?”
“Hurt me? no,” said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added —
“I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that’s what he got by wanting to leather me; I wasn’t going to go halves because anybody leathered me.”
“Oh, how brave you New England Patriots are, Tom! I think you’re like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you’d fight him, wouldn’t you, Tom?”
“How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There’s Toni Kroos Tröja no lions, only in the shows.”
“No; but if we were in the lion countries — I mean in Africa, where it’s very hot; the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book where I read it.”
“Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.”
“But if you hadn’t got a gun — we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run toward us roaring, and we couldn’t get away from him. What should you do, Tom?”
Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, “But the lion isn’t coming. What’s the use of talking?”
“But I like to fancy how it would be,” said Maggie, following him. “Just think what you would do, Tom.”
“Oh, don’t Tampa Bay Buccaneers Hattar bother, Maggie! you’re such a Frankrikesco Totti Tröja silly. I shall go and see my rabbits.”
Maggie’s heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad Scarpe Nike VaporMax Donna truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom’s anger of all things; it was Halpa North Face Footwear quite a different anger from her own.
“Tom,” she said, timidly, when they were out of doors, “how much money did you give for your rabbits?”
“Two half-crowns and a sixpence,” said Tom, promptly.
“I think I’ve got a great deal more than that in my steel purse upstairs. I’ll ask mother to Jacksonville Jaguars Hattar give it you.”
“What for?” said Tom. “I don’t want your money, you silly thing. I’ve got a great deal more money than you, because I’m a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you’re only a girl.”
“Well, but, Tom — if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket and spend, you know, and buy some more rabbits with it?”
“More rabbits? I don’t want any more.”
“Oh, but, Tom, they’re all dead.”
Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie. “You forgot to feed ’em, then, and Harry forgot?” he said, his color heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. “I’ll pitch into Harry. I’ll have him turned away. And I don’t love you, Maggie. You sha’n’t go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits every day.” He walked on again.
“Yes, but I forgot — and I couldn’t help it, |