"Look here, Plums, will you go out an' get some milk?"
"What's the use—"
"Will you go an' get the milk?"
Just for an instant Master Plummer stood irresolute, as if questioning the necessity for such severe exertion, and then a single glance at his friend's face decided the matter.
In silence, but with a decided show of temper, the fat boy picked up one of the tomato-cans, jammed his battered hat down over his head, and stalked out of the shanty.
During this brief conversation the princess's outcries had neither ceased nor diminished in volume, and when Plums had thus unwillingly departed, it was as if she redoubled her efforts.
Unfortunately, Joe had had no experience with "old Mis' Carter's kids," and when the child's face took on a purplish hue, he was thoroughly alarmed, believing her to be dying.
"Don't, baby dear, don't! You'll kill yourself if you act this way! I'm doin' the best I know how; but the trouble is, I can't tell what you want!"
Entreaties were as useless as any of his other efforts to soothe, yet he alternately begged her to be silent, and paced to and fro with her in his arms, until, when it seemed to him that at least one whole night must have passed since she awakened, the princess tired of her exertions.
Then it was a tear-stained, grief-swollen face that he looked into, and the childish sobs which escaped her lips gave him deeper pain than had her most energetic outcries.