"Yes, indeedy. It was under the elm. Us was having tea. An' Mist'r Burnham, he was having tea. And father and Prissy. And, oh! such a lot of peoples. And he sez, Mist'r Burnham sez to Hugh John, 'You are good little boy. I saw you in church on Sunday. Do you like to go to church?' He spoke like this-a-way, juss like I'm tellin' oo, down here under his silk waistcoat--kind of growly, but nice."
"Hugh John say that he liked to go to church--'cos father was there listenin', you see. Then Mist'r Burnham ask Hugh John WHY he like to go to church, and of course, he say wight out that it was to look at Sergeant Steel's wed coat. An' nen everybody laugh--I don't know why. But Mist'r Burnham he laughed most."
Cissy also failed to understand why everybody should have laughed. Toady Lion took up the burden of his tale.
"Yes, indeedy, and one Sunday _I_ didn't have to go to church--'cos I'd yet up such a yot of gween gooseb----"
"All right, Toady Lion, I know!" interrupted Cissy quickly.
"Of gween gooseberries," persisted Toady Lion calmly; "so I had got my tummy on in front. It hurted like--well, like when you get sand down 'oo trowsies. Did 'oo ever get sand in 'oo trowsies, Cissy?"
"Hush--of course not!" said Cissy Carter; "girls don't have trowsers--they have----"
But any injudicious revelations on Cissy's part were stopped by Toady Lion, who said, "No, should juss fink not. Girls is too great softs to have trowsies.
"Onst though on the sands at a seaside, when I was '_kye-kying_' out loud an' kickin' fings, 'cos I was not naughty but only fractious, dere was a lady wat said 'Be dood, little boy, why can't you be dood?'
"An' nen I says, 'How can I be dood? Could 'oo be dood wif all that sand in 'oo trowsies?'
"An' nen--the lady she wented away quick, so quick--I can't tell why. P'raps _she_ had sand in her trowsies! Does 'oo fink so, Cissy?"
"That'll do--I quite understand," said Cissy Carter, somewhat hastily, in dread of Toady Lion's well-known license of speech.
"An' nen 'nother day after we comed home I went into the park and clum up a nice tree. An' it was ever so gween and scratchy. 'An it was nice. Nen father he came walking his horse slow up the road, n' I hid. But father he seen me. And he say, 'What you doing there, little boy? You break you neck. Nen I whip you. Come down, you waskal!' He said it big--down here, (Toady Lion illustrated with his hand the place from which he supposed his father's voice to proceed). An' it made me feel all queer an' trimbly, like our guinea pig's nose when father speak like that. An' I says to him, 'Course, father, you never clumb up no trees on Sundays when _you_ was little boy!' An' nen he didn't speak no more down here that trimbly way, but laughed, and pulled me down, and roded me home in front of him, and gived me big hunk of pie--yes, indeedy!"