“Algy sewed it on me,” explained the child.
Mrs. Osgood sighed. “So Algernon is sick, and he sent you after Bertha, and she wasn’t at home. I see. Max, you and Archie needn’t wait. I’ll take the responsibility of closing the library for to-day, and I’d like a private talk with this young gentleman, if you are willing.”
Elsmere’s eyes brightened.
“Will you pank me?” he asked hopefully. “Dr. 182 Helen pank me when I eat pills. So!” In his effort to illustrate, he bent so nearly double that he fell over on his nose, and set it bleeding. Max and Archie caught up their hats and fled, leaving Mrs. Osgood to act upon inspiration.
Half an hour later, having by strenuous effort regained something of their former freshness of appearance, the two boys dropped in upon the group on the Three Gables lawn. They stopped a minute to take in the details of the pretty picture. Under a great apple tree, Catherine had set her tea-table with its pretty accessories. In comfortable chairs about it, sat the Boat Club girls, embroidering soft colored things or simply “visiting.” Frieda was telling a story, and the others were listening attentively as she stumbled a little now and then in her desire to express herself rapidly.
“And he was there in the water, all the above part of him, and I held his waist. I pulled greatly and in he came lickety split, and what do you think he said? ‘I big fish, Frieda. Pull me in and fy me.’”
“That was Elsmere, I’ll wager,” cried Max, approaching with Archie and giving Catherine his hand. “I’m glad you were talking about him, Miss Frieda, for we’re full of the subject. He never said the expected thing in his life. Drowning and spanking are what he needs; the only trouble is that he likes nothing better. But he’s beaten his record 183 to-day,” and while Archie dropped upon a rug near Hotspur, and incidentally near Bess, who was prettier than ever, and working on an Andover pillow, Max received a cup of tea from Catherine’s hands and told his story of the afternoon’s episode to a deeply interested audience.
“Poor Algernon!” sighed Polly. “That will make him so much extra work, and he must have his patience tried by that dreadful baby all the time.”
“Does no one punish Elsmere except the neighbors?” asked Frieda, whose opinion of the lawlessness of American children was being strengthened daily by Elsmere’s performances. Winifred answered, laughing.
“His mother made up her mind to, once. She told me about it. She told him she would not be his mother that day for he had been so bad she was ashamed to own him. Some one had told her that was a sure way to crush a child. But Elsmere was only interested. He called her ‘Mamma’ and ‘Mummy dear’ to catch her napping, but she wouldn’t answer. By and by a caller came in, and Elsmere walked up to her and pointed at his mother and said: ‘This isn’t my mother. She is just Mrs. Swinburne, but I love her!’ And Mrs. Swinburne picked him up and kissed him and cried, and I don’t believe she ever tried again to make him mind.”