"They weren't rude to you?"
"Yes, they cert'nly were!"
"Well, then----"
"Mamma, _can't_ you understand?" Florence turned from the window to
beseech Mrs. Atwater's concentration upon the matter. "It isn't
'_playing_'! I didn't want to 'play' being a reporter; _they_ ain't
'playing'----"
"_Aren't_ playing, Florence."
"Yes'm. They're not. Herbert's got a real printing-press; Uncle Joseph
gave it to him. It's a _real_ one, mamma, can't you understand?"
"I'll try," said Mrs. Atwater. "You mustn't get so excited about it,
Florence."
"I'm not!" Florence returned vehemently. "I guess it'd take more than
those two vile things and their old printing-press to get _me_ excited!
_I_ don't care what they do; it's far less than nothing to me! All _I_
wish is they'd fall off the fence and break their vile ole necks!"
With this manifestation of impersonal calmness, she turned again to the
window; but her mother protested. "Do quit watching those foolish boys;
you mustn't let them upset you so by their playing."
Florence moaned. "They don't 'upset' me, mamma! They have no effects on
me by the slightest degree! And I _told_ you, mamma, they're not
'playing'."
"Then what are they doing?"
"Well, they're having a newspaper. They got the printing-press and an
office in Herbert's stable, and everything. They got somebody to give
'em some ole banisters and a railing from a house that was torn down
somewheres, and then they got it stuck up in the stable loft, so it runs
across with a kind of a gate in the middle of these banisters, and on
one side is the printing-press and a desk from that nasty little Henry
Rooter's mother's attic; and a table and some chairs, and a map on the
wall; and that's their newspaper office. They go out and look for what's
the news, and write it down in lead pencil; and then they go up to their
office and write it in ink; and then they print it for their newspaper."
"But what do they do on the fence?"
"That's where they go to watch what the news is," Florence explained
morosely. "They think they're so grand, sittin' up there, pokin' around!
They go other places, too; and they ask people. That's all they said _I_
could be!" Here the lady's bitterness became strongly intensified. "They
said maybe I could be one o' the ones they asked if I knew anything,
sometimes, if they happened to think of it! I just respectf'ly told 'em
I'd decline to wipe my oldest shoes on 'em to save their lives!"