“Pretend it was a nice ’abbit!” said Bruno.
“But it wasn’t a nice habit, to kill Mouses,” Sylvie argued. “I can’t pretend that!”
“I didn’t say ‘habit,’ oo silly fellow!” Bruno replied with a merry twinkle in his eye. “ ’abbits—that runs about in the fields!”
“Rabbit? Well it can be a Rabbit, if you like. But you mustn’t alter my story so much, Bruno. A Chicken couldn’t eat a Rabbit!”
“But it might have wished to see if it could try to eat it.”
“Well, it wished to see if it could try—oh, really, Bruno, that’s nonsense! I shall go back to the Owls.”
“Well then, pretend they hadn’t great eyes!”
“And they saw a little Boy,” Sylvie went on, disdaining to make any further corrections. “And he asked them to tell him a story. And the Owls hooted and flew away—” (“Oo shouldn’t say ‘flewed;’ oo should say ‘flied,’ ” Bruno whispered. But Sylvie wouldn’t hear.) “And he met a Lion. And he asked the Lion to tell him a story. And the Lion said ‘yes,’ it would. And, while the Lion was telling him the story, it nibbled some of his head off—”
“Don’t say ‘nibbled’!” Bruno entreated. “Only little things nibble—little thin sharp things, with edges—”
“Well then, it ‘nubbled,’ ” said Sylvie. “And when it had nubbled all his head off, he went away, and he never said ‘thank you’!”
“That were very rude,” said Bruno. “If he couldn’t speak, he might have nodded—no, he couldn’t nod. Well, he might have shaked hands with the Lion!”
“Oh, I’d forgotten that part!” said Sylvie. “He did shake hands with it. He came back again, you know, and he thanked the Lion very much, for telling him the story.”
“Then his head had growed up again?” said Bruno.
“Oh yes, it grew up in a minute. And the Lion begged pardon, and said it wouldn’t nubble off little boys’ heads—not never no more!”
Bruno looked much pleased at this change of events. “Now that are a really nice story!” he said. “Aren’t it a nice story, Mister Sir?”
“Very,” I said. “I would like to hear another story about that Boy.”
“So would I,” said Bruno, stroking Sylvie’s cheek again. “Please tell about Bruno’s Picnic; and don’t talk about nubbly Lions!”
“I won’t, if it frightens you,” said Sylvie.
“Flightens me!” Bruno exclaimed indignantly. “It isn’t that! It’s ’cause ‘nubbly’ ’s such a grumbly word to say—when one person’s got her head on another person’s shoulder. When she talks like that,” he explained to me, “the talking goes down bofe sides of my face—all the way to my chin—and it doos tickle so! It’s enough to make a beard grow, that it is!”
He said this with great severity, but it was evidently meant for a joke: so Sylvie laughed—a delicious musical little laugh, and laid her soft cheek on the top of her brother’s curly head, as if it were a pillow, while she went on with the story. “So this Boy—”
“But it wasn’t me, oo know!” Bruno interrupted. “And oo needn’t try to look as if it was, Mister Sir!”
I represented, respectfully, that I was trying to look as if it wasn’t.
“—he was a middling good Boy—”
“He were a welly good Boy!” Bruno corrected her. “And he never did nothing he wasn’t told to do—”
“That doesn’t make a good Boy!” Sylvie said contemptuously.
“That do make a good Boy!” Bruno insisted.
Sylvie gave up the point. “Well, he was a very good Boy, and he always kept his promises, and he had a big cupboard—”
“—for to keep all his promises in!” cried Bruno.
“If he kept all his promises,” Sylvie said, with a mischievous look in her eyes, “he wasn’t like some Boys I know of!”
“He had to put salt with them, a-course,” Bruno said gravely: “oo can’t keep promises when there isn’t any salt. And he kept his birthday on the second shelf.”
“How long did he keep his birthday?” I asked. “I never can keep mine more than twenty-four hours.”
“Why, a birthday stays that long by itself!” cried Bruno. “Oo doosn’t know how to keep birthdays! This Boy kept his a whole year!”
“And then the next birthday would begin,” said Sylvie. “So it would be his birthday always.”
“So it were,” said Bruno. “Doos oo have treats on oor birthday, Mister Sir?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“When oo’re good, I suppose?”
“Why, it is a sort of treat, being good, isn’t it?” I said.
“A sort of treat!” Bruno repeated. “It’s a sort of punishment, I think!”
“Oh, Bruno!” Sylvie interrupted, almost sadly. “How can you?”
“Well, but it is,” Bruno persisted. “Why, look here, Mister Sir! This is being good!” And he sat bolt upright, and put on an absurdly solemn face. “First oo must sit up as straight as pokers—”
“—as a poker,” Sylvie corrected him.
“—as straight as pokers,” Bruno firmly repeated. “Then oo must clasp oor hands—so. Then—‘Why hasn’t oo brushed oor hair? Go and brush it toreckly!’ Then—‘Oh, Bruno, oo mustn’t dog’s-ear the daisies!’ Did oo learn oor spelling wiz daisies, Mister Sir?”
“I want to hear about that Boy’s Birthday,” I said.
Bruno returned to the story instantly. “Well, so this Boy said ‘Now it’s my Birthday!’ And so—I’m tired!” he suddenly broke off, laying his head in Sylvie’s lap. “Sylvie knows it best. Sylvie’s grown-upper than me. Go on, Sylvie!”
Sylvie patiently took up the thread of the story again. “So he said ‘Now it’s my Birthday. Whatever shall I do to keep my Birthday?’ All good little Boys—” (Sylvie turned away from Bruno, and made a great pretence of whispering to me) “—all good little Boys—Boys that learn their lessons quite perfect—they always keep their birthdays, you know. So of course this little Boy kept his Birthday.”
“Oo may call him Bruno, if oo like,” the little fellow carelessly remarked. “It weren’t me, but it makes it more interesting.”
“So Bruno said to himself ‘The properest thing to do is to have a Picnic, all by myself, on the top of the hill. And I’ll take some Milk, and some Bread, and some
