“Blame it!” he cried, straightening and giving the balky engine a kick. “I can’t get it started, fellows.” When he saw who was watching him from the dock, only a few feet away, his face got two shades redder than his hair.
“Maybe you’re giving it too much gas,” the girl spoke up. “We have an engine like that in my grandfather’s automobile; and we’re always having trouble with it. Let me show you what to do.”
She jumped aboard and joined the worker. This tickled Scoop. And he got behind the flushed engineer, nudging the latter in the ribs.
“Huh!” Red grunted, scowling at the newcomer. “What do you know about machinery?”
The girl looked at him and laughed. [[80]]
“What will you give me,” she asked, “if I start your engine for you?”
“Huh!” Red grunted again, giving her a sort of contemptuous up-and-down look. This thing of a small girl telling him how to run his own engine was more than he could stand.
The newcomer turned to Scoop.
“Is ‘Huh!’ the only English word he knows?” she smiled.
“At mealtime,” the leader laughed, “he can say ‘pie’ and ‘cake.’ And he can say ‘Pretty Polly’ when he wants a cracker.”