Terry; Or, She ought to have been a Boy

by Rosa M. Gilbert

"Both of them's been out, madam, and have got appetites like young troopers," said Nancy evasively.

Terry listened with the keenest disappointment. Was Nancy not going to tell Granny that it was she, Terry, who had got her that egg for her breakfast? When the nursery meal appeared, Terry rushed forth her grievance.

"Oh, Nursey, you never told Granny who got her that egg! And after all the trouble I took!"

"The trouble you took was all boldness and disobedience," said Nancy, "and it's just the way you're to be punished by not letting her know. It isn't to screen you that I'm not tellin' her the whole of your conduct, but only just that I won't have her sick about it. It wasn't you at all that got the eggs, but Misther Reilly; for there you were stuck in the dyke, with the pony hurted, an you as far off as to-morrow from Connolly's farm."

"It's a worse punishment than if you beat me," said Terry. "And you said I had an appetite like a trooper, and I haven't, for I can't eat a bit."

"You're a jolly goose, then!" said Turly. "Breakfast's awfully good, I can tell you."

"If you don't eat, it doesn't matter," said Nurse. "It'll maybe make you think again before you set off to run into such dangers. If your head had come against a stone when the pony went down—"

"But it didn't," said Terry. "It wasn't the least bit like that. I just came sitting on the grass quite comfortably. And I tried to get to Connolly's, and I didn't want Jocko to be hurt."

"It isn't the least use talking to you," said Nancy; "but I've another punishment for you. I've been talking to Madam about your practising, and you've got to begin to it. I told her you'd be forgettin' all your music, and she said you'd betther go to it afther breakfast this very mornin'."

Now if there was one thing in the world that Terry hated it was her "practising". To sit hammering out five-finger exercises on a piano in a lonely room, making a dreary, monotonous noise, trying to turn in her fingers and thumbs at the right places, and doing the same thing over and over again, while the hands of the clock crept slowly round; all this meant a penance which was torture to the active little creature.