“Ith a lovely feeling!” she commented delightedly on the other side. “Leth do it again.”
But William and his band remembered their manly dignity and strode on without answering. She followed with short dancing steps. Each of them carried a stick with which they smote the air or any shrub they passed. Violet Elizabeth secured a stick and faithfully imitated them. They came to a clear space in the wood, occupied chiefly by giant blackberry bushes laden with fat ripe berries.
“Now, my brave fellows,” said William, “take your fill. ’Tis well we have found this bit of food or we would e’en have starved, an’ don’ help her or get any for her an’ let her get all scratched an’ she’ll soon have had enough.”
They fell upon the bushes. Violet Elizabeth also fell upon the bushes. She crammed handfuls of ripe blackberries into her mouth. Gradually her pink and white face became obscured beneath a thick covering of blackberry juice stain. Her hands were dark red. Her white dress had lost its whiteness. It was stained and torn. Her bunchy skirts had lost their bunchiness. The brambles tore at her curled hair and drew it into that state of straightness for which Nature had meant it. The brambles scratched her face and arms and legs. And still she ate.
“I’m getting more than any of you,” she cried. “I geth I’m getting more than any of you. And I’m getting all of a meth. Ithn’t it fun? I like boyth gameth.”
They gazed at her with a certain horrified respect and apprehension. Would they be held responsible for the strange change in her appearance?
They left the blackberry bushes and set off again through the wood. At a sign from William they dropped on all fours and crept cautiously and (as they imagined) silently along the path. Violet Elizabeth dropped also upon her scratched and blackberry stained knees.
“Look at me,” she shrilled proudly. “I’m doing it too. Juth like boyth.”
“Sh!” William said fiercely.
Violet Elizabeth “Sh’d” obediently and for a time crawled along contentedly.