A Little Question in Ladies' RightsFillmore, Parker
General
A Little Question in Ladies' Rights
Fillmore, Parker
Children -- Fiction
"But, Willie, I just won't eat a bite of that cake unless you take half.
Here, let me break it in two."
After they had eaten the cake, she insisted likewise upon sharing the
recovered jaw-breakers.
"And I'm going to take the one you've partly sucked for one of mine,
because I've had a whole one already, and you haven't had any."
Willie Jones protested, but this time Margery had her way, and in a few
moments, after the friendliest of partings, he was started home with a
fresh jaw-breaker in his cheek and another in his pocket.
Of course, without a thought, Margery had broken her promise to Janet.
Well, what if she had? Margery gave her shoulders an impatient little
shrug. Who, pray, was Janet McFadden that she should come between
friends? To be sure, in her way, Janet was a good, kind creature, and
she meant well, but wasn't she a trifle excitable and a little too
emphatic, don't you think? On the whole, too, her outlook on life seemed
rather limited. There were certain things you never could expect her to
understand. Come to think of it, she didn't look like a girl who
received many valentines. It might be just as well if Margery never saw
her again, for explanations would be difficult.
Not so, though, with Rosie O'Brien! If Margery ever met Rosie alone, she
could explain to Rosie, and Rosie, she felt sure, would understand at
once. Rosie had bright blues eyes and pretty hair that blew about her
face in soft, alluring ringlets. Rosie without a doubt would understand.
Poor Janet McFadden! Margery really felt sorry for Janet as she thought
of her going through life weighted down with such a grievance. Of
course, it was awfully good of her, the way she had espoused Margery's
cause. Poor thing, she was probably still fuming over Margery's wrongs
at this very moment, when Margery herself, sucking hard at Willie
Jones's half-finished jaw-breaker, which she was in hopes of concluding
before dinner, was feeling anything but injured and down-trodden.
Perhaps, though, it was the poor thing's pleasure to keep herself
always stirred up.
For some reason Margery was not hungry for dinner, but she forced
herself to eat enough to avert paternal questioning. The last
jaw-breaker she was saving for bed. She could take half an hour's sweet
comfort from it before going to sleep, and still have something to look
forward to upon awakening next morning.
While she waited after dinner until she could, in decency, retire, she
sat a while within the family circle, quietly musing upon the day's
adventures. What a strange, delightful, interesting sort of a place the
world was, to be sure, with all its fiery Janet McFaddens, and sweet
Rosie O'Briens, and paradoxical Willie Joneses! My but she was glad that
she was alive!
And she really was sorry for Janet. If she could only make her see----
"Well, after all, Margery, what do you think about it?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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