g to be a sturgeon."

"I got a brother. He's a year older than me. His name is Ray....
There's lots more people in Minneapolis than there is in Joralemon.
There's a hundred thousand people in Minneapolis."

"That ain't nothing. My pa was born in Christiania, in the Old
Country, and they's a million million people there."

"Oh, there is not!"

"Honest there is."

"Is there, honest?" Gertie was admiring now.

He looked patronizingly at the red-plush furniture which was being
splendidly carried into the great house from Jordan's dray--an old
friend of Carl's, which had often carried him banging through town. He
condescended:

"Jiminy! You don't know Bennie Rusk nor nobody, do you! I'll bring him
and we can play soldiers. And we can make tents out of carpets. Did
you ever run through carpets on the line?"

He pointed to the row of rugs and carpets airing beside the
carriage-shed.

"No. Is it fun?"

"It's awful scary. But I ain't afraid."

He dashed at the carpets and entered their long narrow tent. To tell
the truth, when he stepped from the sunshine into the intense darkness
he was slightly afraid. The Ericsons' one carpet made a short passage,
but to pass on and on and on through this succession of heavy rug
mats, where snakes and poisonous bugs might hide, and where the
rough-threaded, gritty under-surface scratched his pushing hands, was
fearsome. He emerged with a whoop and encouraged her to try the feat.
She peeped inside the first carpet, but withdrew her head, giving
homage:

"Oh, it's so _dark_ in there where you went!"

He promptly performed the feat again.

As they wandered back to the gate to watch the furniture-man Gertie
tried to regain the superiority due her years by remarking, of a large
escritoire which was being juggled into the front door, "My papa
bought that desk in Chicago----"

Carl broke in, "I'll bring Bennie Rusk, and me and him 'll teach you
to play soldiers."

"My mamma don't think I ought to play games. I've got a lot of dolls,
but I'm too old for dolls. I play Authors with mamma, sometimes. And
dominoes. Authors is a very nice game."

"But maybe your ma will let you play Indian squaw, and me and Bennie
'll tie you to a stake and scalp you. That won't be rough like
soldiers. But I'm going to be a really-truly soldier. I'm going to be
a norficer in the army."

"I got a cousin that's an officer in the army," Gertie said grandly,
bringing her yellow-ribboned braid round o