Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/19

 of yourself, calling through the window to that Simms boy!" cried a disgusted voice. Caroline twitched her shoulder spitefully.

"A great girl like you, too! Why, he's no better than a common tramp, that boy," proceeded the voice. "Look at his clothes!"

"Nobody wears good clothes to go fishing," Caroline grumbled. "I wish he had mine!"

"Fishing! He never wears them anywhere. He hasn't got them to wear. And he'd be glad enough to get yours, I can tell you."

"He wouldn't do any such thing! He told me Saturday he'd rather be a dog than a girl; he'd get more use of his legs!"

There was a scandalized silence. Caroline waited grimly.

"What are you doing?" said the voice at last. "Studying my jography," she replied.

"Well, mind you do, then."

"I can't, if everybody talks to me all the time," she muttered sullenly.

Nevertheless she resumed her rocking and crooning.

"Bounded 'n th' east by Rho Disland; bounded