“Your chums, nothing!” angrily cried Jimmy, swelling up pompously. “You all time trying to claim my chums. I can't have nothing a tall 'thout you got to stick your mouth in. You 'bout the selfishest boy they is. You want everything I got, all time.”
The little girls were now quite near and Jimmy hailed them gleefully, forgetful of his anger.
“Come on, Lina, you and Frances,” he shrieked, “and we can have the mostest fun. Billy here's done come to live with Miss Minerva and she's done gone up town and don't care if we sprinkle, 'cause she's got so much 'ligion.”
“But you know none of us are allowed to use a hose,” objected Lina.
“But it's so much fun,” said Jimmy; “and Miss Minerva she's so Christian she ain't going to raise much of a rough-house, and if she do we can run when we see her coming.”
“I can't run,” said Billy, “I ain't got nowhere to run to an'—”
“If that ain't just like you, Billy,” interrupted Jimmy, “all time talking 'bout you ain't got nowhere to run to; you don't want nobody to have no fun. You 'bout the picayunest boy they is.”
Little Ikey Rosenstein, better known as “GooseGrease,” dressed in a cast-off suit of his big brother's, with his father's hat set rakishly back on his head and over his ears, was coming proudly down the street some distance off.
“Yonder comes Goose-Grease Rosenstein,” said Jimmy gleefully. “When he gets right close le's make him hop.”
“All right,” agreed Billy, his good humor restored, “le's baptize him good.”