I think he must have been a little fellow to chop wood. After I got there, and was having a good time, he often remarked, in tones as cutting as the edge of his hatchet,—
"If I had a brother, Miss Maggie, I shouldn't take pains to wrap up a speck of a girl like you for company."
"Well, if had a little sister, I wouldn't be yapped up for comp'ny," retorted I, rubbing my small, red nose; "I'd be a-yockin' her cradle."
Ned laughed at that; for it was just what he expected me to say. We had one bond of sympathy; he longed for a little brother, and I longed for a little sister. He liked to hear me talk grandly about "my new baby-girlie, Rosy Posy Parlin. She wouldn't bl'ong to him any 'tall. She'd be mine clear through."
He led me on to snap out little sharp speeches, which he always laughed at; and I suspect that was one thing that made me so pert. I looked up to him as a superior being, except when I was angry with him, which was about half the time. I told Ruphelle Allen he was a "bad, naughty boy;" but when she said, "Yes, I think so, too," I instantly cried out, "Well, I guess he's gooder 'n your brother; so!"
Ruphelle was my bosom friend. We had shaken rattles together before we were big enough to shake hands. She had beautiful brown eyes, and straight, brown hair; while, as for me, my eyes were gray, and my kinky hair the color of tow.
Sister 'Ria called Ruphelle "a nice little girl;" while, owing to the way my hair had of running wild, and the way my frocks had of tearing, she didn't mind saying I was "a real romp," and looked half the time like "an up-and-down fright."
As I always believed exactly what people said, and couldn't understand jokes, I was rather unhappy about this; but concluded I had been made for a vexation, like flies and mosquitos, and so wasn't to blame.
Ruphelle lived on a hill, in the handsomest house in Willowbrook, with a "cupalo" on top, where you could look off and see the whole town, with the blue river running right through the middle, and cutting it in two.
Ruphelle had an English father and mother. I remember Madam Allen's turban, how it loomed up over her stately head like a great white peony. There was a saucy brother Augustus, whom I never could abide, and a grandpa, who always said and did such strange things that I did not understand what it meant till I grew older, and learned that he was afflicted with "softening of the brain."