Sang Budge through the hall next morning, and he repeated the lines over and over so many times that they at last impressed themselves upon the mind of Toddie, who asked:

“Budgie, izh you a-tellin’ de troof?”

“What ’bout?”

“Why, ’bout not dyin’. Don’t little boys hazh to die after goin’ to live wif their uncles an’ aunts for a little while?”

“Oh, of course they do, but I’m so happy I’ve got to sing somethin’; the front part of it is troof, and that’s three times as big as the other part, and I can’t think of any other song ’bout goin’ home.”

“Datsh too baddy,” complained Toddie. “I fought you wazh tellin’ the troof, an’ I wouldn’t never hazh to hazh a lot of dirt on my eyes, so I couldn’t look up into de sky.”

“Oh, you won’t have to be bothered that way,” said Budge. “When you die your spirit goes up to heaven, an’ you can look straight down froo the sky with your new eyes, an’ laugh at the old dirt that thinks it’ keepin’ your old eyes shut up.”

“Don’t want no new eyes! Eyes I’zh got izh good enough to see fings wif.”

“But just you think, Toddie,” reasoned Budge, “heaven-eyes can’t get dust in ’em, or have to be washed, or be bothered with choo-choo smoke.”

“Can’t smoke get in the windows of steam-cars up in hebben?”

“Of course not! Not if everythin’ goin’ to be all right up there. There ain’t no choo-choos in heaven anyhow. What does angels want of choo-choos, I’d like to know, when they’ve got wings to fly with?”

“I’d never want all the choo-choos to go away, even if I had a fousand wingsh,” said Toddie. “’Twould be such fun to fan myself wif my wings when I was goin’ froo hot old tunnels.”

“Tunnels can’t be hot in heaven,” explained Budge; “’cause they’re uncomfortable, an’ nothin’ can be uncomfortable in heaven. I guess there ain’t any tunnels there at all. Oh, yes! I guess there’s little bits of ones, just long enough to give little boys the fun of ridin’ in and ridin’ out of ’em.”

“Well, how’s you goin’ to ride in an’ out if dere ain’t no choo-choos to pull de cars?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Tod, I guess that’s one of the things that the Bible don’t tell folks about heaven. You know papa says that there’s lots of things the Lord don’t let people know ’bout heaven; ’cause it’ none of their business, an’ I guess that’s one of ’em.”

“Wish dere’d be some more Bibles, den! I wantsh to know lotsh more fingsh.”

“Well, anyhow,” said Budge, “we’re goin’ home to-day, an’ that fills me so full I ain’t got room for the littlest speck of heaven. Wonder who’s goin’ to take us, an’ when we’re a-goin’, an’ ev’rything? Let’s go ask Uncle Harry.”

“Come on!” exclaimed Toddie, “Izh been finkin’ awful hard ’bout how to get into his bedroom wifout bein’ scolded, an’ now I know. Hurry up ’fore we forgets.”

Both boys hurried to the family chamber, and assaulted the door with fists and feet.

“’The overture of the angels,’” quoted Mr. Burton, “’and positively their last appearance.’”

“Don’t speak of it,” said Mrs. Burton. “I’ve been crying about it in my dreams, I believe, and I’m in a condition to begin again.”

“I’ve a great mind to make them cry,” said the man of the house savagely. “No scrubbing will take the mark of small shoe-toes out of painted wood.”

“Let them kick to their dear little hearts’ content! Not a mark of that kind shall ever be insulted by a scrubbing brush. I feel as if I’d like to go about the house and kiss everything they’ve touched.”

“You might kiss the sounding board of my violin, then,” said Mr. Burton, “where there’s an ineffaceable scratch from a nail in Toddie’s shoe, placed there on the morning of your birthday anniversary. There’s a nice generous blot on the wood of the writing-desk, too, where Toddie upset a bottle of violet ink. Would that your kisses could efface the stain that the cabinet-maker says is indelible. Then there are some dingy streaks on the wall beside their bed, where they’ve lain crosswise and rubbed their heads against the wall.”

“It shall remain forever,” said the lady.

“What! in your darling spare chamber?”

A violent mental struggle showed its indications in Mrs. Burton’s face, but she replied:

“The furniture can be changed. We can put a screen in front of the place; we’ll change the room in any way, excepting their blessed tokens of occupation.”

