“Hey, there!” she called out, “Wait a minute.”
“Whadda y’u think we’re doin’?” came back the retort from the larger boy. A glimmer of admiration shot across Gloria’s face. “They’re game little things, at any rate,” she thought, “if I can only get them to talk reasonably.”
The boy stood forth this time and openly charged her.
“Say,” he began, “what right has that girl to shake me? That’s what I wanna know.” He stepped toward Gloria with a threatening gesture.
“Didn’t you try to hit me with that stone?” she demanded sharply.
“Suppose I did? Yeah, j’est suppose I did!” He was swaggering in that way affected by boys usually styled “bullies.” Their idea is to frighten the one they consider their enemy, to intimidate them as the boy does his companions when playing Wild Indians.
“Now, see here,” said Gloria, in a tone not too friendly, “what have you got against me? That’s what I want to know.”
With a gleam of scorn too deep for utterance the boy cast a look of helplessness at his constituents, evidently his sister, small brother and their girl friend. “Whadda y’u know about that?” he said finally.
“Don’t you know I just came to Sandford?” persisted Gloria. She was anxious now to get the matter over with, for at any moment others might happen along. “Why should you—pick on me?” she asked, smiling secretly at the convenient phrase.
“Because you’re one of them, ain’t chu?”