A Flock of Girls and Boys

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A Flock of Girls and Boys

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Title: A Flock of Girls and Boys
Author: Nora Perry
Release Date: December 10, 2003 [eBook #10433]
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FLOCK
OF GIRLS AND BOYS***
E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David Wilson, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

A FLOCK

of
GIRLS AND BOYS.
by NORA PERRY,
Author Of "Hope Benham," "Lyrics And Legends," "A Rosebud
Garden Of Girls," Etc.
Illustrated by CHARLOTTE TIFFANY PARKER.
1895.

[Frontispiece: That little Smith girl]

CONTENTS
THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL
THE EGG BOY
MAJOR MOLLY'S CHRISTMAS PROMISE
POLLY'S VALENTINE
SIBYL'S SLIPPER
A LITTLE BOARDING-SCHOOL SAMARITAN
ESTHER BODN
BECKY
ALLY
AN APRIL FOOL

THE THANKSGIVING GUEST

ILLUSTRATIONS.
THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL
"MISS PELHAM! MISS MARGARET PELHAM!"
WALLULA CLAPPED HER HANDS WITH DELIGHT
A VERY PRETTY PAIR
SIBYL'S REFLECTIONS
A TALL, HANDSOME WOMAN SMILED A GREETING
SHE WAS ADDRESSING MONSIEUR BAUDOUIN
THE PRETTY LITTLE BASKET OF GREEN AND WHITE PAPER
AS THE FRESH ARRIVALS APPEARED

THAT LITTLE SMITH GIRL.
CHAPTER I.
"The Pelhams are coming next month."
"Who are the Pelhams?"
Miss Agnes Brendon gave a little upward lift to her small pert nose as
she exclaimed:
"Tilly Morris, you don't mean to say that you don't know who the
Pelhams are?"

Tilly, thus addressed, lifted up her nose as she replied,--
"I do mean to say just that."
"Why, where have you lived?" was the next wondering question.
"In the wilds of New York City," answered Tilly, sarcastically.
"Where the sacred stiffies of Boston are unknown," cried Dora Robson,
with a laugh.
"But the Pelhams,--I thought that everybody knew of the Pelhams at
least," Agnes remarked, with a glance at Tilly that plainly expressed a
doubt of her denial. Tilly caught the glance, and, still further irritated,
cried impulsively,--
"Well, I never heard of them! Why should I? What have they done,
pray tell, that everybody should know of them?"
"'Done'? I don't know as they've done anything. It's what they are. They
are very rich and aristocratic people. Why, the Pelhams belong to one
of the oldest families of Boston."
"What do I care for that?" said Tilly, tipping her head backward until it
bumped against the wall of the house with a sounding bang, whereat
Dora Robson gave a little giggle and exclaimed,--
"Mercy, Tilly, I heard it crack!"
Then another girl giggled,--it was another of the Robsons,--Dora's
Cousin Amy; and after the giggle she said saucily,--
"Tilly's head is full of cracks already. I think we'd better call her 'Crack
Brain;' we'll put it C.B., for short."
"You'd better call her L.H.,--'Level Head,'" a voice--a boy's
voice--called out here.
The group of girls looked at one another in startled surprise.

"Who--what!" Then Dora Robson, glancing over the piazza railing,
exclaimed,--
"It's Will Wentworth. He's in the hammock! What do you mean, Willie,
by hiding up like that, right under our noses, and listening to our
secrets?"
"Hiding up? Well, I like that! I'd been out here for half an hour or more
when you girls came to this end of the piazza."
"What in the world have you been doing for an hour in a hammock? I
didn't know as you could keep still so long. Oh, you've got a book. Let
me see it."
"You wouldn't care anything about it; it's a boy's book."
"Let me see it."
Will held up the book.
"Oh, 'Jack Hall'!"
"Of course, I knew you wouldn't care anything for a book that's full of
boy's sports," returned Will.
"I know one girl that does," responded Dora, laughing and nodding her
head.
"Who is she?" asked Will, looking incredulous.
"'T ain't me," answered Dora, more truthfully than grammatically.
"No, I guess not; and I guess you don't know any such girl."
Dora wheeled around and called, "Tilly, Tilly Morris! Come here and
prove to this conceited, contradicting boy that I'm telling the truth."
"Oh, it's Tilly Morris, eh?" sung out Will.

"Yes," answered Tilly, turning and looking down at the occupant of the
hammock; "I think 'Jack Hall' is the jolliest kind of a book. I've read it
twice."
Will jerked himself up into a sitting posture, as he ejaculated in pleased
astonishment,--
"Come, I say now!"
"Yes," went on Tilly; "I think it's one of the best books I ever
read,--that part about the boat-race