But none of this devotion found its way through the keyhole to shame the boys into silence, for the noise increased until Mrs. Burton herself hastened to draw the bolt.

“It’s us,” was the unnecessary information, volunteered by Budge as the door opened; “an’ we want to know when we’re goin’ home, an’ who’s goin’ to take us, an’ how, an’ what you’re goin’ to give us to remember you by, an’ we don’t care to have it flowers, ’cause we’ve got plenty of ’em at home.”

“Fruit-cake would be nicesht,” suggested Toddie. “Folks ’members that an awful long time, ’cause when mamma once asked papa if he ’membered de fruit-cake at Mrs. Birch’s party he looked drefful sad, an’ said he couldn’t ever forget it. Say, Aunt Alish, don’t you get extra nice dinners for folks dat’s goin’ away? Mamma always doesh; says dey need it, cauzh folks need to be well-feeded when they’e goin’ to travel.” [The distance from the Burton residence to that of the Lawrences was about a quarter of a mile.]

“You shall have a good-by dinner, Toddie, dear,” said Mrs. Burton; “and the very nicest one that I can prepare.”

“Better make it a brekspup,” suggested Toddie. “Mebbe we’ll be come for ’fore dinner-time.”

“You sha’n’t be taken until you get it, dear.”

“I ’pects I’ll have an awful good dinner waitin’ for us, too, when we get home,” said Budge; “’cause that’s the way the papa in the Bible did, an’ yet he had only one boy come home instead of two, an’ he’d been bad.”

“What portion of the Scriptural narrative is that child running into now?” asked Mrs. Burton.

“Aunt Alice don’t know who you’re talking about, Budge,” said Mr. Burton. “Explain it to her.”

“Why, that boy that his papa made a dinner out of fat veal for,” said Budge; “though I never could see how that was a very nice dinner.”

“Worse and worse,” sighed Mrs. Burton.

“Tell us all about it, old fellow,” said Mr. Burton. “We don’t know what you’re driving at.”

“Why,” exclaimed Budge, “are you bad folks that don’t read your Bible-books? I thought everybody knew about him. Why, he was a boy that went to his papa one day and told him that whatever he was goin’ to give him as long as he lived, he wished he’d give it to him all at once. An’ his papa did. Wasn’t he a lovely papa, though? So the boy took the money, an’ went travelin’, an’ had larks. There’s a picture about it all in Tommy Bryan’ mamma’s parlor, but I don’t think it’s very larkey; he’s just a-sittin’ down with a whole lot of women actin’ like geese all around him. But he had to pay money to have larks, an’ he had such lots of ’em that pretty soon he didn’t have no money. Say, Uncle Harry, why don’t people have all the money they want?”

“That’s the world’s prize conundrum,” said Mr. Burton. “Ask me something easier.”

“I’m goin’ to have all the money I wantsh when I gets growed,” said Toddie.

“How are you going to get it?” asked his uncle, with natural interest.

“Goin’ to be real good, an’ then ashk de Lord for it,” said Toddie. “Wonder where de Lord keepsh de lotsh of nysh fings he’ goin’ to give good people when dey ashk Him for ’em?—money and fings?”

“Why, in heaven, of course,” said Budge.

“Hazh He got a savin’ bank an’ a toy-store?” asked Toddie.

“Sh—h—h!” whispered Mrs. Burton.

“He’s only talking of what grown people expect, my dear,” said Mr. Burton. “Go on, Budge.”

“Well, he didn’t have any more money, an’ he couldn’t write to his papa for some, ’cause there wasn’t any post offices in that country, so he went to work for a man, an’ the man made him feed pigs, and he had to eat the same things that the pigs ate. I don’t know whether he ate them out of a troff or not.”

“It’s a great pity that you are in doubt on that point,” said Mr. Burton.

“He could play in de mud like de pigs, couldn’t he?” said Toddie. “His papa was too far away to know about it, an’ to say ‘Don’t!’s at him.”

“I s’pose so,” said Budge, “but I don’t think a boy could feel much like playin’ with mud when he had to eat with the pigs. Well, he went along bein’ a pig-feeder, when all at once he ’membered that there was always enough to eat at his papa’s house. Say, Uncle Harry, boys is alike everywhere, ain’t they?”

“I suppose so, present company excepted. But what reminded you of it?”

