"Thanks a lot!" said the girl, and did so. But the hospitality remained one-sided.
"I have to keep up my strength," she explained. "I have a long, hard journey before me. I'm running away."
Blackberry juice now stained her chin, enriching a colour scheme already made notable by dye from the candy.
"Running away!" echoed the twins. This, also, was sane.
"Far, far off to the great city with all its pitfalls."
"New York?" demanded Merle. "What's a pitfall?"
"The way Ben Blunt did when his cruel stepmother beat him because he wouldn't steal and bring it home."
"That's whom I am going to be. That's whom I am now--or just as soon as I change clothes with some unfortunate. It's in a book. 'Ben Blunt, the Newsboy; or, From Rags to Riches.' He run off because his cruel stepmother beat him black and blue, and he become a mere street urchin, though his father, Mr. Blunt, was a gentleman in good circumstances; and while he was a mere street urchin he sold papers and blacked boots, and he was an honest, manly lad and become adopted by a kind, rich old gentleman named Mr. Pettigrew, that he saved from a gang of rowdies that boded him no good, and was taken to his palatial mansion and given a kind home and a new suit of clothes and a good Christian education, and that's how he got from rags to riches. And I'm going to be it; I'm going to be a mere street urchin and do everything he did."
"Ho!" The Wilbur twin was brutal. "You're nothing but a girl!"
The runaway flashed him a hostile glance.
"Don't be silly! What difference does it make? Haven't I a cruel stepmother that is constantly making scenes if I do the least little thing, especially since Miss Murtree went home because her mother has typhoid in Buffalo. You wait till I get the right clothes."
"Does she beat you something awful?" demanded the Merle twin unctuously.
"What kind of right clothes?" asked his brother.
"Boy's clothes; filthy rags of boy's clothes--like yours," she concluded. Her appraising glance rested on the garments of the questioning twin. Both became conscious of their mean attire, and squirmed uneasily.
"These are just everyday clothes," muttered the Wilbur twin.
"We have fine new Sunday suits at home," boasted Merle. "Too fine to wear every day. If you saw those clothes once I guess you'd talk different. Shoes and stockings, too."