“No, Kate; it isn’t just the thing”—with an air of superiority quite exasperating to his sister.
“Wasn’t it the thing, as you say, when you wanted a crust last night? You thought so when you asked me to fetch it, didn’t you?”
“O—well. My! Wasn’t that a good dash?” as a red-winged blackbird shook its dazzle on the blue air; and then Frank did not seem to think it worth while to return to the subject, but began to talk quite fast. “My! Kate,” he ran on, “how I wish you were a boy—twin-brother to me! I’ll tell you what we’d do.”
“What?” came eagerly from Kate, who was so anxious to do whatever her brother wished, that she had already secretly resolved to join him in his enterprise, even though only a girl.
“We’d run away and go to sea.”
“O!” exclaimed Kate, quite overcome by surprise.
“Well, what do you think about it?”—after a minute.
“It would be just splendid!” said Kate. “Only boys and girls don’t do such things now; they used to, you know, when they didn’t know any better.” Kate was thinking just then of the “Children’s Crusade” and its sad disasters.
“Of course, not girls,” said Frank; “but I dare say it’s just as jolly for boys as ever—jollier, maybe, ’cause if one don’t like it, why there’s any number of ships coming back about every day.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t let you sail in them though, Frank; and that would be bad—awful bad! If I was with you now, ’twould be different. They’d let me sail with them, ’cause I am a girl, and they’d take you along to take care of me. Don’t you see?”