"Ruth Newton, you deserve to be spanked!" she announced, severely.
The child uttered another wail of entreaty. Nan sprang up to the cross-bar of the palings, gathered her skirts about her knees, and leaped down.
"Here, let me boost you, since you will get over," she said sharply.
After they were both safely on the other side Ruth's spirit rose, and she capered about in the freedom of the open space as wildly as a young colt. Nan had come for chestnuts. She announced the same presently to Ruth. Ruth shouted gleefully.
"I'm going to climb the tree. You can stand underneath and pick up what I shake, only mind you don't get the burr-prickles in your fingers, for they hurt like sixty," warned Nan.
The child nodded her head and pranced over the brown, stubbly ground with dancing feet, her cheeks aglow and her eyes flashing with satisfaction.
She watched Nan with the liveliest interest, and when the older girl was once comfortably ensconced in the lofty branches, she executed a sort of war-dance underneath, and spread her tiny skirt to catch the rain of nuts that Nan shook down upon her from above. But presently this began to pall.
"I want to come up where you are, Nannie," she called, coaxingly.
"You'll have to want then," retorted Nan, carelessly munching nuts like a squirrel.
"I could climb's good as anything if only I had a boost," drawled the child ruefully.