It was this unexpected remark in a voice, not her brother's, which made Libby drop her button-hook, on the other side of the screen.
"But I'll be cold," objected Will'm, staring at the strip of wintry landscape which showed through his window.
"Naw, you won't," was the confident answer. "Your outside clothes are thick."
"But I never have left them off," said Will'm, ready to cry over the exasperating tangle of legs and sleeves.
Libby, all dressed but buttoning her shoes, heard Will'm being thus tempted of the Evil One, and peeping around the giant picture-book cover, discovered him standing in nothing but his tiny knee breeches, preparing to slip his Russian blouse of blue serge over his bare back.
"Why, Will'm Branfield! Stop this minute and put on your underclothes!" she demanded. Then growing desperate as her repeated commands were not obeyed, she called threateningly, "If you don't put them on this minute I'll tell on you."
"Huh! Who'll you tell?" jeered Benjy. "Mr. Bramfeel's down cellar, talkin' to the furnace man, and Will'm doesn't have to mind Her. She ain't his mother."
The question gave Libby pause. Not that it left her undecided about telling, but it reminded her that she had no title to give "Her," when she called for help. It was like trying to open a door that had no knob, to call into space without having any handle of a name to take hold of first. There was no time to lose. Will'm was buttoning himself up in his blouse.
Libby hurried to the top of the stairs and called: "Sa-ay!" There was no answer, so she called again, "Sa-ay!" Then at the top of her voice, "Say! Will'm's leaving off his flannels. Please come and make him behave!"