"I could," she shouted. "By-and-by, when I can run like thee, I will ride too."
"No, no, thou never wilt," screamed Fritz, giving his wooden horse a lash with his leather whip. "I wanted to give thee this horse, this very one; Ella had bought thee this very whip; but mother said 'No,' it would be folly to give thee such a present."
"Why?" asked Violet. "Why, Fritz, did she say that?"
"Ah! thou knowest thou art not like other children."
"Why am not I like other children?"
"Because thou canst not run or even walk about like me and Ella. Mother says thou art a little hunchback, and it would hurt thy poor back to ride and prance like this;" and Fritz, again lashing his horse, began to plunge violently up and down on the pavement opposite.
"Fritz, what didst thou say? I am what?" but he could give no answer, for his mother, who lived in the little baker's shop across the road, rushing out, promptly secured the offender, and having given him a smart slap across the face, dragged him back into the house.
"Mother, what did he say I was? and why did his mother slap him? He called me a little hunchback. What does that mean, mother?"
Violet's mother had not been attending to the conversation. She had been working at a little white frilled pinafore for her daughter at a table near the stove, and she had just taken the crimping irons from the heart of the fire, red-hot and smoking; but when she heard these words she dropped them suddenly on the floor, and in a moment she was on her knees in front of little Violet's chair, and covering the child's thin white hands with kisses.