"Swimmin'." Henry answered for her, in the first syllables he had uttered since leaving the pond.
"Swimming!" repeated her mother faintly.
"With boys," added Henry gloomily.
"With boys!" echoed her mother, looking helpless and alarmed. The occasion was evidently one which demanded a well-chosen reproof. She paused a moment, then said impressively: "Why, I never heard of a little girl doing such a thing!"
At that all Margery's waning spirit flared up. It was what they always said! Whatever she did was bad, not because it was bad, but because she was a girl!
"'Tain't my fault I'm a girl!" she cried, stamping her foot and glaring out from under her muddy hair, more than ever like a little creature of the woods. "I don't want to be a girl! I want to be a boy, and you know I do!"
"That will do, Margery," said her mother coldly. "You may go to bed now, and when your father comes home, I shall tell him how you've been behaving and he can punish you. Henry, call Effie."
To Effie was intrusted the task of giving Margery a bath and putting her to bed.
"She's been a bad girl this afternoon, Effie, and if she's rude to you, you may spank her." And Margery's mother, thus shifting her maternal responsibility, first to a servant, then to her husband, returned to her novel with a troubled sigh.
When one is small and in the grip of adverse circumstances, there is, perhaps, no process of life which can be made more humiliating than a bath. In this instance, suffice to say that Effie was lavish in the use of soap and water, especially soap, and, by the time she finished, had reduced her charge to a state of quiescent misery.