“Stacy! You are becoming a very violent young man,” smiled Grace.
“Becoming?” spoke up Emma Dean. “It is my opinion that he always has been. No one could acquire his manners in so short a time.”
“Association sometimes plays strange freaks with one,” retorted Stacy. “Say, Uncle Hip. That white mare is a terror. She actually hid so that I should not see her; then, when I finally found her, she tried to eat me up. The brown one is the laziest thing I ever saw. We ought to call her the Idler, she’s so lazy.”
“Good!” cried Elfreda. “Idler she shall be, with the permission of our Captain, Grace Harlowe.”
“How about the other one?” asked Stacy.
“The black?” questioned Tom.
“Yes. He is always stumbling and getting into difficulties,” said Chunky.
“We will name him Calamity,” said Grace.
“That is what I was going to name the Chinaman,” grumbled the fat boy.
“The wrangler always attends to the packing, you know,” reminded Elfreda after they had finished breakfast.