"Oh, Tess!" cried Alfredia Blossom, the colored girl, "see those boys chasin' that poor dog. I declar'! ain't they jest the wust—"
"Oh, dear me, Alfredia!" urged Tess, gravely, "do remember what Miss Shipman tells you. 'Worst,' not 'wust.'"
"I'm gwine to save dat dog!" gasped Alfredia, too disturbed by the circumstances to mind Tess' instructions.
She darted out ahead of the boys. Sammy Pinkney yelled at the top of his voice:
"Let that dog alone, 'Fredia Blossom! You want to catch hydrophobia?"
"Wha' dat?" demanded Alfredia, stopping short and her eyes rolling.
"That dog's mad! If he bites you you'll go mad, too," declared Sammy, coming puffing to the spot where the little girls were assembled.
At this startling statement some of the girls screamed and ran back into the yard. There they met the smaller girls coming forth, and for a time there was a hullabaloo that nearly deafened everybody on the block.
Said Sammy with disgust:
"Hoh! if hollerin' did any good, those girls would kill all the mad dogs in the State."