his
wanderings to a close for a minute, he stood beside her and saw her
lifting a little square of honey soap out of a box which the grocer
presented to her for examination, and, greatly impressed, Ted set off
again on another ramble. Doubtless he too might take whatever he liked,
and as the thought occurred to him he pulled up before another barrel
filled with lumps, little and big, of half clear, whitey-looking stuff,
something like very coarse lump sugar, only not so white, and more
transparent. Ted knew what it was. It was soda, _washing_ soda I believe
it is usually called. Ted was, as I have said, very wide-awake about all
household matters, for he always used his eyes, and very often--indeed
rather oftener than was sometimes pleasant for the people about him if
they wanted to be quiet--his tongue too, for he was great at asking
questions.

"Soda's very useful," Ted reflected; "nurse says it makes things come
cleaner."

Just then his mother called him.

"Ted, dear," she said, "I'm going."

Ted started and ran after her, but just as he did so, he stretched out
his hand and took a lump of soda out of the barrel. He did it quite
openly, he didn't mind in the very least if the shopman saw him--like
the daisies in the field, so he thought, the soda and the sugar and the
French plums and everything were there for him or for any one to help
themselves to as they liked. But Ted was not greedy--he was far better
pleased to get something "useful" for mother than anything for himself.
He would have asked her what he had better take, if he had had time--he
would have stopped to say "Thank you" to the grocer had he not been in
such a hurry to run after his mother.

They walked quickly down the street. Ted's mother was a little
absent-minded for the moment--she was thinking of what she had ordered,
and hoping she had forgotten nothing. And holding her little boy by the
one hand she did not notice the queer thing he was holding in the
other. Suddenly she stopped before a boot and shoe shop.

"I must get baby a pair of shoes," she said. "She is such a little
kicker, she has the toes of her cloth ones out in no time. We must get
her a pair of leather ones I think, Ted."

"Ses, I sink so," said Ted.

So his mother went into the shop and asked the man to show her some
little leather shoes. Ted looked on with great interest, but when the
shoes were spread out on the counter and he saw that they were all
_black_, he seemed