The twins were four years old. I don’t mean that was always their age; but they were four when our story begins. If you had looked in the great gilt-edged family Bible on the parlor-table, you would have seen that their whole names were Napoleon Bonaparte Pitcher, and Josephine Bonaparte Pitcher; but it did no great harm, for nobody called them any thing worse than Pollio and Posy.
“_I_ don’t fink we’re twins,” said Pollio, the boy; “I fink we’re _odds_. We don’t look any bit alike.”
And they didn’t. Strangers often asked if Pollio belonged to the family; for he looked like a French boy, with his straight dark hair, brown eyes, and brown skin. Posy’s hair fell in golden curls; her eyes were blue, and her face very fair. Pollio was so homely and funny that it made you laugh; and she was so beautiful that it made you smile.
They had two high chairs exactly alike; only Pollio had rubbed the arms of his with his elbows, and scratched them sadly with his fork.
They had each a fur cap and tippet to wear in the winter; only Posy kept hers on a nail, and Pollio threw his down wherever he happened to be.
No, they were not “any bit alike;” but what loving little friends they were, and how gayly they did trudge about the grounds at home, and up and down the village street, with their arms around each other’s waists! The neighbors came to the windows of their houses as the little couple passed by, saying, “See those little Pitchers! Don’t they look like Tom Thumb and his wife?” When people spoke to them, Posy dropped her eyes, and blushed; but Pollio held up his head, and made answer for both.
Once, in the winter, when they were going out walking, and Posy was half stifled with her fur cap and a big comforter wound twice round her neck, Pollio said,—
“She wants to walk _sturbously_ free, and not be mumbled up.”
“Sturbously” was one of his big words that mamma had to guess at; but she unwound the comforter, and Pollio said,—
“Fank you. It’s awful mild, and she fought she’d choke. Good-by now: we’re going.”
“Posy would never have complained of the comforter; but she has a brother who is always ready to scold for her,” said mamma, looking fondly after her darlings.
“Don’t you be afraid; there sha’n’t any dogs hurt _you_,” she heard him say to his timid little sister, as Dr. Field’s Fido barked at their heels.