"Said good-bye the nicest," he substituted. "And I'm going to see if she wants any more letters carried as soon as my papers are gone in the morning, and if she does, I'm going to take them, and if one is to him, I'm going to ask him more about the job he offered me, and if we can agree, I'm going to take it. Then I can buy you what you want myself, because I'll know every day exactly what I'll have, and when the rent is counted out, and for the papers, all the rest will be for eating, and what you need, and to save for your new back." "My, I wisht I had it now!" cried Peaches. "I wisht I could a-rode in that car too! Wasn't it perfeckly grand Mickey?" "Grand as any king," said Mickey. "What is a king?" asked Peaches. "One of the big bosses across the ocean," explained Mickey. "You'll learn them when you get farther with your lessons. They own most all the money, and the finest houses, and _all the people_. Just _own_ them. Own them so's they can tell good friends to go to it, and _kill_ each other, even _relations_." "And do they _do_ it?" marvelled Peaches. "Sure they do it!" cried Mickey. "Why they are doing it _right now!_ I could bring a paper and read you things that would make you so sick you couldn't sit up!" "What kind of things, Mickey?" "About kings making all the fathers kill each other, and burn down each other's houses, and blow up the cities, and eat all the food themselves, and leave the mothers with no home, and no groceries, and no stove, and no beds, and the bullets flying, and the cities burning, and no place to go, and the children starving and dying--Gee, I ain't ever going to tell you any more, Lily! It's too awful! You'd feel better not to know. Honest you would! Wish I hadn't told you anything about it at all. Where's your slate? We got to do lessons 'fore it gets so dark and we are so sleepy we can't see." Peaches proudly handed him the slate. In wavering lines and tremulous curves ran her first day's work alone, over erasures, and with relinings, in hills and deep depressions, which it is possible Mickey read because he knew what it had to be, he proudly translated, "Mickey-lovest." Then the lines of the night before, then "cow" and "milk." And then Mickey whooped because he faintly recognized an effort to draw a picture of the cow and the milk bottle. "Grand Lily!" he cried. "Gee, you're the smartest kid I ever knew! You'll know all I do 'fore long, and then you'll need your back, so's you can get ready to go to a Young Ladies' Sem'nary." "What's that?" interestedly asked Peaches. "A school. Where other _nice_ girls go, and where you learn all that I don't know to teach you," said Mickey. "I won't go!" said Peaches. "Oh yes you will, Miss," said Mickey. "'Cause you're my family, so you'll do as I say." "Will you go with me?" asked Peaches.