"I guess my Randy knows 'most everything now," Prue was saying. "She has such long lessons, and studies late, and she's seen the big stores, and she's been to a concert full of fiddles where she saw a great big Primmy Dommy!"
"Why, what's that?" asked little Hitty Buffum. "Wasn't she 'fraid when she saw the Primny what yer call it comin'?"
"I do'no," said Prue, "she didn't say, but whatever 'twas, I guess 'twas pretty big, my Randy said so."
Evidently the children considered that in Boston one might see strange creatures of every type, and Randy Weston had been privileged to see one of the largest. Just at this moment Hi Babson joined the little group.
"Want ter know what I done Saturday?" he asked, his black eyes gleaming with mischief.
"I hadn't learnt my lessons fer Monday, and ma said I must stay up in the spare room 'til I knew 'em all by heart. I didn't like ter stay up there alone, but when I found I got ter, I set down on the mat an' 'twan't long before I'd learnt half of 'em. Just 'bout that time I heard a awful scratching an' then I 'membered that Uncle Joshua set a mouse trap down by the beaury. When I looked, there was a little mouse in it, an' all to once I knew what I'd like ter do.
"The bedclothes was pulled down over the foot-board, an' I could see the slit in the tick where they poke in their hands to stir up the straw. I put the trap with the mouse in it, in there among the straw, an' then I went down just as quiet as I could, an' got old Tom an' tugged him upstairs.
"When I put him on the bed an' held his head over the hole in the tick, you'd oughter seen his tail switch! The mouse was a runnin' 'round in the cage, an' Tom dove into the slit a scatterin' the straw all over the bed. My! Didn't it fly?"
"Why you naughty, bad boy," said little Hitty Buffum.
"What _did_ they say to you," asked Prue.
"Ma didn't say much," said Hi. "I laid down on the floor and rolled over an' over, a laughin' like anything 'til ma come in, an' she jest looked at that bed, drove Tom out'n the room an' then she took hold er me, an' I,--I had ter stop laughin' ter cry 'n Grandma Babson said, 'That boy'll yet come to the gallus.'"
A group of the larger girls were comparing the letters which Randy had sent with those which they had received from Phoebe Small.