“O, I needn’t if I didn’t choose. I needn’t speak forever ’n’ ever, and you couldn’t get the blade of a knife in ’tween my teeth. But I shan’t; what’s the use, and her looking the other way?”
“That’s what I always told you,” said Tate; “but you scolded, and said I was a naughty girl.”
“Well, so you are; and I’ll say it again, ’cause it’s the truth. You, a-holding up your hand, and Miss Parker a-thinking you the best kind of a girl, Tate Penny! But I’m going to be naughty, too. She praises the naughty ones. O, yes; don’t she praise ’em? and we good ones—O, it makes me feel cross!”
After Dotty had said this, it seemed to her she had excused herself to her own conscience, and could go on whispering as much as she pleased. She and Tate had never whispered so much before. They watched every opportunity, when Miss Parker was busy, to keep their little tongues moving. Never did a pair of sociable pigeons, building a nest in the spring, chat more eagerly than these two children, with their heads close together, and their fingers intertwined. Every time Miss Parker happened to look that way, they were studying very hard; and she smiled, as if to say, “Good little girls! Dear little girls!”
“Very queer,” thought Dotty; “she says it’s against rules to whisper, but we can do it ’thout her scolding the leastest bit.”
“Yes,” replied Tate, “if I couldn’t see any better’n Miss Parker can, I’d wear spettycles.”
“But she sees us when we do things she never told us not to, and not breaking rules at all,” said Dotty, scornfully. “For ninstance, she saw me shaking my head. Now, why couldn’t I shake my head? That isn’t against the rule!”
“No, indeed!”
“Well, but she came straight up here, and said she was ’stonished. What made her ’stonished, when I wasn’t breaking a rule?”
“She was afraid you’d break your neck,” said Tate.