HOW "THE BABY" WENT NUTTING, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
"Beats all," said good old Mr. Hurlbut to good old Mrs. Hurlbut, as he laid down the paper from which he had been reading--"beats all what mizzable little fellers some o' them poor children in the city be. It seems a good many folks on farms, like us, Sereny, have took 'em in 'n' kep' 'em a spell. Must 'a done the poor little things good. Law! makes me feel bad."
Good Farmer Hurlbut took off his spectacles and wiped them with great thoroughness. He was thinking not only of the little newsboys, and the other poor children of whom he had been reading, in the city, fifty miles away, but of a certain little boy of his own and "Sereny's," who had gladdened their home for nine short years, and then had died, leaving them desolate indeed, but with a warm place in their hearts for all his kind.
Presently Farmer Hurlbut spoke again, and, it seemed to Aunt Sereny, rather irrelevantly:
"Lots o' nuts this year up in the north pastur. The clump o' chestnuts is fuller 'n ever--the biggest chestnuts I ever see; 'n' up higher there's more walnuts 'n' butternuts than you ever see in your life. Guess we'll have to go over and get George's folks 'n' Eliza Jane 'n' the girls, 'n' have a picnic some warm day up there, and gather 'em."
"Yes, we must," assented kind Aunt Sereny.
"It would be sorter nice for them poor little fellers in the city to take a day off in the woods so," continued Farmer Hurlbut, jerking his thumb toward the paper from which he had been reading.
"But," went on Farmer Hurlbut, with a puzzled expression, "how to get at 'em--that's the question."
"I should think so," said Aunt Sereny, whose sole mission in life was to agree and to smooth over and to dispense peace generally.
Suddenly Farmer Hurlbut seized his paper, and began to look over what he had been reading, passing his finger patiently along the lines.
"I thought so!" he exclaimed at last, pinning a particular place with his big thumb. "I thought I see the name of the superintendent of the society, 'n' I did. He'd know, I s'pose."
"Oh!" Aunt Sereny brightened up wonderfully.
"How d'ye s'pose 'twould do to ask a whole raft on 'em to come?" asked Farmer Hurlbut, reflectively.