“Robert!” remonstrated Mrs. Beckwith, while Belle began “talking eyes” at her most rapid rate, certain that the boy was about to disgrace them all.
“I’ll bet all I’ve got. Two cents ag’in two of yourn, if you say so.”
“Mr. Brook, our little brother attends the primary department of a highly esteemed parish school. Hence the elegant language which you must have observed,” remarked Bonny, hoping to divert attention from the subject of “thoughts” to education.
“He is well enough. For a boy. He looks like you.”
“Motherkin says I behave like her, too,” asserted Bob, triumphantly; and Beatrice felt her effort worse than wasted.
“H’m-m. You were wondering how old I am. Wasn’t it so?”
“Ginger! How did you know?”
“I was a boy once.”
“What did you use to do? Did you play marbles? Er fight?”
“I played marbles and I flew kites. When I could get any money to buy them with, or coax my mother to make them. And I used to drive the cows when I visited my uncle, on his farm, not far from here. It may be that I have trotted barefooted over the very spot on which this house now stands. Seventy years ago, that was; seventy years ago! Then I was a child like you.”