She grinned. "I'm afraid I won't be very nice about talking to you. I get simply wild, at games. I'm right down there, in it. I've never gotten over not being a boy! But Jimsy's wonderful about letting me have as much share in it as I can. You'll hear all sorts of tales about him, when you come to know people,—plays he's made and games he's won, and how he never, never loses his head or his temper, no matter what the other team does. If we should ever have another war, I expect he'd be a great general." Her face broke into mirth again at a memory. "Once, we were playing Pomona—imagine a high school playing a college and beating them!—and somebody was out for a minute, and Jimsy was standing waiting, with his arms folded across his[Pg 38] chest, and he had on a head guard, and it was very still, and suddenly a girl's voice piped up—'Oh, doesn't he look just like Napoleon?' He's never heard the last of it; it fusses him awfully. I never knew anybody so modest. I suppose it's because he's always been the leader, the head of things, ever since he started kindergarten. He's used to it; it seems just natural to him."

[Pg 38]

The new boy shifted his position uneasily.

Honor thought perhaps he was suffering; his face looked pinched. "Shall we go in the house? Would you be more comf"—she caught herself up—"perhaps you're not used to being out of doors all the time? Eastern people find this glaring sun tiresome sometimes."

"It's very nice here. You go to Los Angeles High School, too?" He didn't care about changing his position but he wanted intensely to change the subject, even if he had started it by his query. "Odd, isn't it, that you don't go to a girls' school?"

Honor laughed. "That's what Muzzie thinks. She did want me to go, but I didn't want to, and Stepper—my stepfather, you know,—stood up for me. I never liked girls very much when I was little. I do now, of course. I've two or three girl friends who are wonders. I adore them. But I still like[Pg 39] boys best. I suppose"—he saw that her mind came back like a needle to the pole—"it's on account of Jimsy. Wait till you really know him! You will be just the same. Honestly, he's the bravest, gamest person in the world. Once, a couple of years ago, Stepper noticed that he was limping, and he made him go to see the doctor. The doctor told us about it afterwards—he's the doctor who took care of our mothers when we were born. Jimsy came in and said, 'Doc, I've got a kind of a sore leg.' And the doctor looked at it and said, 'You've got a broken leg, that's what you've got! Go 

 Prev. P 21/127 next