“Won’t you—pooh! Are all girls afraid in Old Knollsboro?”
“I—don’t—know.”
“I hope not. I’ve had a great cur’osity to see another girl besides myself, but I never did,—that is, to talk to ’em. If they’re all so scarey as you, I shall be awful dis’pointed.”
“You’re a nasty, mean, hateful thing! So there!”
“Why—what?” The face which Steenie turned toward her companion showed not the slightest resentment, but the sincerest astonishment. “What did I do?”
“You said I was ‘scarey’—and—and—things!”
“But aren’t you? I thought so. May be I was mistookened. But Kinks thinks it’s time to go. Are you ready? What’s your name?”
“Beatrice. Ye—es. I—guess—so. Won’t he—run away—again?”
“He’ll run like a coyote! But he won’t behave bad any more. Ready?”
“Ye—es.”