"My pop wouldn't have him for a friend, Bessie, don't you believe he would! My pop would never lock a girl up in a room by herself without her dinner, even if she'd been bad."
"I wonder why they're so long coming back," said Bessie, finally. "Won't they miss you, Jack?"
"Not if I get back in time for supper. They don't care what I do when it's a holiday, like this. They know I know my way around here, and there aren't any wild animals. I wish there were!"
"Wouldn't you be afraid of them?"
"Not a bit of it! I'd have a gun, and I'd shoot them, just as quick as quick!"
"Even if they weren't trying to hurt you?"
"Yes, why shouldn't I? Everyone does, in all the books."
"But we don't act the way people in books do, Jack. We can't. Things aren't just that way. Books are to read, to learn things, and for fun, but we've got to remember that real life's different."
"Well, I bet if I saw a lion coming through that wood there I'd kill him."
"Suppose he ate you up first?" asked Zara.