“‘Because you’re not old enough to say a long one,’ Reverend told him.
“‘Oh!’ said Master Freddie, ‘I thought maybe it was ’cause I wasn’t big enough to be as wicked as you and I didn’t need so long a one.’ Now! What can you do with a young one like that?” she added, as the girls went off into a gale of laughter.
But she had other news of her young brothers besides this. Bob and Fred were enamored of the radio. They were ingenious lads. Nell said she believed they could rig a radio set with a hair-pin and a mouse-trap. But she was going to help them obtain a fairly good set; only, because of the shortage of funds at the parsonage, Bob 126 and Fred would be obliged themselves to make every part that was possible.
So she drew from Jessie and from Amy all they knew about the new science, and Jessie ran across to her house and got the books she had bought dealing with radio and the installation of a set.
Jessie and Amy got into their outing clothes when Nell Stanley had gone and embarked upon the lake, paddling to the landing at despised Dogtown. It was not a savory place in appearance, even from the water-side. As the canoe drew near the girls saw a wild mob of children, both boys and girls, racing toward the broken landing.
“Why! What are they ever doing?” asked Jessie, in amazement, backing with her paddle.
“Chasing that young one ahead,” said Amy.
They were all dressed most fantastically, and the child running in advance, an agile and bedrabbled looking little creature, was more in masquerade than the others. She wore an old poke bonnet and carried a crooked stick, and there seemed to be a hump upon her back.
“Spotted Snake! Spotted Snake! Miss Spotted Snake!” the girls from Roselawn heard the children shrieking, and without doubt this opprobrious epithet referred to the one pursued.