Teddys Button | Page 4

eyed each other defiantly, yet a little doubtfully, as if measuring one another's strength, and their faces grew eager at the coming contest.
'Boys always ought to give way to girls, always,' Nancy said, using her strongest plea; 'you're not a proper boy at all.'
'You're not a proper girl. You're wearing a boy's hat and a boy's jacket.'
'I'm a sailor's daughter, and everybody can see I am. You say you're a soldier's son, why don't you dress like one?'
Teddy felt he was getting the worst of it. He fingered his button proudly.
'I'm wearing something that has been in the thick of a bloody battle; that's more than you can do. Sailors don't know much of fighting.'
'They know just as much as soldiers, and as to your old button, I b'lieve you just picked up the old brass thing from the gutter!'
'If you weren't a girl, I'd fight you!' sputtered Teddy now, with rising wrath.
'Pooh! I expect I could lick you; I don't b'lieve you have half as big a muscle as I have on my arm.'
'A girl have muscle! It's just a bit of fat!'
The tone of scorn proved too much for Nancy's self-control; with a passionate exclamation she made a quick rush across the plank, there was a struggle, and the result was what might have been expected--a great splash, a scream from Nancy, and both little figures were immersed in the stream. Happily the water was not very deep, and after a few minutes' scrambling they were on dry ground, considerably sobered by their immersion. Teddy began to laugh a little shamefacedly, but Nancy was very near tears.
'I'll tell my mother you nearly drowned me dead.'
'If you're a sailor's daughter, you oughtn't to be afraid of the water; sailors and fish are always in the sea.'
'They're never in it; never!'
'Well, they're on it, as close as they can be to it. Why, you're nearly crying! But you're only a girl, and a sailor's girl can't be very brave--not like a soldier's girl would be.'
'Sailors are much braver than soldiers,' said Nancy, quickly swallowing down her tears; 'and when they do fight they're in much more danger than the soldiers. Father said, how would soldiers like the earth to swallow them up just when they've been fighting hard and got the victory? That's what the sea does to the poor sailors. Their ship begins to sink, and they send up three cheers for queen and country, and then stand on deck with folded arms, and go down, down, down to the bottom of the sea, and never make a cry!'
Nancy forgot her wet clothes in her eloquence, and Teddy stared wonderingly at her.
'Well,' he said, as if considering the matter, 'they may be sometimes brave, but they don't fight like the soldiers, and they have no banners, and red coats, and band; and they don't know how to march. A sailor walks anyhow. I saw one once, and I thought he was tipsy, but he wasn't. A sailor walks like a goose--he waddles!'
'You're the horridest, rudest boy I've ever seen!'
And with the utmost dignity Nancy walked away, Teddy calling after her, 'You made a pretty good charge for a girl, but you couldn't get past me!' And then with one of his loud whoops he raced home, and hardly drew a breath till he reached the farmhouse door. His grandmother confronted him at once.
'You young rascal, what have you been doing? You're never a day out of mischief. If I was your mother I'd give you a good whipping; but she spoils you.'
'And you do, too, granny!'
Teddy's laughing blue eyes, as he raised them to the grim face before him, conquered, as they generally did.
'There, go to your mother, she's in the dairy; I wash my hands of you.'
But Teddy crept up to his little room to change his wet clothes before he met his mother, and then was very silent about his adventure, merely saying, by way of explanation, that he had fallen into the brook; but at tea, a short time after, he suddenly said,--
'If you put a sailor and a soldier together, which would you choose, Uncle Jake?'
'Eh, my laddie? Well, they're both good in their way. I couldn't say, I'm sure.'
'Mother, wouldn't you say the soldier was the bravest?'
'Perhaps I might, sonny; but a sailor can be quite as brave.'
Teddy's face fell. 'I never thought a sailor could fight at all,' he said, in a disappointed tone; 'I thought they just took care of our ships, and now and then fired a big gun off.'
'Who's been bringing up the sailors to you?' asked his grandmother.
'That little girl I told you of--Nancy her name is.'
'Where have you seen her?'
'Down by the brook; we fell into the water together, because we both wanted to cross at once.'
'But, my