Page:The Curlytops at Silver Lake (1920).djvu/11

Rh and out rolled more buttons, some of which rattled to the floor.

"Oh, Mother, he’s spoiling all our game!" said Janet. "Please make him stop!"

"I'll pick up the buttons," said Teddy, with a sigh. "I guess this is about fifty times I’ve done it to-night."

"Oh, hardly as many as that, I think," said his mother, with a smile, as she thrust her needle into the cloth she was sewing. "You must not exaggerate, Teddy."

"What’s zaggerate, Mother?" asked Janet. "Is that a new game you can play with buttons?"

"No, dear," answered Mrs. Martin, as she laid aside her sewing and looked at the clock. "To exaggerate means to tell what isn’t exactly so so as to make anything seem bigger than it is. Now I don’t really believe you have picked the buttons off the floor more than five times to-night, have you, Teddy?" she asked.

"Well, maybe it was—maybe it was—six!" replied the curly-headed little lad.

"And you said fifty! laughed his mother. "That’s exaggeration—making a thing too big, Teddy, my boy!"

"Mrs. Henderson that lives across the