Budge & Toddie; Or, Helen's Babies at Play. Habberton John

He had to walk, even if he wanted to get to the depot in an awful hurry. An’ it made him so mad that he said the Izzyrelites shouldn’t go anyhow. So Moses took a handful of ashes an’ threw it up in the air before Pharaoh, an’ everybody in all Egypt got sore with boils right away.”

      “Ow!” said Toddie, “I had some nashty boils oncesh, but I didn’t know ashes made ’em. I’ll ’member that.”

      “An’ Pharaoh said ‘no!’again, so he got some more bothers. The Lord made great big lumps of ice tumble down out of heaven, an’ he made the thunder go bang, an’ the lightnin’ ran around the ground like our fizzers did last Fourth of July, an’ it spoiled all the growing things.”

      “Strawberries?” queried Toddie.

      “Yes.”

      “An’ dear little panzhies?”

      “Yes.”

      “Poo’s old Pharo’! Gwon.”

      “—BUT I DIDN’T KNOW ASHES MADE ’EM”

      “Then Pharaoh’s friends began to tell him he was bein’ a goose, thinkin’ he could be stronger than the Lord, an’ Pharaoh kind o’ thought so himself. So he told Moses that the men-folks of the Izzyrelites might go away if they wanted to, but nobody else.”

      “Mean old fing! Who did he fink was goin’ to cook fings—an’ go to school?”

      “I dunno, but I guess he had a chance to think about it, for the Lord made whole crowds of locusts come. Them’s grasshoppers, you know, an’ they ate up everythin’ in all the gardens, an’ the folks got half crazy about it.”

      “Den I guesh dey didn’t tell their little boysh that they mushn’t kill gwasshoppers, like mamma doesh. Wish I’d been dere! What did he do den?”

      “Oh, he was a selfish old pig, just like he was before, so the Lord said, ‘Moses, just hold your hand up to the sky a minute.’ An’ Moses did it, and then it got darker in Egypt than it is in our coal-bin. Folks couldn’t see anythin’ anywhere, an’ wherever they was when it growed dark, they had to stay for three whole days an’ nights.”

      “Gwacious!” Toddie exclaimed. “Wouldn’t it be drefful if Moses was to go an’ hold his hand up in the sky while we’s a-sittin’ in dezhe chairzh? Mebbe he will! Let’s holler for Aunt Alish!”

      “Oh, he can’t do it now, ’cause he’s dead. Besides that, we ain’t keepin’ any Izzyrelites from doin’ what they want to. Old Pharaoh got awful frightened then, an’ told Moses he might take all the people away, but they mustn’t take their things with ’em—the selfish old fellow! But Moses knew how hard the poor Izzyrelites had to work for the few things they had, so he said they wouldn’t go unless they could carry everythin’ they owned. An’ that made Pharaoh mad, an’ he said, ‘Get out! If I catch you here again I’ll kill you!’s An’ Moses said, ‘Don’t trouble yourself; you won’t see me again unless you want me.’ ”

      “Shouldn’t fink he would,” said Toddie. “Nobody’s goin’ to vizhit kings dzust to have deir heads cutted off. Even our shickens knows enough not to come to Mike when he wants to cut deir heads off. Gwon!”

      “Well, then the Lord told Moses somethin’ that must have made him feel awful. He told him that next night every biggest boy in every family was goin’ to be killed by an angel. Ain’t I glad I didn’t live there then! I’d like to see an angel, but not if that’s what he wants to do with me. What would you do if an angel was to kill me, Tod?”

      “I’d have all your marbles,” Toddie answered, promptly, “and the goat-cawwiage would be all mine. Gwon!”

      “Well, the Lord told Moses about it, an’ Moses told the folks; an’ he told ’em all to kill a little lamb, an’ dip their fingers in the blood, an’ make a cross on their door-posts, so when the angel came along an’ saw it he wouldn’t kill the biggest boy in their houses. An’ that night down came the angel, an’ everybody woke up an’ cried awful—worse than you did when you fell down-stairs the other day, because all the biggest died. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearin’ papas an’ mammas cryin’.”

      “Did dey all have funerals den?”

      “Of course.”

      “Gwacious! Den the little ’Gyptian boys dat didn’t get killed could look at deaders all day long! What did Pharo’s do ’bout it den?”

      “He sent right after Moses an’ his brother, in a hurry, an’ he told ’em that he’d been a bad king—just as if they didn’t know that already! An’ he told ’em to take all the Izzyrelites, an’ all their things, an’ go right straight away—he was in such a hurry that he didn’t even invite Moses to the funeral, though he had a dead biggest boy himself. An’ all the Egyptian people came too, and begged the Izzyrelites to hurry an’ go—they didn’t see what they was waitin’ for. They was so glad to get rid of ’em that they lent ’em anything they wanted.”

      “Pies an’ cakes?”

      “No!” said Budge, contemptuously. “You don’t s’pose folks that’s goin’ off travelin’ for forty years is goin’ to think ’bout eatin’ first thing, do you? They borrowed clothes, an’ money, an’ everything else they could get, an’ left the Egyptians awful poor. An’ off they started.”

      “Did they have a ’cursion train?”

      “No! All the excursion trains in the world couldn’t have held such lots of people. They rode on camels and donkeys, but lots of ’em walked.”

      “I don’t think that was a bit of fun.”

      “You would have,” said Budge, “if you’d always had to work like everything. Don’t you ’member how once when mamma made you work, an’ carry away all the blocks you brought up on the piazza from the new buildin’? You walked ’way off to the village to get rid of it.”

      “Ye—es,” drawled Toddie, “but I knew I’d be rided back when dey came to look for me. Den what did they do?”

      “They started to travel to a nice country that the Lord had told Moses about, an’ they got along till they came to a pretty big ocean where there wasn’t any ferry-boats. I don’t see what Moses took ’em to such a place as that for, unless the Lord wanted to show ’em that no ferry-boats could get the best of Him, when all of a sudden they saw an awful lot of dust bein’ kicked up behind ’em, an’ somebody said that Pharaoh was a-comin’.”

      “Should fink he’d seen ’nough of ’em,” said Toddie. “Did he come down to the boat to wave his hanafitch good-by at ’em?”

      “No, he knew there wasn’t any boats there, an’ so he came to take ’em back again an’ make ’em work some more.”

      “Should fink he’d be afraid de Lord would kill him next.”

      “P’r’aps he did; but then, you see, he was awful lazy, an’ didn’t like to work for himself; papa says there’s lots of folks that would rather be killed than do any work.”

      “Den what d’s de lazy folks do? They can’t catch any Izzyrelites, can they?”

      “No,” said Budge, “but they can do what the Izzyrelites done themselves—they borrow other people’s money. Well, when the folks saw that ’twas Pharaoh a-comin’, they began to grunt, an pitch into poor Moses, an’ told him he ought to be ashamed of hisself to bring ’em away off there to be killed, when they might have died in Egypt without havin’ to walk so far. But Moses said: ‘Shut your mouth, will you? The Lord’s doin’ this job.’ Then the Lord said: ‘Moses, lift up your cane an’ point across the water with it!’s An’ the minute Moses done that, the water of