“Poor little Toddie!  Don’t cry!  Does it hurt you awful?  Never mind—­Uncle Harry’ll comfort you.  Don’t cry, Toddie de-ar!”

Both boys reached the piazza steps, and clambered up, Budge exclaiming:—­

“O, Uncle Harry, Toddie put his fingers in the little wheels of the cutter-grass, an’ it turned just the least little biddie, an’ it hurted him.”

But Toddie ran up to me, clasped my legs, and sobbed.

“Sing ‘Toddie one boy day.’”

My blood seemed to freeze.  I could have choked that dreadful child, suffering though he was.  I stooped over him, caressed him, promised him candy, took out my watch and gave it to him to play with, but he returned to his original demand.  A lady—­the homeliest in the party—­suggested that she should bind up his hand, and I inwardly blessed her, but he reiterated his request for “Toddie one boy day,” and sobbed pitifully.

“What does he mean?” asked Miss Mayton.

“He wants Uncle Harry to sing, ‘Charley boy one day,’” explained Budge; “he always wants that song when he’s hurt any way.”

“Oh, do sing it to him, Mr. Burton,” pleaded Miss Mayton; and all the other ladies exclaimed, “Oh, do!”

I wrathfully picked him up in my arms, and hummed the air of the detested song.

“Sit in a wockin’-chair,” sobbed Toddie.

I obeyed; and then my tormentor remarked:—­

“You don’t sing the wydes (words),—­I wants the wydes.”

I sang the words as softly as possible with my lips close to his ear, but he roared:—­

“Sing louder.”

“I don’t know any more of it, Toddie,” I exclaimed in desperation.

“Oh, I’ll tell it all to you, Uncle Harry,” said Budge.  And there, before that audience, and her, I was obliged to sing that dreadful doggerel, line for line, as Budge repeated it.  My teeth were set tight, my brow grew clammy, and I gazed upon Toddie with terrible thoughts in my mind.  No one laughed—­I grew so desperate that a titter would have given relief.  At last I heard some one whisper:—­

“See how he loves him!  Poor man!—­he’s in perfect agony over the little fellow.”

Had not the song reached its natural end just then, I believe I should have tossed my wounded nephew over the piazza rail.  As it was, I set him upon his feet, announced the necessity of our departure, and began to take leave, when Miss Mayton’s mother insisted that we should stay to dinner.

“For myself, I should be delighted, Mrs. Mayton,” said I; “but my nephews have hardly learned company manners yet.  I’m afraid my sister wouldn’t forgive me if she heard I had taken them out to dinner.”

“Oh, I’ll take care of the little dears,” said Miss Mayton; “they’ll be good with me, I know.”