Miss Barry sniffed, with a one-sided smile. "I didn't have much time to think about that. I had to get breakfast and get to school myself, and spank him when he ran away, and when he hitched on trains, and robbed apple orchards, and so on, but mostly when he wouldn't go to school. Ma's slippers were 'most done for, when one day I caught him, and took one of the old tattered things and was going to give him what he deserved, when he just caught my arms in his two hands, and began to laugh. I noticed then for the first time that he was as tall as I was, and his eyes looked straight into mine the fullest of mischief you ever saw. I could feel myself getting as red as a beet. 'Let me go this minute,' I yelled at him. 'Let me go, Lammie.' That's what the schoolboys called him when they wanted to be mean. He fought a lot o' boys for that before they learned better, and I remember exactly how he managed to get both o' my calico sleeves into one hand, and boxed my ears with the other; not real hard, he was laughing all the time.
"'Come on, Belinda,' he said, 'let's bury the slipper.' I knew what he meant, because the boys were always playing Indian, and burying hatchets; but, do you know, he made me bury that shoe then and there? He took me outdoors and made me take the hoe and bury that slipper in the garden. He stood over me, and before I finished I was crying, I was so mad. I was fifteen then, and he was eleven, but I was small for my age; and that was the end of the spankings. But you see by that time," continued Miss Barry complacently, "I'd made him a real good boy."
"Yes, yes, you did," agreed Linda warmly. "What then?"
"Oh, then it was lobster traps, and I helped him with them, and I got Father to buy lobsters off him, and buy his clams, too, and I think Lambert was always sort of sorry for me even when I was scolding him. He knew I had a lot to do for a young one."
"Yes," said Linda, with eagerness, "and he resolved to make it up to you, I know."
"He did make it up to me. He was the best brother in the world," answered Miss Barry simply.
The girl's lips trembled again against the violets, and the two watched the flying landscape in silence.
CHAPTER XIII
HOME-COMING