“Heigh-ho,” whistles Jack, Becca’s ten-year-old brother: “that you, Bec? High time you were in the house.”
“S’pose I frightened you,” said Becca. “Where have you been gone all the afternoon, I’d like to know? stealin’ home too, across lots.”
“I’ll tell, if you won’t let on a mite.”
“Do I ever, Jack?” reproachfully.
He did not deign to answer, but in confidential whispers breathed it into her ears that “he had been down to the Forge. Down to the Valley Forge, where General Washington was going to fetch down lots and lots of soldiers, and build log huts, and stay all Winter.” He ended his breathless narration with an allusion that made Becca jump as though she had seen a snake. He said: “It will be bad for your turkeys.”
“Why, Jack? General Washington won’t steal them.”
“Soldiers eat turkey whenever they can get it; and, Bec, this apple-tree isn’t above three miles from the Forge. You’d better have ’em all killed for Thanksgiving. Come, I’m hungry as a bear.”
“But,” said Becca, grasping his jacket sleeve as they went, “I’ve just promised ’em that they shall not be touched.”
Jack’s laugh set every turkey into motion, until the tree was all in a flutter of excitement. He laughed again and again, before he could say “What a little goose you are! Just as if turkeys understood a word you said.”