He had cut out a
number of pictures, and pasted them upon the wall of my room--my
sister's darling room, with its walls tinted exquisitely in pink.
As a member of a hanging committee, Toddie would hardly have
satisfied taller people, but he had arranged the pictures quite
regularly, at about the height of his own eyes, had favored no one
artist more than another, and had hung indiscriminately figure
pieces, landscapes, and genre pictures. The temporary break of
wall-line, occasioned by the door communicating with his own room,
he had overcome by closing the door and carrying a line of
pictures across its lower panels. Occasionally, a picture fell off
the wall, but the mucilage remained faithful, and glistened with
its fervor of devotion. And yet so untouched was I by this
artistic display, that when I found strength to shout "Toddie!" it
was in a tone which caused this industrious amateur decorator to
start violently, and drop his mucilage-bottle, open end first,
upon the carpet.
"What will mamma say?" I asked.
Toddie gazed, first blankly and then inquiringly, into my face;
finding no answer or sympathy there, he burst into tears, and
replied:--
"I dunno."
The ringing of the lunch-bell changed Toddie from a tearful cherub
into a very practical, business-like boy, and shouting "Come on,
Budge!" he hurried down-stairs, while I tormented myself with
wonder as to how I could best and most quickly undo the mischief
Toddie had done.
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