t fink his night-gown collar looksh very nysh, does you?”

“No,” said Budge,” and he’ll go right out of it if we don’t make it look nicer. I’ll put string around that too—there! I want to know if anybody ever saw a lovelier-lookin’ sick dog than that? Where’ll we put him to bed now?”

“Let’s wock him,” Toddie suggested. “Datsh what we likes when we’s sick.”

“Then we got to take him in the house,” said Budge, “’cause there ain’t any way of makin’ believe rockin’-chair. Come on!”

Quietly the couple sneaked into the house and up to their room. Then Budgie resigned his precious burden a moment to Toddie’ care while he went in search of a rocking-chair, with which he shortly returned.

“There!” said he, taking the invalid and seating himself, “this is something like playin’ doctor. But I wonder what kind of medicine he ought to have?—pills or powders?”

“Or running stuff out of a bottle?” suggested Toddie.

“That’s so,” said Budge. “I guess it ’pends on what kind of medicine we’ve got. We might make him some nice pills out of soap.”

“I know,” said Toddie, going into the closet, bringing from a corner an old winter cloak trimmed with beads, and picking some of the beads from it; “these is splendid for pills. I took some of ’em de uvver day when I wazsh playin’ doctor an’ sick boy too, an’ dey didn’t taste bad a bit.”

“All right,” said Budge, “pick some off.” His order was obeyed, and soon the beads were being carefully dropped, one by one, down the dog’s throat, Budge opening the animal’s mouth with finger and thumb as he had seen his father do. Soon, however, the dog’s jaws closed tightly.

“I want to make him well,” said Toddie. “I ain’t doctored him a bit yet.”

“Well, I hardly know what you can do for him,” said Budge, “for he won’t take any more pills. Perhaps there’s a sore place on his head somewhere that you might put a stickin’-plaster on; but you haven’t got any plaster. Oh, I’ll tell you what; you can get a postage-stamp out of Uncle Harry’s desk—that’ll do for a stickin’-plaster first-rate.”

“I wantsh to wock him,” said Toddie, “’ides doct’rin’ him.”

“I’m afraid ’twon’t be best to move him just now,” said Budge, scanning the face of the patient with solicitude.

“I tell you what,” said Toddie, with the air of a man to whom had come a direct inspiration “letsh stop makin’ b’lieve for a minute, till I get hold of him; den he can be made into a sick boy again.”

“All right,” said Budge, though evidently against his will. “I s’pose I’ve got to, so that all the doctors get a chance at him. But say, papa says, mixin’ doctors kills sick folks. Don’t you think we’d better talk it all over again? ’Twould be dreadful if Uncle Harry’s dear little dog was made dead, you know.”

“All right,” said Toddie, “an’ I’ll hold him while we talk about it. I won’t give him a single bittie of medshin ’til we know dzust what he ought to have.”

“Mebbe different people’s arms make a difference to sick folks,” suggested Budge, holding the patient still more tenderly, and oblivious to Toddie’s outstretched arms.

“Dzust see how sad he looks at you!” said Toddie. “I fink his eyes is a-sayin’, ‘Oh, I’ll die if dat dear Doctor Toddie don’t nurse me.’ I shouldn’t fink you could be so dreadful cruel, Budgie.”

Budge reluctantly relinquished the patient, on whom Toddie bestowed a squeeze so affectionate that the dog howled piteously, and struggled to free himself.

“There!” said Budge,” what did I tell you. You’re the kind of doctor that don’t agree with him, you see.”

“’Tain’t me,” said Toddie. “I guesh it’ de medshin takin’ effec’. Dem beads—pills, I mean—can’t get into his bonesh an’ mushels wifout skwatchin’ him.”

“I ’pect that’s ’cause we forgot to give ’em to him in somethin’ nice, like papa gives us our medicine.”

“Letsh give him somefin’ nysh now!” said Toddie, “Mebbe it can find de medshin, an’ dey’ll go along nysh togevver, dzust like two little budders.”

“All right. What’ll it be?”

“Cake.”

“Who’ll ask Aunt Alice for it?” Budge asked. “I guess you’d better; I did, last time we wanted cake. Anyhow, I was getting it without askin’, an’ I promised her I’d always ask after that.”

“Den you ought to begin, right stwaight away,” said Toddie, “elsh mebbe you’d forget. I know what you wantsh! You wants me to ask so’s you can get poor sick baby again while I go.”

“Well,” said Budge, somewhat abashed, “I suppose I’ll have to do it.”

