“Jemmy—say—”
“What say? Ain’t that smoke out there?”
“No, it’s a cloud. Jemmy Three, I’m going to tell you something. I want to. I’m going to tell you what that money’s going to do—you’re listening, aren’t you?”
“With both ears—go ahead.”
“Well—oh, it’s going to be something so beautiful, Jemmy! I never knew till day before yesterday that you could do anything so beautiful—I mean that anybody could. I never dreamed it! But you can—somebody can! There’s a man can, Jemmy! All you need is money to take you across to him and—there’s the money!” waving her hand toward the rows of barrels. Her eyes were shining like twin stars. She had forgotten aches and lameness again.
“I told Uncle Jem,” she went on rapidly, while Jem Three gazed at her in puzzled wonder and thought more things about girls. “He told me to go down to the hotel and ask that other little girl’s mother, and I meant to go last night! But I went to sleep last night! So I’m going to-day—I’m going to ask her to tell me just exactly how to do it.”
“Do what?” inquired Jem Three quietly. That was the only way to do with girls—pull ’em up smart, like that!
“Mercy! Haven’t I told you?” cried Judith. “Well, then—Jemmy, if you were a little mite of a thing—a Blossom, say—and a fairy came to you and said, ‘Wish a wish, my dear; what would you rather have in all the world?’ what would you answer, Jemmy? Remember, if you were a little mite of a Blossom with a—with a—little broken stem.” Judith’s voice sank to a tender softness. She didn’t know she was “making poetry.”
The boy with his toes deep in the sand was visibly embarrassed. Whatever poetry lay soul-deep within him, there was none he could call to his lips.
“Wouldn’t you answer her, ‘Legs to walk with’?” went on the girl beside him softly. “You know you would, Jemmy! I would—everybody would. You’d say, ‘The beautifulest thing in the world would be to walk—dear fairy, I want to walk so much!’ And then supposing—are you supposing?—the fairy waved her wand over you and you—walked! Do you know what you’d say then? I know—you’d say, ‘See me! Judy, see me! Jemmy, everybody, see me!’”