“Oh, Helen!” shrieked Zaidee, in great excitement. “He hasn’t any name, and he doesn’t live anywhere but here, so he’s ours, cause we finded him, just like the kitty we finded, and auntie let us keep it.”
Zaidee was very much mixed up in her speech, but Helen understood. She clapped her hands with joy.
“Now we’ve got a little boy to play with, ’stead of Kenneth. Let’s keep him to play with till Kenneth comes home, and then there’ll be two of him, just the same as there’s two of us.”
“Can it talk, do you s’pose?” asked Zaidee, walking around Brown-Eyes, with much interest. For, excepting his two short answers, he had not spoken at all.
“I ’xpect he can talk,” returned Helen, “cause he’s got teeth, hasn’t he?” In her mind the only reason that a baby can’t talk is because it hasn’t any teeth. Brown-Eyes immediately showed a full set.
“Yes, he has,” said Helen, triumphantly. “He’s got some up teeth and some down teeth. Talk, boy.”
Brown-Eyes only looked at them as silently as before.
“Poke him,” said Zaidee. “Let’s see if he squeals.”
She did not mean to hurt him, but she poked him in the stomach rather harder than she meant. Straightway Brown-Eyes’s little feet flew out like a wind-mill, and kicked Zaidee so vigorously that she lost her balance, and nearly rolled into the brook.
Brown-Eyes still said nothing.