“I—­think I know the voices,” gasped Mrs. Burton, turning pale.

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the general, with an accent which showed that he was wishing the reverse of blessings upon souls less needy than his own.  “You don’t mean—­”

“Oh, I do!” said Mrs. Burton, wringing her hands.  “Do hurry!”

The general puffed and snorted up his gravel walk and toward the shrubbery, behind which was a fish-pond, from which direction the sound came.  Mrs. Burton followed, in time to see her nephew Budge help his brother out of the pond, while the general tugged at a large crawfish which had fastened its claw upon Toddie’s finger.  The fish was game, but, with a mighty pull from the general, and a superhuman shriek from Toddie, the fish’s claw and body parted company, and the general, still holding the latter tightly, staggered backward, and himself fell into the pond.

“Ow—­ow—­ow!” howled Toddie, clasping the skirt of his aunt’s mauve silk in a ruinous embrace, while the general floundered and snorted like a whale in dying agonies, and Budge laughed as merrily as if the whole scene had been provided especially for his entertainment.  Mrs. Burton hurried her nephews away, forgetting, in her mortification, to thank the general for his service, and placing a hand over Toddie’s mouth.

“It hurts,” mumbled Toddie.

“What did you touch the fish at all for?” asked Mrs. Burton.

“It was a little baby-lobster,” sobbed Toddie; “an’ I loves little babies—­all kinds of ’em—­an’ I wanted to pet him.  An’ then I wanted to grop him.”

“Why didn’t you do it, then?” demanded the lady.

“’Cauze he wouldn’t grop,” said Toddie; “he isn’t all gropped yet.”

True enough, the claw of the fish still hung at Toddie’s finger, and Mrs. Burton spoiled a pair of four-button kids in detaching it, while Budge continued to laugh.  At length, however, mirth gave place to brotherly love, and Budge tenderly remarked: 

“Toddie, dear, don’t you love Brother Budge?”

“Yesh,” sobbed Toddie.

“Then you ought to be happy,” said Budge, “for you’ve made him awful happy.  If the fish hadn’t caught you, the general couldn’t have pulled him off, an’ then he wouldn’t have tumbled into the pond, an’ oh, my!—­didn’t he splash bully!”

“Then you’s got to be bited with a fiss,” said Toddie, “an’ make him tumble in again, for me to laugh ’bout.”

“You’re two naughty boys,” said Mrs. Burton.  “Is this the way you take care of your sick uncle?”

“Did take care of him,” exclaimed Toddie; “told him a lovely Bible story, an’ you didn’t, an’ he wouldn’t have had no Sunday at all if I hadn’t done it.  An’ we’s goin’ to take him widin’ this afternoon.”

Mrs. Burton hurried home, but it seemed to her that she had never met so many inquiring acquaintances during so short a walk.  Arrived at last, she ordered her nephews to their room, and flung herself in tears beside her husband, murmuring: