things and their old printing-press to get _me_ excited!
_I_ don't care what they do; it's far less than nothing to me! All _I_
wish is they'd fall off the fence and break their vile ole necks!"

With this manifestation of impersonal calmness, she turned again to the
window; but her mother protested. "Do quit watching those foolish boys;
you mustn't let them upset you so by their playing."

Florence moaned. "They don't 'upset' me, mamma! They have no effects on
me by the slightest degree! And I _told_ you, mamma, they're not
'playing'."

"Then what are they doing?"

"Well, they're having a newspaper. They got the printing-press and an
office in Herbert's stable, and everything. They got somebody to give
'em some ole banisters and a railing from a house that was torn down
somewheres, and then they got it stuck up in the stable loft, so it runs
across with a kind of a gate in the middle of these banisters, and on
one side is the printing-press and a desk from that nasty little Henry
Rooter's mother's attic; and a table and some chairs, and a map on the
wall; and that's their newspaper office. They go out and look for what's
the news, and write it down in lead pencil; and then they go up to their
office and write it in ink; and then they print it for their newspaper."

"But what do they do on the fence?"

"That's where they go to watch what the news is," Florence explained
morosely. "They think they're so grand, sittin' up there, pokin' around!
They go other places, too; and they ask people. That's all they said _I_
could be!" Here the lady's bitterness became strongly intensified. "They
said maybe I could be one o' the ones they asked if I knew anything,
sometimes, if they happened to think of it! I just respectf'ly told 'em
I'd decline to wipe my oldest shoes on 'em to save their lives!"

Mrs. Atwater sighed. "You mustn't use such expressions, Florence."

"I don't see why not," the daughter promptly objected. "They're a lot
more refined than the expressions they used on me!"

"Then I'm very glad you didn't play with them."

But at this, Florence once more gave way to filial despair. "Mamma, you
just _can't_ see through anything! I've said anyhow fifty times they
ain't--aren't--playing! They're getting up a _real_ newspaper, and have
people _buy_ it and everything. They been all over this part of town and
got every aunt and uncle they have besides their own fathers and
mothers, and some people in the neighbourho