“You can’t get up here, Polly John—you’re too little!” the boys shouted at her. But evidently Polly John had a will of her own, for she made such an outcry that at last her sister exclaimed, “We’ve got to take her up—she’ll yell till we do,” and to the baby she cried, “Now you hush up, Polly, an’ ketch hold o’ my hand.”
The baby held up her hand and with a jerk she was pulled to the top of the wall, but by no means did she “hush up.” She writhed and twisted and screamed, but there was a difference now—a note of pain and terror in the shrill cries.
“What ails her? What’s she yellin’ for now?” one boy demanded, and another shouted, “Take her down, Peggy. You get down with her.”
“I won’t, either!” Peggy retorted angrily, but she was sitting on the wall now, holding the baby half impatiently, half anxiously.
“Look at her arm. What makes her stick it out like that?” one boy questioned.
The big sister took hold of the small arm, but at her touch the baby’s cries redoubled, and a woman put her head out of a window and sharply demanded what they were doing to that child anyhow.
It was then that the Poor Thing suddenly darted across the road and caught the wailing child from the arms of her astonished sister.
“O, don’t touch her arm!” Elizabeth cried. “Don’t you see? It’s hurting her dreadfully. You slipped it out of joint when you pulled her up there.”
“I didn’t, either! Much you know about it!” the older girl flashed back, sticking out her tongue. But the fear in her eyes belied her impudence.
“Where’s her mother?” Elizabeth demanded.