Dicky grinned. “Hooking jack!”
“Hooking jack?” Maida repeated in a puzzled tone.
“Hooking jack—playing hookey—playing truant.” Dicky watched Maida’s face but her expression was still puzzled. “Pretending to go to school and not going,” he said at last.
“Oh,” Maida said. “I understand now.”
“She just hates school,” Dicky went on. “They can’t make her go. Old Stoopendale, the truant officer, is always after her. Little she cares for old Stoopy though. She gets fierce beatings for it at home, too. Funny thing about Rosie—she won’t tell a lie. And when her mother asks her about it, she always tells the truth. Sometimes her mother will go to the schoolhouse door with her every morning and afternoon for a week. But the moment she stops, Rosie begins to hook jack again.”
“Mercy me!” Maida said. In all her short life she had never heard anything like this. She was convinced that Rosie Brine was a very naughty little girl. And yet, underneath this conviction, burned an ardent admiration for her.
“She must be very brave,” she said soberly.
“Brave! Well, I guess you’d think so! Arthur Duncan says she’s braver than a lot of boys he knows. Arthur and she hook jack together sometimes. And, oh cracky, don’t they have the good times! They go down to the Navy Yard and over to the Monument Grounds. Sometimes they go over to Boston Common and the Public Garden. Once they walked all the way to Franklin Park. And in the summer they often walk down to Crescent Beach. They say when I get well, I can go with them.”
Dicky spoke in the wistful tone with which he always related the deeds of stronger children. Maida knew exactly how he felt—she had been torn by the same hopes and despairs.
“Oh, wouldn’t it be grand to be able to do just anything?” she said. “I’m just beginning to feel as if I could do some of the things I’ve always wanted to do.”