"Weren't they for us?" asked Bobus, the first to get the stone out of
his mouth.
"No; oh, no!" answered his mother, as well as laughter would permit;
"they are your aunt's precious plums, which she gave us as a great
favour, and I was going to be so good and learn to preserve and
pickle them! Oh, dear!"
"Never mind, Mother Carey," mumbled her nephew Johnny, with his stone
swelling out his cheek, where it was tucked for convenience of
speech; "I'll go and get you another jolly lot more."
"You can't," grunted Robin; "they are all gathered."
"Then we'll get them off the old tree at the bottom of the orchard,
where they are just as big and yellow, and mamma will never know the
difference."
"But they taste like soap!"
"That doesn't matter. She'd no more taste a magnum bonum, before it
is all titivated up with sugar, than-—than-—than-—"
"Babie's head with brain sauce," gravely put in Bobus, as his cousin
paused for a comparison. "It's a wasting of good gifts to make jam
of these, for jam is nothing but a vehicle for sugar."
"Then the grocer's cart is jam," promptly retorted Armine, "for I saw
a sugarloaf come in one yesterday."
"Come on, then," cried Jock, ripe for the mischief; "I know the tree!
They are just like long apricots.
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