“I don’t think much of Sunday-school stories,” said Budge, with the air of a man indulging in an unsatisfactory retrospect. “There’s always somethin’ at the end of ’em that spoils all the good taste of ’em—somethin’ about bein’ good little boys.”
“Aunt Alice’s stories haven’t any such endings,” said Mr. Burton, with a sneaking desire to commit his wife to a policy of simple amusement. “She knows that little boys want to be good, and she wants to see them happy, too.”
“Aunt Alice will tell you only what you will enjoy, Budge—she promises you that,” said Mrs. Burton. “We will send Uncle Harry away right after breakfast and then you shall have all the stories you want.”
“And cake, too?” asked Toddie. “Mamma always gives us cakesh when she’s tellin’ us stories, so we’ll sit still an’ not wriggle about.”
“No cakes,” said Mrs. Burton, kindly but firmly. “Eating between meals spoils the digestion of little boys, and makes them very cross.”
“I guess that’s what was the matter with Terry yesterday, then,” said Budge. “He was eatin’ a bone between meals, out in the garden yesterday afternoon, and when I took hold of his back legs and tried to play that he was a wheelbarrow, he bit me.”
Mr. Burton gave the dog Terry a sympathetic pat and a bit of meat, making him stand on his hind legs and beg for the latter, to the great diversion of the children. Then, with an affectionate kiss and a look of tender solicitude he wished his wife a happy day and hurried off to the city. Mrs. Burton took the children into the library and picked up a Bible.
“What sort of story would you like first?” she asked, as she slowly turned the leaves.
“One ’bout Abraham, ’cause he ’most killed somebody,” said Toddie, eagerly.
“Oh, no,” said Budge; “one about Jesus, because He was always good to everybody.”
“Dear child,” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “Goodness always makes people nice, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Budge; “ ’cept when they talk about it to little boys. Say, Aunt Alice, what makes good folks always die?”
“Because the Lord needs them, I suppose, Budge.”
“Then don’t he need me?” asked Budge, with a pathetic look of inquiry.
“Certainly, dear,” said Mrs. Burton; “but he wants you to make other people happy first. A great many good people are left in the world for the same reason.”
“Then why couldn’t Jesus be left?” said Budge. “He could make people happier than every one else put together.”
“You’ll understand why, when you grow older,” said Mrs. Burton.
“I wish I’d hurry up about it and grow, then,” said Budge. “Why can’t little boys grow just like little flowers do?—just be put in the ground an’ watered and hoed? Our ’paragus grows half-a-foot in a day almost.”
“You’s a dyty boy to want to be put in de dyte, Budgie,” said Toddie, “an’ I isn’t goin’ to play wif you any more. Mamma says I mustn’t play wif dyty little boys.”
“Dirty boy yourself!” retorted Budge. “You like to play in the dirt, only you cry whenever anybody comes with water to put on you. Say, Aunt Alice, how long does people have to stay in the ground when they die before they go to heaven?”
“Three days, I suppose, Budge,” said Mrs. Burton.
“An’ does everybody that the Lord loves go up to heaven?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Well, papa says some folks believe that dead people never go to heaven.”
“Never mind what they believe, Budge. You should believe what you are taught,” said Mrs. Burton.
“But I’d like to know for sure.”
“So you will, some day.”
“I wish ’twould be pretty quick about it, then,” said Budge. “Now tell us a story.”
Mrs. Burton drew the children nearer her as she reopened the Bible, when she discovered, to her surprise, that Toddie was crying.
“I hazhn’t talked a bit for ever so long!” he exclaimed, in a high, pathetic tremolo.
“What do you want to say, Toddie?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“I know all ’bout burying folks—that’ what,” said Toddie. “Mamma tolded me all ’bout it one time, she did. An’ yeshterday me and Budgie had a funelal all by ourselves. We found a dear little dead byde. An’ we w’apped it up in a piesh of paper, ’cause a baking-powder box wazn’t bid enough for a coffin, an’ we dugged a little grave, an’ we knelted down an’ said a little prayer, an’ ashked de Lord to take it up to hebben, an’ den we put dyte in the grave an’ planted little flowers all over it. Dat’s what.”
“Yes, an’ we put a little stone at the head of the grave, too, just like big dead folks,” said Budge. “We couldn’t find one with any writin’ on it, but I went home and got a picture-book an’ cut out a little picture of a bird, an’ stuck it on the stone with some tar that I picked out of the groceryman’ wagon-wheel, so that when the angel that takes spirits to heaven comes along, it can see there’s a dead little birdie there waitin’ for him.”
“Yesh,” added Toddie, “an’ little bydie ishn’t like us. ’Twon’t have to wunner how it’ll feel to hazh wings when it gets to be a angel, ’cause ’twas all used to wings ’fore it died.”
“Birds don’t go——” began Mrs. Burton, intending to correct the children’s views as to the future state of the animal kingdom, when there flashed through her mind some of the wonderings of her own girlish days, and the inability of her riper experience to answer them, so she again postponed, and with a renewed sense of its vastness, the duty of reforming the opinions of her nephews on things celestial. At about the same time her cook sought an interview, and complained of the absence of two of the silver tablespoons. Mrs. Burton went into the mingled despondency, suspicion and anger which is the frequent condition of all American women who are unfortunate enough to have servants.
“YES, AN’ WE PUT A LITTLE STONE AT THE HEAD OF THE GRAVE”
“Where is the chambermaid?” she asked.
“An’ ye’s needn’t be a-suspectin’ av her,” said the cook. “It’s them av yer own family that I’m thinkin’ hez tuk ’em.” And the cook glared suggestively upon the boys. Mrs. Burton accepted the hint.
“Boys, have either of you taken any of auntie’s spoons for anything?”
“No,” answered Toddie, promptly; and Budge looked very saintly and shy, as if he knew something that, through delicacy of feeling and not fear, he shrank from telling.
“What is it, Budge?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“Why, you see,” said Budge, in the sweetest of tones, “we wanted somethin’ yesterday to dig the grave of the birdie with, an’ we couldn’t think of anything else so nice as spoons. There was plenty of ugly old iron ones lyin’ around, but birdies are so sweet an’ nice that I wouldn’t have none of ’em. An’ the dinner-dishes was all lyin’ there with the big silver spoons on top of ’em, so I just got two of ’em—they wasn’t washed yet, but we washed ’em real clean so’s to be real nice about everythin’, so that if the little birdie’ spirit was lookin’ at us it wouldn’t be disgusted.”
“And