cans from its tail with a single
indignant jerk. Fondling the trembling creature against her cheek,
she talked first to him, then to his abashed persecutors.

"You sweet, little, darling puppy, you! Did they tie the wicked cans
to his poor little tail!" and then--"if ever I catch one of you boys
treating a poor, helpless animal like this again, I'll shake the
breath out of your body--was he the beautifullest dog that ever was?
And if that isn't enough, Arthur Duncan will lick you all, won't
you, Arthur?" She turned pleadingly to Arthur.

Arthur nodded.

"Nobody's going to hurt helpless creatures while I'm about! He was a
sweet little, precious little, pretty little puppy, so he was."

Rose-Red marched into the court with the puppy, opened a gate and
dropped him inside.

"That pup belongs to me, now," she said marching back.

The school bell ringing at this moment ended the scene.

"Who's that little girl who wears the scarlet cape?" Maida asked
Dorothy and Mabel Clark when they came in together at four.

"Rosie Brine," they answered in chorus.

"She's a dreffle naughty girl," Mabel said in a whisper, and "My
mommer won't let me play with her," Dorothy added.

"Why not?" Maida asked.

"She's a tom-boy," Mabel informed her.

"What's a tom-boy?" Maida asked Billy that night at dinner.

"A tom-boy?" Billy repeated. "Why, a tom-boy is a girl who acts like
a boy."

"How can a girl be a boy?" Maida queried after a few moments of
thought. "Why don't they call her a tom-girl?"

"Why, indeed?" Billy answered, taking up the dictionary.

Certainly Rosie Brine acted like a boy--Maida proved that to herself
in the next few days when she watched Rose-Red again and again. But
if she were a tom-boy, she was also, Maida decided, the most
beautiful and the most wonderful little girl in the world. And,
indeed, Rosie was so full of energy that it seemed to spurt out in
the continual sparkle of her face and the continual movement of her
body. She never walked. She always crossed the street in a series of
flying jumps. She never went through a gate if she could go over the
fence, never climbed the fence if she could vault it. The scarlet
cape was always flashing up trees, over sheds, sometimes to the very
roofs of the houses. Her principal diversion seemed to be climbing
lamp-posts. Maida watched this proceeding with envy. One athletic
leap and Rose-Red was clasping the iron column half-way up--a few
more and she was swi