boys don't
want to play with me, and some of them shout after me and say I'm a
girl, and sometimes they sneak up behind me and pull it. Only
yesterday I had to have a fight with a boy for doing it: and even
Charley Linden laughs at me, and he's my best friend--except you and
Dad of course.

'Why don't you cut it off, Mum?'

'I am going to cut it as I promised you, after your next birthday.'

'Then I shall be jolly glad when it comes. Won't you? Why, what's the
matter, Mum? What are you crying for?' Frankie was so concerned that
he began to cry also, wondering if he had done or said something wrong.
He kissed her repeatedly, stroking her face with his hand. What's the
matter, Mother?'

'I was thinking that when you're over seven and you've had your hair
cut short you won't be a baby any more.'

'Why, I'm not a baby now, am I? Here, look at this!'

He strode over to the wall and, dragging out two chairs, he placed them
in the middle of the room, back to back, about fifteen inches apart,
and before his mother realized what he was doing he had climbed up and
stood with one leg on the back of each chair.

'I should like to see a baby who could do this,' he cried, with his
face wet with tears. 'You needn't lift me down. I can get down by
myself. Babies can't do tricks like these or even wipe up the spoons
and forks or sweep the passage. But you needn't cut it off if you
don't want to. I'll bear it as long as you like. Only don't cry any
more, because it makes me miserable. If I cry when I fall down or when
you pull my hair when you're combing it you always tell me to bear it
like a man and not be a baby, and now you're crying yourself just
because I'm not a baby. You ought to be jolly glad that I'm nearly
grown up into a man, because you know I've promised to build you a
house with the money I earn, and then you needn't do no more work.
We'll have a servant the same as the people downstairs, and Dad can
stop at home and sit by the fire and read the paper or play with me and
Maud and have pillow fights and tell stories and--'

'It's all right, dearie,' said Nora, kissing him. 'I'm not crying now,
and you mustn't either, or your eyes will be all red and you won't be
able to go with Charley at all.'

When she had finished dressing him, Frankie sat for some time in
silence, apparently lost in thought. At last he said:

'Why don't you get a baby, Mother? You could nurse it, and I could
have it to play