"_I_ think 'Glory, glory, hallelujah!' is nicer," said Budge, "an' I know _that's_ a Sunday song, 'cause I've heard it in church."

"Aw wight," said Toddie; and he immediately started the old air himself, with the words, "There liezh the whisky-bottle, empty on the sheff," but was suddenly brought to order by a shake from his aunt, while his uncle danced about the front parlor in an ecstasy not directly traceable to toothache.

"That's not a Sunday song either, Toddie," said Mrs. Burton. "The words are real rowdyish. Where did you learn them?"

"Round the corner from our housh," said Toddie, "an' you can shing your ole shongs yourseff, if you don't like mine."

Mrs. Burton went to the piano, rambled among chords for a few seconds, and finally recalled a Sunday-school air in which Toddie joined as angelically as if his own musical taste had never been impugned.

"Now I guess we'd better take up the collection before any little boys lose their pennies," said Budge, hurrying to the dining-room, and returning with a strawberry-box which seemed to have been specially provided for the occasion; this he passed gravely before Toddie, and Toddie held his hand over it as carefully as if he were depositing hundreds, and then Toddie took the box and passed it before Budge, who made the same dumb show, after which Budge retook the box, shook it, listened, and remarked, "It don't rattle--I guess it's all paper-money, to-day," placed it upon the mantel, reseated himself, and remarked:

"_Now_ bring on your lesson."

Mrs. Burton opened her Bible with a sense of utter helplessness. With the natural instinct of a person given to thoroughness, she opened at the beginning of the book, but she speedily closed it again--the first chapter of Genesis had suggested many a puzzling question even to her orthodox mind. Turning the leaves rapidly, passing, for conscience sake, the record of many a battle, the details of which would have delighted the boys, and hurrying by the prophecies as records not for the minds of children, she at last reached the New Testament, and the ever-new story of the only boy who ever was all that his parents and relatives could wish him to be.

"The lesson will be about Jesus," said Mrs. Burton."

"Little-boy Jesus or big-man Jesus?" asked Toddie.

"A--a--both," replied the teacher, in some confusion.

"Aw wight," said Toddie. "G'won."

"There was once a time when all the world was in trouble, without knowing exactly why," said Mrs. Burton; "but the Lord understood it, for He understands everything."

"Does He knows how it feels to be a little boy?" asked Toddie, "an' be sent to bed when He don't want to go?"

"And He determined to comfort the world, as He always does when the world finds out it can't comfort itself," continued Mrs. Burton, entirely ignoring her nephew's questions.

"But wasn't there lotzh of little boyzh then?" asked Toddie, "an' didn't they used to be comforted as well as big folks?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Burton. "But He knew if He comforted grown people, they would make the children happy."

"I wiss He'd comfort you an' Uncle Harry every mornin', then," said Toddie. "G'won."

"So He sent His own Son--his only Son--down to the world to be a dear little baby."

"_I_ should think He'd have made Him a _sister_ baby," said Budge, "if He'd wanted to make everybody happy."

"He knew best," said Mrs. Burton. "And while smart people everywhere were wondering what would or could happen to quiet the restless heart of people--"

"Izh restless hearts like restless tummuks?" interrupted Toddie. "Kind o' limpy an' wabbley?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Burton.

"_Poor_ folks," said Toddie clasping, his hands over his waistband: "Izhe sorry for 'em."

"While smart folks were trying to think out what should be done,"

continued Mrs. Burton, "some simple shepherds, who used to sit around at night under the moon and stars, and wonder about things which they could not understand, saw a wonderfully bright star up in the sky."

"Was it one of the twinkle-twinkle kind, or one of the stand-still kind?" asked Toddie.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Burton, after a moment's reflection. "Why do you ask?"

"'Cauzh," said Toddie, "I know what 'twazh there for, an' it ought to have twinkled, 'cauzh twinkley star bobs open and shut that way 'cauzh they're laughin' and can't keep still, an' I know I'd have laughed if I'd been a star an' was goin' to make a lot of folks so awful happy.

G'won."

"Then," said Mrs. Burton, looking alternately and frequently at the two accounts of the Advent, "they suddenly saw an angel, and the shepherds were afraid."

"Should fink they _would_ be," said Toddie. "Everybody gets afraid when they see good people around. I 'spec' they thought the angel would say 'don't!' in about a minute."

"But the angel told them not to be afraid," said Mrs. Burton, "for he had come to bring good news. There was to be a dear little baby born at Bethlehem, and He would make everybody happy."

"_Wouldn't_ it be nice if that angel would come an' do it all over again?" said Budge. "Only he ought to pick out little boys instead of sheep fellows. _I_ wouldn't be afraid of an angel."

"Neiver would I," said Toddie, "but I dzust go round behind him an' see how his wings was fastened on."

"Then a great many other angels came," said Mrs. Burton, "and they all sang and sang together. The poor shepherds didn't know what to make of it, but after the singing was over, they all started for Bethlehem, to see that wonderful baby."

"Just like the other day we went to see the sister-baby."

"Yes," said Mrs. Burton; but instead of finding Him in a pleasant home and a nice room, with careful friends and nurses around Him, He was in a manger out in a stable."

"That was 'cause he was so smart that He could do just what He wanted to, an' be just where he liked," said Budge, "an' He was a little boy, an' little boys always like stables better than houses--I wish _I_ could live in a stable always an' for ever."

"So do I," said Toddie, "an' sleep in mangers, 'cauzh then the horses would kick anybody that made me put on clean clothezh when I didn't want to. They gaveded him presentsh, didn't they?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Burton; "gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

"Why didn't they give him rattles and squealey-balls, like folks did budder Phillie when _he_ was a baby," asked Toddie.

"Because, Toddie," said Mrs. Burton, glad of an opportunity to get the sentiment of the story into her own hands, from which it had departed very early in the course of the lesson--"because He was no common baby, like other children. He was the Lord."

"What! The Lord once a dear little baby?" exclaimed Toddie.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Burton, shuddering to realize that Toddie had not before been taught of the nature of the Holy Trinity.

"An' played around like uvver little boysh?" continued Toddie.

"I--I--suppose so," said Mrs. Burton, fearing lest in trying to instill reverence into her nephews, she herself might prove irreverent.

"Did somebody say 'Don't' at _Him_ every time he did anyfing?" continued Toddie.

"N--n--n--o! I imagine not," said Mrs. Burton, "because he was always good."

"_That_ don't make any diffwelence," said Toddie. "The better a little boy triesh to be, the more folks say 'Don't' to him. So I guesh nobody had any time to say anyfing elsh at all to Jesus."

"What did He do next?" asked Budge, as deeply interested as if he had not heard the same story many times before.