"I'll try not
to talk no more slang, Miss Hildy. I will, I swan!"
"But, Bubble, you must not say 'I swan' either; that is _abominable_
slang."
Bubble looked very blank. "Why, what _shall_ I say?" he asked, simply.
"Pink won't let me say 'I swow,' 'cause it's vulgar; an' if I say 'by'
anything, Ma says it's swearin',--an' I can't swear, nohow!"
"Of course not," said Hilda. "But why _must_ you say anything,
Bubble,--anything of that sort, I mean?"
"Oh!" said the boy, "I d' 'no 's I kin say ezackly _why_, Miss Hildy;
but--but--wal, I swan! I mean, I--I don't mean I swan--but--there now!
You see how 'tis, Miss Hildy. Things don't seem to hev no taste to 'em,
without you say _somethin'_."
"Let me think," said Hilda. "Perhaps I can think of something that will
sound better."
"I might say, 'Gee Whittekers!'" suggested Bubble, brightening up a
little. "I know some fellers as says that."
"I don't think that would do," replied Hilda, decidedly. "What does it
mean?"
"Don't mean nothing as I knows on," said the boy; "but it sounds kind o'
hahnsome, don't it?"
Hilda shook her head with a smile. She did not think "Gee Whittekers" a
"hahnsome" expression.
"Bubble," she said after a few moments' reflection, during which her
scholar watched her anxiously, "I have an idea. If you _must_ say
'something,' beside what you actually have to say, let it be something
that will remind you of your lessons; then it may help you to remember
them.
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