“Why, he wanted to go home when he couldn’t hook enough from the pigs to fill his stomach, an’ my papa says little boys that can’t be found when their mamma wants ’em always start for home when they get hungry. That’s what this boy off in another country did—papa says the Bible don’t tell whether he told the man to get another pig-feeder, or whether he just skooted in a hurry. But, anyhow, he got pretty near home, an’ I guess he felt awful ashamed of himself an’ went along the back road; for, in the picture of our big Bible-book, his clothes are awful ragged an’ mussy, an’ he must have been sure he was goin’ to get scolded an’ wish he could get in the back door an’ go up to his room without anybody seein’ him.”

“Oh, Harry!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “This is growing perfectly dreadful. It’ positively sacrilegious.”

“The application is the only sacred part of the original, my dear,” said Mr. Burton, “and you may trust that boy to discover the point of anything. I wish doctors of divinity were like him. Go ahead, Budge.”

“Well, he was sneakin’ along, an’ gettin’ behind trees an’ fences whenever he saw anybody comin’ that he knew, when all at once his papa saw him. Papas always can see farther than anybody else, I believe, an’ they always kind o’s know when their boys are comin’, an’ they just look as if they’d always been standin’ right there waitin’ for ’em. An’ that pig-feeder’s papa ran right out of the house without his hat on—that’s the way he is in the picture in the big Bible-book, an’ grabbed him, an’ kissed him, an’ hugged him so hard that he had to grunt, an’——”

“An’ he didn’t say ‘Why, how did you get your clozhezh so dyty,’s eiver?” said Toddie.

“No, indeed! An’ the pig-feeder said he’d been a bad boy, an’ he guessed he’d better eat his dinner in the kitchen after that, but his papa wouldn’t let him. He put clean clothes on him, an’ gave him a new pair of shoes, an’ put a ring on his finger.”

“Ringsh ain’t good to eat,” said Toddie. “I fwallowed one once, I did, an’ it didn’t taste nohow at all. And den I had to take some nashty medshin, an’ de ring came unfwallowed again.”

“He didn’t give him the ring to eat, you silly boy,” said Budge. “Rings squeeze fingers all the time, an’ let folks know how the folks that give ’em the rings want to squeeze ’em all the time. Then they killed a whole calf—’cause the pig-feeder was awful empty, you know, an’ they had a jolly old time. An’ the pig-feeder’s big brother heard ’em all cuttin’ up, an’ he was real cross about it, ’cause he’d always been good, an’ there hadn’t ever been any tea-parties made for him. But his papa said, ‘Oh, don’t say a word—we’ve got your brother back again—just think of that, my boy.’s I’m awful sorry for that big brother, though; I know how he felt, for when Tod’s bad, an’ I’m good papa just takes Tod in his lap an’ talks to him, an’ hugs him, an’ I feel awful lonesome an’ wish I wasn’t good a bit.”

“And what do you suppose the bad boy’ mamma did when she saw him?” asked Mr. Burton.

“Oh,” said Budge, “I guess she didn’t say anythin’, but just looked so sad at him that he made up his mind he wouldn’t ever do a naughty thing again as long as he lived, an’ after that he’d stand behind her chair whole half-hours at a time just to look at her where she wouldn’t catch him at it.”

“And what do you think that whole story means, Budge?” asked Mrs. Burton, determined to impress at least one prominent theological deduction upon her nephew.

“Why, it means that good papas can always see when bad boys is real ashamed of themselves,” said Budge, “an’ know it’s best to be real sweet to ’em then, an’ that papas that can’t see and don’t know better than to scold ’em they needn’t ever expect to see their bad little boys come home again.”

Mrs. Burton started, and her husband laughed inwardly at this unusual application, but the lady recovered herself and returned in haste to her point.

“Don’t you think it’s intended to teach us anything about the Lord?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” said Budge, “of course. He is the best of all papas, so he’ll be better to his bad children than any other good papas know how to be.”

“That’s what the story is meant to teach,” said Mrs. Burton.

“I thought everybody knew that about the Lord.” Budge replied.

“If they did, Jesus would never have told the story,” said Mrs. Burton.

“Oh, I s’pose those old Jews had to be told it,” said Budge, “’cause folks used to be awful bad to their children, an’ believe the Lord would be awful bad to them.”

“People need to be told the same story now, Budge,” continued Mrs. Burton. “They love to hear it, and know how good the Lord is willing to be to them.”

