It was while Robert was in this unfortunate mood that Alice undertook to explain to him the virtues of tomboys. Did he want a weak, effeminate sister who later on would be no companion to him, she inquired?
"I don't want to punch the nose of every fellow who calls her a tomboy," he responded to this. "She's awfully unobliging, too. She won't be It when you ask her to."
"Why should I be It all the time, Robert Marcey?" cried Sara with temper. "They want me to be It every single time, just because I'm a girl." Here her lips quivered and beautiful tears trembled in her eyes. "Half the time they want me to be It and shut my eyes and count, and after a hundred or a hundred and fifty they run away and leave me. Is that fair? Would you call that a kind brother, Mother?"
The wrongs of womanhood overwhelmed Sara, and she wept.
"There, you see!" said Robert. "Do you suppose I want a cry-baby around?"
"She wouldn't be a cry-baby if you treated her decently," Alice said.
"No, I wouldn't," said Sara. "They don't treat me decently—they're mean."
"Well," responded Robert, "what makes you want to tag along if we're mean?"
There it was. Why, indeed? There were girls, Robert pointed out, with whom Sara could play.
"Lots of mothers," he added pointedy, "don't want
