“Golly! I thought you’s the rich one, you’re so—kinder—I don’t know what,” Jeff said.
School-teachers, as a rule, were not great favorites with him, but this one must be different from those he had known. Steering the boat to a shaded place where a birch tree drooped over the water he began to pull in the lilies which were very thick just there, and finally said, “Did you have boys in your school; boys like me, I mean?”
“Oh, yes. Quite a number your size, and some older.”
“Did you have to lick ’em?”
“Never,” Alice answered, greatly amused with the boy, who continued, “What did you do when they cut up?”
“They didn’t cut up much, and when they did I talked to them till they were sorry,” Alice replied, while Jeff rejoined, “I wish you was my schoolma’am. I get whaled two or three times a week. Don’t hurt me, though.”
“What do you do to get punished so often?” Alice asked, and Jeff replied, “Oh, nothin’ much. I hide the scholars’ books and pails and dinners,—for fun, you know,—but I’m whaled the most for gettin’ things out of their pockets when they don’t know it.”
“A pickpocket!” Alice exclaimed, and Jeff rejoined, “No, I don’t do it for keeps, but to see if I can,—and I can, too,” he added, with the air of one well pleased with himself. “I’ll bet you a cent I can take everything out of your pocket there is in it, and you not know it, as we go back to the hotel. Take the bet?”
Alice looked in a kind of terror at this boy, whose frank, handsome face belied his words, and who, having filled his basket with lilies, was rowing out into the river, preparatory to landing on the other side.
“Oh, Jefferson,” she said, “never pick a pocket again, even for fun. It is dangerous business, and will get you into trouble,—prison, maybe.”