“Do they love it better than to learn how good they ought to be to their children?” Budge asked. “Then I think they’re piggish. I wouldn’t like my papa an’ mamma to be that way. They say that it’s gooder to care for what you can give than what you can get. An’ Uncle Harry hasn’t told us yet when we’re goin’ home, and who’s goin’ to take us.”

“Your papa is going to come for you as he returns from the city,” said Mr. Burton. “I think he wants to tell you something before you go home; you little boys don’t know yet how to act in a house where there’s sick mammas and little babies.”

“Oh, yes, we do,” said Budge. “All we’ve got to do is to sit still an’ look at ’em with all our mights.”

“Only dzust dzump up ev’ry two or free minutes to kiss ’em,” suggested Toddie.

“Yes,” said Budge, “an’ to pat their cheeks an’ to put nice things to eat in their mouths, like papa an’ mamma does to us, when we’re sick.”

“An’ make music for ’em,” said Toddie.

“An’ give ’em pennies,” said Budge.

“An’ shake their savings banks for ’em to make de pennies rattle, like Budgie did for me once when I was too sick to rattle my own bank,” said Toddie, bestowing a frantic hug upon his brother.

“An’ put the room to rights for ’em,” said Budge.

“An’ bring ’em in nice mud-pies all ready baked, like I did once for Budgie, to play wif on de bed when he was sick,” said Toddie.

“An’ dance for ’em,” suggested Budge. “That’s the way I used to do for Baby Phillie, an’ it always made him happy.”

“An’ put up pictures on de wall for ’em,” said Toddie; “we’s got whole newspapers full that we’s cutted out up in your garret; and dere’s a whole bottle of mucilage——”

“My war file of illustrated papers!” explained Mr. Burton. “How did they find that? Oh, this cross of love!”

“Whole bottle of mucilage in papa’s room to stick ’em on wif,” continued Toddie; “an’ mamma’s room is nice pink, like de leaves of my scrap-book dat pictures look so pretty on.”

“And these are the child-ideas of being good and useful!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, as the boys forgot everything else in the discovery of their uncle’s razor-strop with an extension at one end.

“Yes,” sighed Mr. Burton, “and they’re not much nearer the proper thing, in spite of their good intentions, than the plans of grown people for the management of children, the reformation of the world, and a great many other things.”

“Harry!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton.

“No personal allusion, my dear,” said her husband, quickly. “I’d no thought of anything of the kind. Adults and children alike mean well enough; the difference is that the former wonder why their ideas are not appreciated while with the children the energies of parents and teachers are devoted to treating mistaken opinions as great sins. How many children could do the kindnesses which Budge and Toddie have devised out of the tenderness of their dear little hearts and not be scolded and whipped for their pains? Hosts of children have had all the good blood and kind heart and honest head scolded and beaten out of them, and only the baser qualities of their natures allowed to grow, and these only because in youth many of them are dormant and don’t make trouble.”

“Harry, what a preacher you are!—what a terrible preacher!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton.

“Where does the terror come in?” asked Mr. Burton, with signs of that indignation which every man with an idea in advance of his generation must frequently be afflicted by.

“Why, to imply that there’s so much injustice being done to children.”

“Of course the saying of it is worse than the fact of its existence,” said Mr. Burton, with a curl of the lip.

“Please don’t speak in that cruel way, Harry. It isn’t anything of the sort—excepting for a moment or two.”

Mr. Burton apologized, and restored confidence without saying a word, and then the couple turned instinctively to look at the first causes of their conversation, but the boys were gone.

“The tocsin of their souls, the dinner-bell—breakfast-bell, I mean, has probably sounded,” said Mr. Burton; “and I’m as hungry as a bear myself. Let’s descend and see what they’ve succeeded in doing within five brief minutes.”

The Burtons found the dining-room, but not the boys and the chambermaid was sent in search of them. The meal was slowly consumed but the boys did not appear.

“You’d better have the cook prepare something additional,” suggested Mr. Burton, as he arose and started for his train. “The appetite of the small boy is a principal that accumulates frightful usury in a very small while after maturity.”

Mrs. Burton acted upon her husband’ suggestion, and busied herself about household affairs for an hour or more, until, learning that the boys had not yet arrived, she strolled out to search for them. Supposing that they might have been overpowered by their impatience so far as to have gone home at once, she visited the residence of her sister-in-law, and inquired of Mike.

