She was vonderful kind after what I done. The
teacher we had last year, now, he would 'a' slapped my hands with a
ruler, he was awful for rulers! But she just looked at me and I was so
sorry for bein' bad that I could 'a' cried. And when she touched my
hands--her hands is soft like the milkweed silk we find still in the
fall--I just had to like her. I like her now and I'm goin' to be a good
girl for her and when I grow up I wish I'd be just like her, just
esactly like her."

David Eby waited until he was certain no harm was coming to Phoebe. He
heard her say, "Now I do like you" and knew that the matter was being
settled satisfactorily. Relieved, yet ashamed of his eavesdropping, he
ran down the road toward his home.

"That teacher's all right," he thought. "But Jimminy, girls is funny
things!"

He went on, whistling, but stopped suddenly as he turned a curve in the
road and saw Phares sitting on the grass in the shelter of a clump of
bushes.

The older boy rose. "David," he said sternly, "you're spoiling Phoebe
Metz with your petting and fooling around her. What for need you pity
her when she gets kept in for being bad? She was bad!"

"She was not bad!" David defended staunchly. "That Mary Warner makes me
sick. Phoebe's got some sense, anyhow, and she's not bad. There's
nothing bad in her."

"Um," said Phares tauntingly, "mebbe you like her already and next
you'll want her for your girl. You give her pink roses and you stay to
lick the teacher for her if----"

But the sentence was never finished. At the first words David's eyes
flashed, his hands doubled into hard fists and, as his cousin paid no
heed to the warning, he struck out suddenly, then partially restraining
his rage, he unclenched his right hand and gave Phares a smarting slap
upon the mouth.

"I'll learn you," he growled, "to meddle in my business! You mind your
own, d'ye hear?"

"Why"--Phares knew no words to answer the insult--"why, David," he
stammered, wiping his smarting lips.

But his silence added fuel to the other's wrath.

"You butt in too much, that's what!" said David. "It's just like Phoebe
says, you boss too much. I ain't going to take it no more from you."

"I--now--mebbe I do," admitted Phares.

At the words David's anger cooled. He laid a hand on the older boy's
arm, as older men might have gripped hands in reconciliation. "Come on,
Phares," he said in natural, friendly tones. "I hadn't ought to hit you.
Let's forget all ab