“If you don't tell anybody,” I said, “I'll come in and lift it for you.”
So I went in and lifted it, and she was glad. She said it made a dandy upstairs for her playhouse, and she said boys were fine, because they were so strong. So I felt pretty good. So she took a hammer and began to nail some nails, to make shelves and things, and I told her girls didn't know how to nail, and she said she knew they didn't.
So I took the hammer, and just then I saw Swatty coming. So I threw down the hammer mighty quick and said:
“I got to go now. My mother wants me, but if you want me to I'll come over Saturday and we'll fix up the playhouse nice.”
So she did want me to; and I said I'd come and I felt gladder than I had ever felt before, and I dodged behind the lilac bushes and got out of her yard the back way, and Swatty did not see me. So that was all right.
Well, I guess there was diphtheria or scarlet fever or something in town then and, anyway, my mother and lots of the kids' mothers made us wear sulphur bags. That was so we wouldn't catch it, whatever it was. They were little bags about as big as a watch, and there was sulphur in them and aseophidity, or asophedeta, or asofiditty, or whatever you spell it.
It smells pretty rank but it keeps away whatever you might catch.
Well, going to school Swatty met me and he said:
“Say, let's go fishing down the Slough, tomorrow.”
“I can't, Swatty,” I said, because I wanted to do what I had said I would do for Mamie Little, only I didn't want to tell Swatty that, so I said: “I've got to stay home and work.”