“Dhivil a bit have they been here,” replied Michael. “Ain’t me ould eyes sore for the soight av ’em all the whoile ag’in? They’re nowhere about here, rest ye aisy.”

“I’m afraid they may be lost,” said Mrs. Burton.

Mike burst into a prolonged horse laugh, and then, recovering himself by sundry contortions and swallowings, he replied:

“Beggin’ yez pardon, ma’am, but I couldn’t help it—as the blessed Virgin is smoilin’ in heaven, I cuddent—but thim byes can niver be lost. Lost, is it? Cud ye lose a ghost or a bird? They’ll foind their way anywhere they’ve been once, an’ if they haven’t been there before they’ll belave they have, an’ foind their way out all roight. Lave yer boddher till dinner-time, an’ mark me wurruds ye’ll foind ye’ve no nade av it. Losht!” and Mike burst into another laugh that he hurried into the stable to hide while Mrs. Burton returned to her home with a mind almost quiet.

The morning ended, however, and no small boys appeared at the table. Mrs. Burton’ fears came back with increased strength and she hurried off again to Mike and implored him to go in search of the children. The sight of an ugly looking tramp or two by the way suggested kidnapping to Mrs. Burton and brought tears to her eyes. Even the doubting Mike, when he learned that the children had eaten nothing that day, grew visibly alarmed and mounted one of his master’s horses in hot haste.

“Where are you going first, Mike?” asked Mrs. Burton.

“Dhivil a bit do I know!” exclaimed Mike; “but I’m goin’ to foind ’em, an’ may the blessed saints go with me!”

Away galloped Mike, and Mrs. Burton, fearing that the alarm might reach the boys’ mother, hurried home, started the cook on one road, the chambermaid on another, and herself on a third, while Mike sought the candystore, the schoolhouse, sundry bridges over brooks, and the various other places that boys delight in. Mrs. Burton’s own course was along a road leading up the rugged, heavily wooded hill called by courtesy a mountain, but she paused so many times, to call, to listen, to step considerably out of her way to see if dimly descried figures were not those of her nephews, and to discover that what seemed in the forest to be boyish figures were only stumps or bushes, that she spent at least two hours upon the road, which doubled many times upon itself. Suddenly she saw in the road beyond her a familiar figure dragging a large green bough.

“Budge!” she screamed and ran toward him. The little figure turned its head, and Mrs. Burton was shocked to see a haggard face, whose whiteness intensified the starting eyes, pink, distended nostrils, and thin, drawn lips of her nephew. And upon the bough, holding to one of the upper sprigs tightly with one hand, while with the other he clutched something green and crumpled, lay Toddie, dust-encrusted from head to foot.

“Oh! what has happened?” Mrs. Burton exclaimed.

Toddie raised his head and explained.

“Izhe a shotted soldier bein’ tookted to where de shooters can’t catch me, like sometimes dey used to be in de war.”

Budge dropped in the road and cried.

“Oh, what is it?” cried Mrs. Burton, kneeling beside Toddie, and taking him in her arms. And Toddie replied:

“Ow!”

“Budge, dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, releasing Toddie, and hurrying to his brother, “what has happened? Do tell me!”

Budge opened his eyes and mouth reluctantly, and replied with a thin voice:

“Wait till I get alive again, an’ I’ll tell you. I haven’t got many words inside of me now; they’re all dropped out, I’m so tired, and, oh——”

Budge closed his eyes again. Mrs. Burton picked him up tenderly, sat upon a large stone, rocked back and forth, kissed him repeatedly, cried over him, while Toddie turned upon his stomach, surveyed the scene with apparent satisfaction, and said:

“Say, Aunt Alish, it’s djolly to be a shotted soldier.”

Budge slowly recovered, put his arm around his aunt tightly, and said:

“Oh, Aunt Alice, ’twas awful!”

“Tell me all about it, dear, when you feel well enough. Where have you been all day? Aunty’s heart has been almost broken about you.”

“Why, you see, we wanted to do something nice for you, ’fore we went home to stay, ’cause you’ve been so nice to us. Why, when we talked about it, we couldn’t think of a single unpleasant thing you’d done to us—though I’m sure you done a lot. Anyhow, we couldn’t ’member any.”

