Part 2 (2/2)
For several minutes they walked along in silence: the twins marching ahead, chattering like little magpies, their yellow pigtails bobbing under their round brown felt hats. Each clutched her spelling book and reader, and her package of sandwiches and cookies; each wore a bright blue dress, a bright red sweater, and a snow white pinafore.
It was fully a mile to the school, but as a rule the brisk young Lamberts walked it in twenty minutes. This morning, however, Jane dawdled shamelessly.
”I don't feel like school to-day a bit,” she remarked, looking up through the trees.
”You never do,” returned Carl, dryly, ”but you've got to go all the same. I bet you don't play hookey again in a hurry.”
”H'm?” said Jane, ”why not?”
”Why not?” the first really mirthful grin that Carl had shown that day spread slowly over his serious features. ”Didn't you catch it hot enough last time? You're such an idiot anyway. If you'd only do your work conscientiously you wouldn't mind school. I'd hate it too if I were as big a dunce as you.”
”Oh,-you would, would you, Goody-goody?” retorted Jane with spirit. ”I'm not a dunce. I'm the brightest girl in my cla.s.s.”
”Whoo-ee!” whooped Carl, staggered by this cool conceit. ”Well! If you haven't got cheek!”
”'Tisn't cheek,” said Jane, calmly, ”I am. I heard Dr. Andrews say so to Miss Trowbridge.”
”Well-he must have been talking through his hat, then,” observed Carl.
”He was _probably_ talking about someone else.”
”No, he wasn't. They were standing outside the school-room door, at lunch-hour, and I was in there, and I heard Dr. Andrews say, 'That little Jane Lambert has brains. She's one of the brightest children-'”
”That's the trouble with you!” broke in Carl, thoroughly exasperated.
”You've got such a swell-head that you won't work at all. And I don't see how anyone could say that you were clever when you get about one problem right out of a dozen.”
”I don't see how either,” said Jane placidly; ”but he did. Oh, look-Miss Clementina has got a new canary!”
There was no event that occurred in Frederickstown which did not excite Jane's interest. She stopped to peer into the front window of a small brick house, where amid a perfect jungle of banana plants and ferns, a brightly gilded cage hung between two much befrilled net curtains.
”Poor old lady, I'm glad she got her bird. He has a black spot on his head just like her old one. I daresay her cat will eat him too. I wonder what she has named him. Her old one was named William.” Jane giggled.
”What an idiotic name for a bird!” said Carl. Like his father, he was never amused by anything that seemed to him fantastic. ”You'd better hurry up and stop peeking into everyone's window. Come on.”
Jane reluctantly obeyed.
”William is a queer name for a bird,” she agreed amicably, ”but it's no queerer than calling her cat Alfred, and that awful little monkey of hers, Howard. She told me that she named her pets for all her old sweethearts.”
”Her old sweethearts!” echoed Carl derisively.
”Yes. She said that she had dozens. And you know what? I believe it's true. Anyhow, she has lots of pictures of beautiful gentlemen, with black moustaches and curly side-whiskers. I've seen the whole collection. She said she never could bear fair men.”
”Humph!” said Carl.
”She said that she was dreadfully heartless when she was a girl. An awful flirt. Professor Dodge still calls on her every Sunday afternoon-all dressed up with a flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and kid gloves, and a little bouquet wrapped up in wet paper. And she plays the piano for him, and sings 'Alice Ben Bolt' and 'The Mocking Bird' and 'Coming Thro' the Rye.'”
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