Part 4 (2/2)
CHAPTER IV
”LONESOME LIZ”
”Oh, galloping gra.s.shoppers!” gasped Bobby Hargrew, clinging tight to Laura and Nellie Agnew in the dressing-room. ”Do you hear what she says?”
”What language, Bob!” said Nellie, in horror. ”How _can_ you?”
”Of whom are you speaking?” asked Laura, with an admonis.h.i.+ng look.
”That Lil Pendleton. The gall of her!”
”Stop, Bob!” commanded Laura. ”You talk like a street urchin.”
”I don't care if I talk like a sea urchin,” complained the smaller girl. ”She says she's going with us.”
”Where?” asked Nell.
”Camping.”
”Who?” exclaimed Laura, promptly.
”That Pendleton girl. Says her mother just told her. _Your_ mother said so, Laura Belding. So there!”
”Why--why----”
”I don't want to complain of your mother, Laura,” said the grocer's daughter, ”but it seems too bad we can't pick and choose whom we'll have go camping in our crowd.”
”Mother doesn't understand! I am sure she never meant to _make_ us take Lil if we didn't want her.”
”And surely we _don't_,” declared the doctor's daughter, with more emphasis than she usually used in commenting upon any subject.
”Let's put the rollers under her and let her zip,” exclaimed the slangy Bobby.
”If Gee Gee should hear you,” laughed Laura, referring to one of the very strict lady teachers of Central High, Miss Grace Gee Carrington.
”She's too busy with Margit Salgo--Beg pardon!” exclaimed Bobby.
”Margaret Carrington, as she will in future be known. Gee Gee has scarcely called me down this week.”
”Now, if it was Margit who wanted to go,” sighed Nell Agnew, speaking of the half-Gypsy girl who had just come under the care of Miss Carrington.
”Or Eve Sitz,” added Bobby. ”But Eve says she gets out-of-door work enough on the farm in the summer. Camping out is no fun for her.”
”I don't know what to say about Lily,” began Laura. ”I cannot understand mother promising such a thing. If anybody should decide, it should be Jess' mother. _She_ is going with us.”
”Oh! there's another thing,” interrupted the fly-away Bobby. ”If Lil goes, she's going to take along a lady's maid.”
”_What_?” gasped the other girls.
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