I
embraced the opportunity to return to my book, but I had hardly
read a page, when a combined crash and scream summoned me to the
dining-room. On the floor lay Toddie, a great many dishes, a roast
leg of lamb, several ears of green corn, the butter-dish and its
contents, and several other misplaced edibles. One thing was quite
evident; the scalding contents of the gravy-dish had been emptied
on Toddie's arm, and how severely the poor child might be scalded
I did not know. I hastily slit open his sleeve from wrist to
shoulder, and found the skin very red; so, remembering my mother's
favorite treatment for scalds and burns, I quickly spread the
contents of a dish of mashed potato on a clean handkerchief, and
wound the whole around Toddie's arm as a poultice. Then I demanded
an explanation.
"I was only djust reatchin for a pieshe of bwed," sobbed Toddie,
"an' then the bad old tabo beginded to froe all its fings at me,
an' tumble down bang."
He undoubtedly told the truth as far as he knew it, but reaching
over tables is a bad habit in small boys, especially when their
mothers cling to old-fashioned heirlooms of tables, which have
folding leaves; so I banished Toddie to his room, supperless, to
think of what he had done. With Budge alone, I had a comfortable
dinner off the salvage from the wreck caused by Toddie, and then I
went up-stairs to see if the offender had repented.
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