“Don’t cry about me,” said Pollio: “I’m only a boy! If ’twas a girl, ’twould be awful!”
CHAPTER III.
“THE FINNY-CASTICS.”
Pollio didn’t learn much during his first term at school, except mischief. He learned to whoop like a wild Indian, and stand on his head like the clown at a circus. Eliza said that whoop was “enough to split her ears in two,” and he never entered the house without it.
But it was midsummer now, and vacation had begun. Fourth of July was coming; and Judge Pitcher, before going away to attend court, had bought Teddy and Pollio a good supply of pin-wheels and fire-crackers. Posy did not fancy such noisy playthings, and he had given her some money to buy “Hop-clover” a dress.
It would not be the Fourth till to-morrow; but Pollio had fired off nearly all his crackers, and was now frightening Posy by climbing the ridge-pole of the barn. While she was running back and forth, clasping her hands, and begging him to come down, their kind old Quaker friend, Mr. Littlefield, drove up to the gate.
“Hurry, hurry!” cried Posy: “the Earthquake’s coming.”
The Quaker laughed to hear himself called an earthquake: though he did shake the floor a little when he walked; for he was a fleshy man,—as large as Judge Pitcher.
“How does thee do, Josephine?” said he, patting her curls as he entered the yard. “Where’s thy little brother?”