“I should like to see a ‘feller’ do Kensington,” remarked Bess calmly. “Seems to me I remember one who wanted to knit on a spool, one time when he was sick, and—”
“O let up, Bess; that don’t count?”
“—And after he had knit two inches and dropped thirteen stitches, gave it up because ‘it made his head tired!’” concluded Bess mercilessly.
When the laugh had subsided, and Bess had emerged from the armful of dried clover and red-top under which Tom had extinguished her, Kittie spoke up, more soberly.
“I guess I know what Tom means, and he isn’t so far out of the way either. We do waste lots of time now, really, don’t we, girls?”
“So do boys,” said Bess, stoutly.
“I know; but boys have something hard and useful to do, ’most every day,” persisted Kittie, whom the five Justices of the Supreme Bench couldn’t have diverted from her point. “Boys go to school until they’re ready to work or enter college. Then they never stop working, till they die.”
“Yes,” said Tom solemnly, “that’s what uses me up so; it’s just hard work.”
“You look like it!” exclaimed Randolph, burying Tom in his turn. “I’ll tell you what it is, girls,” he added, as he gave Tom a final shot, “there’s a good deal in what Kittie says. But work is good for us, anyway; and besides, when we do get in a little play, betweenwhiles, we have a glorious time, I can tell you!”
“But I know lots of boys, and young men too,” put in Pet eagerly, “who just go to parties and don’t work hard at all.”