Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 4.djvu/57

Rh worth the fuss you made about it, and I wouldn't have any if I couldn't do better than that."

"I'd like to see you get up any thing half as nice. You couldn't do it. Boys never invent new games, but girls do. Papa says so, and he knows," answered Nell.

"Pooh! We fellows could beat you as easy as not, if we cared to; so you needn't brag, miss. Men invent every thing in the world, 'specially ventilators, and you see how useful they are," returned Tom, glad that he had kept his place in spite of the maltreatment his extremities were undergoing.

"Boys are more curious than girls, anyway. We should never have done such a mean thing as to peek at you," cried Kitty, coming to the rescue, and hitting the enemy in his weakest spot.

"Oh, we only did it for fun. Give us a taste of your spread, and we'll never say a word about it," returned the barefaced boy, with a wheedlesome air, and a tender glance toward the dainty tea-table set forth so temptingly just under his nose.

"Not a bit, unless you'll say our tree is lovely and own that we are the cleverest at getting up new and nice things," said Kitty, sternly.