He departed, and returned within two or three minutes with a large piece of fruit cake and a radiant countenance.

“I tell you, Tod, just don’t folks get paid for bein’ good? I was going down to ask Aunt Alice, just as good as could be, and then I couldn’t find her anywhere in the house, so there wasn’t anythin’ to do but go get the cake myself. I don’t believe we’d have got such a big piece, either, if she’d been there; now I know what that big thing on the Sunday-school wall means, ‘Wirtue is its own reward.’”

“Gwacious Peter!” exclaimed Toddie, extending his hand for the cake; “we dassent give him all dat! ’Twould make him dweam dweadful fings.” Here Toddie put the cake to the dog’s mouth, and the animal eagerly bit at it. “Goodnish! I forgot dat dogs could open moufs bigger dan babies. I fink he’s got more now dan’ going to agree wif him. G’way!” continued Toddie, as the dog again snapped at the cake. “We’s got to put dis where he can’t see it, ’less he’ll be cryin’ for it all de time.” And Toddie hastily crowded a large portion of the remainder into his own mouth.

“Oh—h—h!” exclaimed Budge, moving to the rescue of the remainder of the cake. “You ain’t took no medicine, an’ you’ll dream of more cows than you ever saw. Give me it!”

“Um—m—m—ugh—mow—moo-um—guh!” mumbled Toddie with difficulty, as he tightened his grasp on the remainder of the cake.

“Oh, give it to me, Tod!” pleaded Budge. “I’ll eat it, and then I’ll dream ’bout the same cows that you do. Don’t you know how often you wish I’d dream the same things you do, and get mad ’cause I don’t?”

Toddie indulged in some spasmodic final gulps, coughed violently, and said:

“It’s dwefful to dweam about cows, an’ I loves you, ’cauzh you’s my dee budder Budgie, an’ I don’t want you to dweam dwefful fings.” Here Toddie hastily crammed most of the remainder of the cake into his mouth, and handed the rest to his brother, saying:

“That’ll make—you—dweam ’bout two or—or free cows, an’ so it’ll let you get into de dweam wifout such drefful times as Izh got to have.”

Budge might, perhaps, have recognized in fitting terms this evidence of brotherly forethought, but his mouth found other occupation for a moment. Meanwhile, the patient was wriggling; by a desperate effort he freed himself from Toddie’s embrace, and fell upon the floor, where he rolled frantically about with many contortions and howls.

“Oh, he’s got a convulsion! I guess he must be havin’ a stomach tooth come,” said Budge. “What can we do?”

“Pallygollic,” Toddie suggested.

“We ain’t got none,” said Budge. “Tell you what. Let’s make b’lieve he’s a dog a minute, an’ throw water on him. That’ what they do to dogs in fits.”

“Den we’d get Aunt Alice’s new carpet all wet,” said Toddie. “Let’s put him in de bafftub.”

“Just the thing!” said Budge, picking up the animal while Toddie ran before and turned on the water. The dog was dropped into the tub, where he naturally redoubled his efforts to free himself; noting which, Budge remarked:

“Say, Tod, it’s hot water they set babies in when the tooths bother ’em. We’ll make b’lieve he’s a baby again, and turn on t’other faucet.”

Toddie quickly opened the hot-water faucet.

“There—he’s gettin’ better,” said Budge, observing the animal with professional closeness. “I guess he can come out now. OW!—that water’s awful hot! How are we goin’ to get him out?”

Toddie leaned over the edge of the tub and seized the dog by the head. The animal struggled violently. Toddie redoubled his exertions, lost his balance, and tumbled headlong into the tub himself, from which he speedily scrambled, howling violently, while Budge snatched the animal and landed him on the bathroom floor.

“Oh, de—oh!” cried Toddie.

“Does it hurt you awful, dear little brother?” asked Budge tenderly.

“No! De hurtzh gone off of me, but I gotted a lot of water in my mouf, and it washed out all de taste of de cake. I fink it’ too good-for-nuffin mean for anyfing.”

“Well, I guess you’d better go sit out in the sun and dry yourself,” said Budge, “and change the poor doggie’s clothes for him.”

“Wantsh my clozhezh tschanged,” sobbed Toddie.

“Come on, then,” said Budge, leading the way back to his own room, and dragging the bundle of wet dog behind him. “There!” said he, closing the door, “you dress yourself and I’ll fix the dog.”