“’Cept sayin’ ‘Don’t!’s lotzh of timesh,” said Toddie.

“Well,” said Budge, “Tod thought ’bout that, but we made up our minds perhaps we needed that said to us. An’ we couldn’t think of anything nicer than to get you some wild flowers. Ev’rybody’s got tame flowers, you know, so we thought wild ones would be nicer. An’ we thought we could get ’em ’fore breakbux if we’d hurry, so off we came right up to the foot of the mountains, but there wasn’t any. I guess they wasn’t awake yet, or else they’d gone to sleep. Then we didn’t know what to do.”

“’Cept get you some bych [birch] bark,” said Toddie.

“Yes,” said Budge; “but birch bark is to eat, an’ not to look at; an’ we wanted to give you somethin’ you could see, an’ remember us a few days by.”

“An’ all of a sudden I said ’fynes!’ [ferns],” said Toddie.

“Yes,” said Budge, “Tod said it first, but I thought it the same second. An’ there’ lovely ferns up in the rocks. Don’t you see?”

Mrs. Burton looked, and shuddered. The cliff above her head was a hundred feet high, jagged all over its front, yet from every crevice exquisite ferns posed their peaceful fronds before the cold gray of the rock.

“’Twasn’t here,” Budge continued. “’Twas ’way up around the corner, where the rocks ain’t so high, but they’re harder to climb. We climbed up here first.”

“You dreadful, darling children!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, giving Budge a squeeze of extra severity. “To think of two little children going up such a dreadful place! Why, it makes me dizzy to see your Uncle Harry do it.”

“Ain’t childrens, when we climb mountainsh!” asserted Toddie; “we’zh mans den.”

“Well,” Budge continued, “we got lots, and throwed each one away ’cause we kept seein’ nicer ones higher up. Say, Aunt Alice, what’s the reason things higher up always look extra nice?”

“I know,” said Toddie.

“Why is it, Toddie?” Mrs. Burton asked.

“’Cauzh deysh closer to hebben,” said Toddie. “G’won, Budgie. I likes to hear ’bout it, too.”

“Well, at last we got to a place where the rocks all stopped and some more began. An’ up on them was the loveliest ferns of all.”

“An’ I went up dat mountain fyst, I did,” said Toddie.

“Yes, Tod did, the blessed little sassy rascal,” said Budge, blowing a kiss to his brother. “I told him I didn’t believe that any ferns was nicer than any others, but he said, ‘Lord’ll make ’em so den, for Aunt Alish.’s An’ up he went, just like a spider.”

“Went up fyst,” said Toddie.

“’Course you did,” said Budge. “’Cause I didn’t go up at all. And Tod was pullin’ at a big fern with his back to me, an’ the first thing I knew there he was in the air layin’ down sideways on nothin’. Then he hollered.”

“’Cauzh I camed down bunk on whole lotch of little rocks,” explained Toddie. “But I didn’t lose the fyne—here tizh!” and Toddie held up a badly crushed and wilted ball of something that had once been a fern, seeing which Mrs. Burton placed Budge on the stone, hurried to Toddie, thrust the bruised fern into her bosom, and kissed its captor soundly.

“Hold me some more,” said Budge, “I don’t feel very good yet.”

“Then what did you do?” asked Mrs. Burton, resuming her position as nurse.

“Why, Tod went on hollerin’, an’ he couldn’t walk, so I helped him down to the road, an’ he couldn’t walk yet——”

Mrs. Burton had turned again to Toddie, and carefully examined his legs without finding any broken bones.

“The hurt is in de bottom part of my leg an’ de top part of my foot,” said Toddie, who had turned his ankle.

“An’ he just hollered ‘mam-ma’s and ‘pa-pa,’ so sad,” continued Budge. “An’ ’twas awful. An’ I looked up the road an’ there wasn’t anybody, an’ down the front of the mountain and there wasn’t anybody, an’ I didn’t know what to do, ’cause ’twouldn’t do to go ’way off home to tell, when a poor little brother was feelin’ so dreadful bad. Then I ’membered how papa said he’d sometimes seen shot soldiers carried away when there wasn’t any wagons. So I pulled at the limb of a tree to get the thing to drag him on.”

“Why, Budge!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, “you don’t mean to say you got that bough all alone by yourself, do you?”

