Five Little Peppers and their Friends | Page 3

she whispered to her child, and in a minute she was running around the figure of the girl, to stare into her face.
"Ow--get out!" cried the girl crossly, and she whirled off, pulling up her ragged dress to her face.
"I thought I heard you cry," said Phronsie in a troubled voice, and following her in distress.
"Phoo!" cried the girl, snapping her fingers in derision, and spinning around on the tips of her toes, "'twas the cat."
"No," said Phronsie decidedly, and shaking her head, "it couldn't be the cat, because she doesn't hardly ever cry, and besides she isn't here"--and she looked all around--"don't you see she isn't?"
"Well, then, 'twas that bird," said the girl, pointing up to a high branch. "Ain't you green, not to think of him!"
"I don't think it was the bird," said Phronsie slowly, and peering up anxiously, "and he doesn't cry again, so I 'most know he couldn't have cried then."
"Well, he will, if you wait long enough," said the girl defiantly.
"Chee, chee, chee," sang the bird, with delicious little trills, and shaking them out so fast his small throat seemed about to burst with its efforts.
"There, you see he couldn't cry," began Phronsie, in a burst of delight;" you see, little girl," and she hopped up and down in glee.
"He's got the 'sterics, an' he'll cry next, like enough," said the girl.
"What's 'the 'sterics'?" asked Phronsie, coming out of her glee, and drawing nearer. "Oh, I see some tears," and she looked soberly up into the thin, dirty face, and forgot all about her question.
"No, you don't, either." The girl twitched away angrily. "There ain't never no tears you could see on me; 'twas the cat or the bird. Ain't you green, though! You're green as that grass there," and she spun round and round, snapping her fingers all the while.
Phronsie stood quite still and regarded her sorrowfully.
"Don't you believe I cried!" screamed the girl, dashing up to her, to snap her fingers in Phronsie's face; "say you don't this minute."
"But I think you did," said Phronsie. "Oh. I'm very sure you did, and you may hold my child again, if you only won't cry any more," and she clasped her hands tightly together. The other girl started and ran toward the big iron gate.
"Oh, don't!" Phronsie called after her, and ran to overtake the flying feet. "Please stay with me. I like you; don't go."
The girl threw her head back as if something hurt her throat, then leaned her face against the iron railings and stuck her fingers in her ears.
"Don't! lemme alone! go 'way, can't you!" She wriggled off from Phronsie's fingers. "I'll lick you if you don't lemme be!"
"I wish you'd play with me," said Phronsie, having hard work to keep out of the way of the flapping shoes all down at the heel, "and you may have Clorinda for your very own child as long as you stay--you may really."
"Ow! see here!" Up came the girl's face, and with a defiant sweep of her grimy hands she brushed both cheeks. "Do you mean that, honest true, black and blue?"
"Yes," said Phronsie, very much relieved to see the effect of her invitation, "I do mean it, little girl. Come, and I'll tell Clorinda all how it is."
"I'm goin' outside to walk up and down a bit. Bring on your doll."
"But you must come here," said Phronsie, moving off slowly backward over the grass. "Come, little girl"--holding out her hand.
"Now I know you didn't mean it," said the girl scornfully. "You wouldn't let me touch that nasty old doll of yours again for nothin' you wouldn't," she shrilled at her.
"Oh, yes, I would," declared Phronsie, in great distress; "see, I'm going to get her now," and she turned around and hurried over the grass to pick Clorinda off from her resting-place and run back. "There, see, little girl," she cried breathlessly, thrusting the doll into the dirty hands; "take her now and we'll go and play."
For answer, the girl clutched the doll and sped wildly off through the gateway.
"Oh!" cried Phronsie, running after with pink cheeks and outstretched arms, "give me back my child; stop, little girl."
But there wras no stop to the long, thin figure flying down the path on the other side of the tall hedge. It was a back passage, and few pedestrians used the path; in fact, there were none on it this afternoon, so the children had it all to themselves. And on they went, Phronsie, with but one thought--to rescue her child from the depths of woe such as being carried off by a strange mother would produce--blindly plunging after.
At last the girl with the doll stopped suddenly, flung herself up against a stone fence, and drew a long breath.
"Well, what you goin' to do about it?"