“Golly. I’ll write poetry too, then.”
“I don’t believe you could write poetry,” said Emily—a little disdainfully, it must be admitted. “Teddy can’t—and he’s very clever.”
“Who’s Teddy?”
“A friend of mine.” There was just a trace of stiffness in Emily’s voice.
“Then,” said Perry, folding his arms across his breast and scowling, “I’m going to punch this friend of yours’ head for him.”
“You’re not,” cried Emily. She was very indignant and quite forgot for the moment that Perry had rescued her from the bull. She tossed her own head and started homeward. Perry turned too.
“May as well go up and see Jimmy Murray about hiring ’fore I go home,” he said. “Don’t be mad, now. If you don’t want anybody’s head punched I won’t punch it. Only you’ve gotter like me, too.”
“Why, of course I’ll like you,” said Emily, as if there could be no question about it. She smiled her slow, blossoming smile at Perry and thereby reduced him to hopeless bondage.
Two days later Perry Miller was installed as chore boy at New Moon and in a fortnight’s time Emily felt as if he must have been there always.
“Aunt Elizabeth didn’t want Cousin Jimmy to hire him,” she wrote to her father, “because he was one of the boys who did a dreadful thing one night last fall. They changed all the horses that were tied to the fence one Sunday night when preaching was going on and when folks came out the confushun was awful. Aunt Elizabeth said it wouldn’t be safe to have him round the place. But Cousin Jimmy said it was awful hard to get a chore boy and that we ode Perry something for saving my life from the bull. So Aunt Elizabeth gave in and lets him sit at the table with us but he has to stay in the kitchen in the evenings. The rest of us are in the sitting-room, but I am allowed to go out and help Perry with his lessons. He can only have one candle and the light is very dim. It keeps us snuffing it all the time. It is great fun to snuff candles. Perry is head of his class in school already. He is only in the third book all-though he is nearly twelve. Miss Brownell said something sarkastik to him the first day in school and he just threw back his head and laughed loud and long. Miss Brownell gave him a whipping for it but she has never been sarkastik to him again. She does not like to be laughed at I can see. Perry isn’t afraid of anything. I thought he might not go to school any more when she whipped him but he says a little thing like that isn’t going to keep him from getting an educashun since he has made up his mind to it. He is very determined.