"This won't do, Dudley. These wild young ones of yours—"
"Wait a minute, Marshall," interrupted Amos, with a dignity that he had brought with him from New England. "Margery is all right, so we can go over this thing calmly. Sit down and listen to Lydia's story. Tell him, Lydia."
Lydia left her place and crowded up against her father's side. Old
Lizzie was holding the baby.
"It was like this," Lydia began. "Baby and me were going to play by ourselves under the willows. Then Kent, he came and he played pirates with us."
"Why wasn't Kent out playing with the boys?" interrupted Marshall.
Lydia's eyes widened. "Why, I'm as good as a boy to play with, any day! Mostly he does play with other boys, but when they aren't round, he and I play pirates. And then, right after we'd had our lunch, Margery she came along and Kent and I were mad—"
The child paused uncomfortably and rubbed her curly yellow head with her thin little hand in an embarrassed way.
"Why were you mad, Lydia?" In spite of himself, Marshall's voice was softening, as Amos had known it would. Lydia made a deep appeal somehow to the tenderness of men.
"Tell Mr. Marshall all you told me, Lydia," said Amos.
"Well—well, you see, it's like this. Margery's always so clean and she has lovely clothes and—and she—she looks down on us other kids so we won't generally let her play with us—and she's an awful 'fraid cat and—and a tattle-tale. But when we got to playing Robinson Crusoe, and were digging the cave she helped and got terrible dirty, just like us, and then she wanted to be Friday's father, and then—well—now—I guess the rest of it was Kent's and my fault. We forgot she couldn't swim and we forgot what a cry-baby she was. 'Cause you see, water's almost like land to Kent and me and we'd been swimming 'most all day, and Margery's the only kid around here that can't swim."