“Read it!” exclaimed her aunt. “You mean he or Mrs. Molyneux read it to you.”
“No, I read it myself,” said Bud.
“'Now my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp?
Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court.”
She threw Aunt Ailie's cloak over one shoulder, put forth a ridiculously little leg with an air of the playhouse, and made the gestures of Jim Molyneux.
“I thought you couldn't read,” said Ailie. “You little fraud! You made Aunt Bell think you couldn't spell cat.”
“Oh, Queen of Sheba! did she think I was in earnest?” cried Bud. “I was just pretending. I'm apt to be pretending pretty often; why, Kate thinks I make Works. I can read anything; I've read books that big it gave you cramp. I s'pose you were only making believe about that garden, and you haven't any key at all, but I don't mind; I'm not kicking.”
Ailie put her hand to her bosom and revealed the Twopenny she had bought to be the key to the wonderful garden of letters—the slim little gray-paper-covered primer in which she had learned her own first lessons. She held it up between her finger and thumb that Bud might read its title on the cover. Bud understood immediately and laughed, but not quite at her ease for once.
“I'm dre'ffle sorry, Aunt Ailie,” she said. “It was wicked to pretend just like that, and put you to a lot of trouble. Father wouldn't have liked that.”
“Oh, I'm not kicking,” said Ailie, borrowing her phrase to put her at her ease again. “I'm too glad you're not so far behind as Aunt Bell imagined. So you like books? Capital! And Shakespeare no less! What do you like best, now?'”
“Poetry,” said Bud. “Particularly the bits I don't understand, but just about almost. I can't bear to stop and dally with too easy poetry; once I know it all plain and there's no more to it, I—I—I love to amble on. I—why! I make poetry myself.”