Part 22 (1/2)

”Good, good!” repeated Will, as Cricket, swaying and tugging, and bending backward almost double, came up like a steel wire. ”Bravo! we'll soon have you champion lady wrestler in a dime museum. At him again!

good enough! hurray!” for Cricket, slipping through Archie's grasp like a knotless thread, took him suddenly unawares, and fairly and squarely tripped him up.

”By jove!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Archie, still on his back, too much surprised to get up.

”Well done, Miss Scricket!” applauded Will. ”Bet you can't do it again.”

”Come over here, and I'll try _you_,” offered Cricket, and Will, laughingly, put his arm around her waist. But his superior size and strength soon told, and Cricket found herself down on her back.

”But you do well, youngster,” said Will, patronizingly. ”Try that twist once more that you tripped Archie up on. That's a good one! Now, again!

That would fetch anybody if they weren't expecting it.”

”I'm tired now,” said Cricket, throwing herself on the gra.s.s, for they were in the orchard. ”Let's rest awhile.” She clasped her hands above her head, and lay back on the gra.s.s. Archie drew himself up on to one of the low gnarled trees and balanced himself in a very precarious way directly over her head.

”If you fall off that limb, you will come straight down and break my nose,” warned Cricket.

”There isn't enough of it to break, miss,” said Archie, balancing himself with care, as he tried to see if he could kneel upon a horizontal branch without holding on.

”You'll have to be of a very _equilibrious_ nature to do that,” said Cricket, rolling hastily out of her dangerous position, just in time, for Archie overbalanced himself, and came down with a crash.

”Now, see what you've done,” said Archie, sitting up and feeling of his back. ”You spoke at the wrong time. I might have broken my neck.”

Cricket meditated a moment, then addressed the sky, thoughtfully.

”Isn't it funny that when anything happens to a boy all by his own fault, he always says to somebody, 'See what you've made me do.' Anybody would think _I'd_ made Archie fall there.”

”Well, didn't you?”

”When Donald can't find anything that he's gone and lost himself,” went on Cricket, still addressing the sky, ”he always says he wishes the girls would let his things alone. Boys are the _funniest_.”

”If they're any funnier than girls, I'll eat my boots,” said Archie, firing green apples at a mark. ”Girls are so finicky. There's Edna, squeals if you touch her. If I give her hair just one little yank, you would think I'd pulled her scalp off. If I give Will a good punch”--ill.u.s.trating with a resounding whack--”he doesn't squeal.”

”No, but he hits back,” said Cricket, laughing, as Will levelled Archie, by a vigorous thump. ”If Edna should hit you a few times like that, you wouldn't tease her so.”

”And she's always so careful of her clothes,” went on Archie, ignoring this point; ”can't do this, because she'll spoil her ap.r.o.n, can't do that, because she'll muss her hair.”

”Boys ar'n't talked to about their clothes as girls are,” said Cricket, with a sigh. ”If you just heard 'Liza talk when we tear our clothes! She has to mend them. Wouldn't I be happy if I could go around all the time in my gymnasium suit. I feel _so_ light and airy.”

”And girls are so affected,” pursued Archie. ”You wouldn't walk with us yesterday coming home from church, and why not? 'Cause you had your best bonnet on, and you carried your head too high. _So_ affected!”

”It wasn't affectedness, it was got-to-do-it-ness,” said Cricket, stoutly. ”If you had to go to church with a great, big, flappy, floppy hat on, that joggled your ears all the time, 'cause the roses were so heavy, and if you had to be careful to keep your pink organdie clean for next Sunday, and if you had a teasy cousin, who, likely as not, would take hold of your arm, and crunch your sleeves all down, most probably you'd have walked all by yourself, too, and tried to keep yourself respectable so 'Liza wouldn't scold. But you're a boy,”

finished Cricket, with a burst of envy, ”and so you don't bother about clothes. And, anyway, boys will never admit they're to blame about anything,” returning suddenly to the original charge.

”Because they never are, of course,” answered Archie, turning a back somersault. ”It's always somebody else's fault.”

”Did you hear auntie tell that funny story about Archie, last night, Will?” asked Cricket.

”Funny story about me, miss? There never was any funny story about me.”

”This was a little bit funny, anyway. Auntie said you weren't but three years old, and she was visiting with you, at Kayuna. It was early one morning, before breakfast, and the piazza had just been washed up, and wasn't dry yet. Papa was reading a newspaper, and you were running up and down the piazza, showing off.”