Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/50



"Don't you? Oh, don't you?" she pleaded. "I don't need much to eat, really!"

The lad looked at her with a strange longing. The fatherhood that lives in every boy thrilled at the touch of her fat little hand on his knee; the comradely glow in her round brown eyes warmed his restless, lonely heart. He shook her off almost roughly.

"I guess they'd miss you more'n that salt-shaker," he said grimly. "I wish I could take you with me—honest, I do. But you better stay home and go to school. You don't want to grow up ignorant, and have your folks ashamed of you."

"But you—you aren't ignorant!" she urged warmly, her admiration shining in her eyes.

He blushed and kicked nervously at the grass.

"I am," he said angrily. "I am, too. Oh, dear, I wish—I wish—"

They looked at each other, troubled and uncertain.

"You're a girl," he began again, "and girls can't; they just can't. They have to stay with their folks and keep nice. It's too bad, but