"Oh, have you a see-saw?" he asked, immediately diverted.
"Yes—this way—under the pear-tree. It's a swing, you know, tied to the branch, and I put this board across it. I pulled the board up out of the floor of the wood-house. Do you like see-sawing?"
"Yes," said Sammy with animation.
"Catch hold, then," said Beth, tipping up the board at her end. "What are you doing, butter-fingers?" she cried, as Sammy failed to catch hold. "I'm sorry I said you were a girl. You're much too clumsy."
She held the board until Sammy got astride of it at one end, then she bestrode it herself at the other, and started it with a vigorous kick on the ground. Up and down they went, shaking showers of leaves from the old tree, and an occasional winter pear, which fell with a thud, being hard and heavy.
"Golly! this is fine!" Sammy burst out. "I say, Beth, what a jolly sort of a girl you are!"
"Do you think so?" said Beth, amply rewarded for all her trouble.
"Yes. And you can write a letter! My! What a time it must 'a' took you! But, I say, it's all rot about stops, you know. Stops is things in books. You'd never learn stops."
"How do you know?" Beth demanded, bridling.
"Men write books," said Sammy, proud of his sex, "not women, let alone gels!"