“You kin bet I’ll hurt him,” she said, giving the red-head lad a vicious wrench.
“Do let him up,” begged Janice.
“I’ll let him up when he promises to pick up ev’ry mite o’ glass he’s flung in the road yonder. He wants t’ hear your tire go bust! I’ll bust him!” declared Virginia, and began to maul the unfortunate Tom again.
But Janice leaped out and pulled her champion off the prostrate boy. “Do let him get up. I’m sorry Tom doesn’t like me; but your pounding him like this, Virginia, won’t make him fond of me; that’s sure!”
“He ain’t got no call to be fond o’ ye,” snarled the black-haired girl. “But he’s goin’ t’ let you alone or I’ll give him wuss than he got now.”
“You wouldn’t ha’ done nothin’ t’ me if I’d been watchin’ out,” sniveled Master Tom. “Ye jumped on me, that’s what ye did.”
“And I’ll jump on ye ag’in if ye don’t pick up that glass, ev’ry mite of it!” threatened his sister.
“Wal, ain’t I goin’ to?” he growled, and commenced to remove the broken bottles from the way. Janice thanked him when he had finished; but he only hung his head and slouched away.
With Virginia and the mother, however, Janice had made herself welcome. The unkempt and shiftless mother of this big brood of “Trimminses” loved them and did her best for them; at least, while they were little. At a certain age they really had to get out and do for themselves.
Most of the older boys disappeared, one at a time, from the cabin and did not come back. The family heard of the wanderers occasionally. When they were in funds they sometimes sent a little money home to their mother; but they were not of the breed that gets ahead and is saving. How could they be?