City and town life -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Indiana -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction
"No it wouldn't; but it would be because he needs solid study and
school routine to settle him, and make him _great_ instead of a clown,
as that would at his age. But if you think there is anything in the
_Herald_ office that could _hurt_ Mickey, you got another think coming.
It wouldn't hurt Mickey; but it would be mighty good for the rest of
them. The _Herald_ has more honour and conscience than most; some of
the papers are just disgraceful in what they publish, and then take
back next day; while folks are forced to endure it. Sit up and eat your
dinners now. I want to get on with my work."
"Mickey, what happened?" begged Peaches as Mickey came in sight,
carrying the papers.
He was trembling and tensely excited as her sharp eyes could see. They
rested probingly a second on him, then on the paper. Her lips tightened
while her eyes darkened. She stretched out her hand.
"Mickey, let me see!" she commanded.
Mickey knelt beside her, spreading out the sheet. Then he took her
hand, setting a finger on the first letter of his name and slowly moved
along as she repeated the letters she knew best of all, then softly
pronounced the name. She knew the _Herald_ too. She sat so straight
Mickey was afraid she would strain her back, lifting her head "like a
queen," if a queen lifts her head just as high as her neck can possibly
stretch, and smiled a cold little smile of supreme self-satisfaction.
"Now Mickey, go on and read what you wrote about _me_," her Highness
commanded.
The collapse of Mickey was sudden and complete. He stared at Peaches,
at the paper, opened his lips, thought a lie and discarded it, shut his
lips to pen the lie in for sure, and humbly and contritely waited, a
silent candidate for mercy. Peaches had none. To her this was the
logical outcome of what she had been led to expect. There was the
paper. The paper was the _Herald_. There was the front page. There was
Mickey's name. She had no conception of Mickey writing a line which did
_not_ concern her; also he had expressly stated that all of them and
the whole book were to be about her. She indicated the paper and his
name, while the condescension of her waiting began to be touched with
impatience.
"Mickey, why don't you go on and read what it says about me?" she
demanded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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