“Indeed you will,” said his mother, kissing him, “for you’ll never, even if you should some day be a soldier, and fight for your country, find a worse enemy, or one that will take more conquering, than my third-best Johnny Leslie!”
Johnny returned the kiss with interest, and then, resolutely turning his back to the window, he said,—
“Tiny, if you’ll bring your old black Dinah here, I’ll get out all the blocks, and my pea-shooter, and my little brass cannon, and we’ll make a huge fort, and put Dinah in the tower, and storm it! You don’t mind our making a muss here, mammy, if we clear it up again, do you?”
“Not a bit,” said his mother, cheerfully, while Tiny, with a little scream of delight rushed off for Dinah. The playroom stove was out of order, and the children were obliged to play in the dining-room, which made Johnny’s imprisonment all the harder to bear.
Tiny came back presently, with an assorted cargo, presided over by Dinah, in the basket.
“I brought all my tin housekeeping things,” she explained, as she proceeded to unload. “I thought we could put them on top, and they’d make such a lovely clatter when the fort fell!”
“Now, that’s what I call really bright!” and Johnny nodded his head approvingly. “It’s almost a pity you’re a girl, Tiny—you’d be such a jolly little fellow if you were only a boy!”