“Never mind, pussy,” said her brother; “I’ll get the butterfly-net.”
“No, no,” she sobbed; “please don’t.”
“The rod and line, then, and you shall fish. I’ll put on the worms.”
“No, no, I don’t want to,” she said, with more tears. “Put me down, please; you do joggle me so. You’ll be going back to school soon, and, now the grass is cut, I did so wa–wa–want to see the kite fly!”
“So did I,” said the boy ruefully. “But don’t cry, Tiz dear. Tell me what to do. It makes me so miserable to see you cry.”
“Does it, Teddy?” she said, looking up wistfully in her brother’s face, and then kissing him. “There, then: I won’t cry any more.”
She had hardly spoken when the sunshine returned to her pretty little face, for, though she did not know it, that sorrowful countenance had quite softened Cook’s heart, and she stood in the kitchen doorway, calling the young people and waving a steaming white basin, which she set down on the window-sill with a bang.
“Here’s your paste, Master Ned,” she shouted; and then, muttering to herself something about being such a “soft,” she disappeared.
Five minutes later the young folk were in the play-room and Ned was covering the framework of his simply-made kite with white paper, Tizzy helping and getting her little fingers pasty the while. Then a loop was made on the centre lath; the wet kite was found to balance well; wings were made, and a long string with a marble tied in the thumb of a glove attached to the end for a tail; the ball of new string taken off the top of the drawers, and the happy couple went off in high glee to fly the kite.
“It’s half-dry already,” said Ned. “Paste soon dries in hot weather.”