“Yessum,” he confessed, and there was something of a clutch in his throat which would never grow up to be a sob, but which would have been one in a girl. He’d rather have lied, but you couldn’t get any useful advice that way.
“Maybe he’s growing faster than you.”
“Yessum. I eat all the oatmeal they give me, and I take trainin’ runs every evening after school, clear up to Scraggers Park and back; but it don’t do any good.”
Arly pondered.
“When does he lick you?” she asked.
“Right after supper when he catches me.”
“Do you play all day?”
“I go to school.”
“Baseball?”
“Yessum. Baseball, and one-old-cat, and two-old-cat, and rounders, and marbles, and prisoner’s base, and high-spy, but mostly baseball and marbles.”