[Illustration: “It is really excellent practice”]
[Illustration: “No in-sub-or-din-a-tion!”]
Mary Frances feared to make a noise―but she quietly pushed the door open a little wider and saw Silver Thimble on one side of the table, and over on the opposite side, the queerest little fellow.
“Looks like the picture of a porcupine,” thought Mary Frances.
“It may be good practice for a soldier,” groaned the queer little figure, “but pity the target! Besides,―one at a time, please!”
“Emery Bag, what do you think you were made for? I hope you realize it’s your duty to clean all the rust and roughness off these needles as I run them through you, so that the little Miss may sew more easily,” lectured Thimble. “No in-sub-or-din-a-tion! Stop and think! You know my family’s power,―you know my family’s wealth. You realize, I hope, you live in a land named for my aris-to-crat-ic ancestors―Thimble Land!”
“Oh, ancestors go-to-China!” exclaimed Emery Bag. “We live in the present, and I demand―I demand justice. I leave it to anybody if it’s fair to have twenty needles stuck into your heart at once!”
“The idea of being such a coward!” retorted Thimble. “Where’s your heart of steel you brag of so often?”
“It’s scarcely fair, you know,” came a new voice. “You see, twenty needles at once are really more than are needed.”
“Humph, Tommy Pin Cushion,” answered Silver Thimble. “What you sticking your ’pinion in for? It’s a wonder Sewing Bird hasn’t stuck her bill in! Tommy Pin Cushion, you might just as well keep out of this―everybody knows you’re stuck on yourself―Fatty!”
“You conceited old Silver Thimble,” came the voice of Pin Cushion. “You will please address me by my full name―‘Tomato-Pin-Cushion, Custodian-of-the-Sword-Needles’;―and what’s more, if you don’t quickly remove all those needles from poor Emery, you won’t get any more sword-needles to wield. So there! You know Sewing Bird’s taking forty winks; that’s why you don’t act in your best military manner.”
Silver Thimble looked toward Sewing Bird, whose eyes began to open, and quickly went toward Emery Bag. Taking out the needles, one at a time, he ran to Pin Cushion and quilted each into its place.
[Illustration: “You conceited old Silver Thimble.”]
