“And she gave Betty a good whipping.”
“Yes, she did, and I only did it to cure her,” said Betty in an aggrieved voice.
“Let’s go fast,” begged Eileen. “Take your handkerchief, Billy, and see if you can wipe a little of the dirt and blood off your face.”
“He mustn’t do that,” interrupted Betty promptly. “Handkerchiefs is full of germs, and if he gets the germs in his scratches he gets blood poison and dies. You got to wait till you get home, Billy, and then lie on your back on Aunt Eileen’s bed, and she’ll take clean gauze and soak ’em off in cold water. If you haven’t got any gauze handy you can use mine, but you’d better buy some. Billy uses as much as a dollar’s worth of gauze in no time.”
Eileen put her hand over her face, and turned away. The children followed, looking about them in frank interest and pleasure.
“Is that a palm tree?” asked Betty. “Billy says God never made ’em grow like that. He says men just tie those fins on top to make ’em look funny. Did God do it, Aunt Eileen? What did He do it for?—Oh, is this your car, Aunt Eileen? Billy knows how to start a car so you better not let him in it by himself.” Then as the small boyish shoulders assumed the dreadful hunch, she cried excitedly, “Oh, no, he can’t either, honest he can’t. He doesn’t know what to turn, nor anything. I was joking. You ain’t mad at me, are you, Billy?”
Eveley slipped silently into her place behind the wheel, and Billy opened the door for his aunt and sister, banged it smartly after their entrance, and climbed in front with Eveley.
“They oughtn’t to let women drive cars,” he said in a judicial tone. “Women is too nervous. There ought to be a law against it.”
Eveley laughed. “I think so, too,” she agreed pleasantly. “But until there is such a law, I think I shall keep on driving.”
Billy stared at her suspiciously. “You don’t need to agree with me to be polite,” he said. “It won’t hurt my feelings any. I ain’t used to it, anyhow.”