Carefully untying the strings that confined the animal, but taking the precaution to tie one end to Terry’s collar and the other to a chair, he removed the night-gown, brought a brush, comb, and bottle of cologne from his aunt’s room, and began to brush the dog’ coat, pouring on cologne without stint. The animal was too grateful to be on his feet again to offer any serious remonstrance, until suddenly Budge poured considerable cologne upon his head; the liquid found its way into Terry’s eyes, and the spirits put the brute in such pain that he began to dash frantically about the room, dragging the light chair after him. Budge had left the door open, and through this dashed Terry, and down the stairs. The top of the chair struck the stair-rail, and at once resolved itself into its original parts; the remainder flew down the steps after the dog, and executed a rapid semicircle in air in the lower hall as the dog flew around the newel post and encountered a handsome cabinet hat-rack on the way, to the great damage of the polish.

Then, still obeying the inexorable demands of the string, whose other end was attached to the collar of the dog, it meandered through the parlor, leaving a leg with the piano pedal as a memento of a trifling difference, attempted to ascend the chimney through the fireplace but succeeded only so far as to seriously compromise the positions of the andirons, lodged between the legs of an antique table to the complete prostration of the table itself, and leaving the seat of the chair among the table’s varied contents, struck a jardiniÈre, which came down with a ceramic crash, flew to the dining-room, into a chair, upon and across the table, taking with it a cover with which for a moment or two it was seriously mixed, and went down the kitchen stairs, where it met Mrs. Burton returning from a conference with the greengrocer. As the chair was one of special lightness and exceeding cost, Mrs. Burton was naturally desirous of interviewing Terry; but the animal had evidently formed plans which he did not intend should be thwarted, so with a vicious snap he eluded her, dashed through the kitchen and sought the shady solitude of the forest.

Intuition and experience combined to suggest to Mrs. Burton the original causes of Terry’s excitement; so, waiting only a few moments, that she might be perfectly calm and righteously judicial, she started in search of the culprits. They were not in their room, though a heap of wet clothes and a general displacement of everything proved that they had been there since the chambermaid had put the room in order. A further search disclosed Toddie upon Mrs. Burton’s own bed, so soundly asleep that she had not the heart to wake him. Promptly assuming that Budge was the only culprit, she continued her search, and found him leaning out of a window in a little observatory on the top of the house. The rustle of his aunt’s dress aroused him, and, bending upon her a look of exquisite yet melancholy sensitiveness, he said:

“Aunt Alice, everybody must die, mustn’t they?”

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Burton, “and if you had paid the debt of nature before destroying my pretty chair your earthly influence might have been less injurious than it has been this morning.”

“But, Aunt Alice,” said Budge, absorbed in his own thoughts, “do you see that graveyard way off yonder? It’s awful full of dead folks, ain’t it?”

“Very,” said Mrs. Burton; “but what they have to do with a ruined chair I am unable to see.”

“Well, what I want to know,” said Budge, still oblivious to everything but the matter that was occupying his mind—“what I want to know is, who’s goin’ to throw flowers into the last man’ grave, an’ who’s goin’ to make the hole that he’s put into? What if he should be me? I’d feel awful bothered to know how I’d have any funeral at all. I know what I’d do—I’d just pray the Lord to take me straight up to heaven, like he did with the good Elijah. Say, Aunt Alice, what drawed the chariot that Elijah went up in? Did them ravens do it that used to bring him his lunch?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Burton, “but no chariot would ever have come for him if he had been in the habit of breaking up chairs and tying pieces of them to dogs.”

“Why,” said Budge, beginning to comprehend the drift of his aunt’s remarks, “I didn’t tie any piece of any chair to any dog. I tied all of Terry to a chair, and was bein’ as nice to him as you ever was to me, an’ all of a sudden he ran away with the whole of the chair. You remember that story in the Bible about some bad devils goin’ into a lot of pigs an’ makin’ ’em jump over the side of a mountain an’ into the ocean? Well, I think some of them same chaps must have got into Terry.”

Mrs. Burton’s faith in this demonological theory was not strong, but she felt that her wrath had deserted her, so to escape further humiliation she descended to the parlor. The scene which presented itself to her gaze was one to which womanly language could not do justice, and her hurried attempts to repair the damage were not sufficient to prevent the reawakening of her anger. While still in the depths of her indignant despair, her nephew Budge entered the room and exclaimed honestly:

“Aunt Alice, how did you upset that table and break that handsome great big vase of make-believe flowers?”

Mrs. Burton instinctively rose to her feet, assumed a conventional attitude of Lady Macbeth, and shook a forefinger at Budge in a menacing manner that caused the child to shudder, as she uttered the single word—

“Tomorrow!”