“Well, no, I guess not,” said Budge, hesitatingly. “I pulled at one after another, but not one of them would split, and then I thought of somethin’ an’ kneeled right down by the tree, an’ told the Lord all about it, an’ told Him I knew He didn’t want poor little hurt Tod to lie there all day, an’ wouldn’t He please help me break a limb to draw him on? An’ when I got up off of my knees I was as strong as forty thousand horses. I don’t think I needed the Lord to help me a bit then. An’ I just gave one pull at the limb, an’ down it came kersplit, an’ I put Tod on it, an’ dragged him. But I tell you it was hard work!”

“’Twash fun, too,” said Toddie, “’cept when it went where dere was little rocks in de road, an’ dey came up an’ hitted de hurt playsh.”

“I dragged it in the soft parts of the road,” said Budge, “whenever I could, but sometimes there wasn’t any soft place all across the road. An’ things jumped inside of me—that little heart-engine, you know, awfully. I could only go about a dozen steps without stoppin’ to rest. An’ then Tod stopped cryin’ an’ said he was hungry, an’ that reminded me that I was hungry, too.”

“But we didn’t lose the fyne,” said Toddie.

Mrs. Burton took the memento from her breast and kissed it.

“Why,” said Budge, “you like it, don’t you? All right, then. Tod an’ me don’t care for bothers an’ hurts now, do we, Tod?”

“No, indeedy,” said Toddie. “Not when we can ride like shotted soldiers, an’ get home to get breakbux an’ lunch togevver.”

“Neither of you shall have any more trouble about getting home,” said Mrs. Burton. “Just sit here quietly while I go and send a carriage for you.”

“Oh!” said Budge. “That’ll be lovely; won’t it, Tod? Ain’t you glad you got hurt? But say? Aunt Alice, haven’t you got any crackers in your pocket?”

“Why, no—certainly not!” exclaimed the lady, temporarily losing her tenderness.

“Oh! I thought you might have. Papa always does, when he goes out to look for us when we stay away from home a good while.”

Suddenly a horse’s hoofs were heard on the road below.

“I shouldn’t wonder if that was Mike,” said Mrs. Burton. “He has been out on horseback, looking for you.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if ’twas papa,” said Budge. “He’s the funniest man for always comin’ anywhere first when we need him most.”

“An’ wif crackers,” Toddie added.

The clattering hoofs came nearer, though slower, and, true to the children’s intuitions, around the bend of the road came Tom Lawrence on horseback, an old army haversack and canteen slung over his shoulder.

“Papa!” shouted both boys. “Hooray!” Tom Lawrence waved his hat, and Toddie shouted, “He’s got de crackers! I see de bag!” The father reined up suddenly and dismounted, Budge rushed to his arms, and Toddie exclaimed,

“Papa, guesh it’s a long time since you’ seen a shotted soldier, ain’t it?”

Then Toddie was placed in the saddle, and Budge behind him, and the precious haversack was opened and found to contain sandwiches, and both boys tried to drink out of the canteen, and poured a great deal of water into their bosoms, and Tom led the horse carefully, and Mrs. Burton walked upon one side, with a hand under Toddie’s lame leg to keep the bruised ankle from touching the saddle, and she did not swerve from the middle of the dusty road, even when carriages full of stylish acquaintances were met, and both little heroes, like men of larger growth, forgot at once that they had ever been heroic, and they prattled as inconsequently as any couple of silly children could, and the horse was led by a roundabout road so that no one might see the party and apprise Mrs. Lawrence that anything unusual had happened, and the boys were heavily bribed to tell their mother nothing until their father had explained, and they were carried in, each in his father’ arms, to kiss their mamma; and when they undressed and went to bed, the sister-baby was, by special dispensation of the nurse, allowed to lie between them for a few moments, and the evening ceremonies were prolonged by the combined arts of boys and parent, and then Budge knelt and prayed:

“Dear Lord, we’re awful glad to get back again, ’cause nobody can be like papa and mamma to us, an’ I’m so thankful I don’t know what to do for bein’ made so strong when I wanted to break that limb off of the tree, and bless dear Aunt Alice for findin’ us, and bless poor uncle more, ’cause he tried to find us, and was disappointed, and make every little boy’s papa just like ours, to come to ’em just when they need him, just like you. Amen.”

And Toddie shut his eyes in bed, and said,

“Dee Lord, I went up de mountain fyst. Don’t forget dat. Amen.”