Page 62 - An Australian Lassie

"But--what have T done?"

"Girl!" whispered John in scorn.

The trouble at Betty's heart stirred and hurt her. Was it not enough to be a girl, without being called one--and
in such a whisper. She sat still, and, to save herself from tears, bit her lips and pressed them together, and
pinched her left arm with her right hand, as she sat there with her arms folded behind her.

And John thought she didn't care!

He looked at her out of an eye-corner and added, "T'm done with you," as a final stab.

Betty said, "Oh no, John," imploringly, and Miss Sharman caught her whisper and saw her lips move, and
said--

"Elizabeth Bruce--don't let me have to look at you again this morning. You are very troublesome. Why can
you not take a leaf out of your brother's book, T wonder?"

The morning wore on, and tenses and moods gave place to drill. Then they all went into the playground, and
armed themselves with poles, and formed into lines.

John, as the tallest and straightest-backed and sturdiest-limbed pupil in the school, was always at the head of
one line. While Nellie Underwood and Betty Bruce, being of a height and age, headed a line alternately.

Tt fell to Betty's lot to be head of a line to-day, and though she had to "right wheel and march," with John for a
partner, down the middle and up again, and "left wheel and march" from John to meet again, and "right wheel
and march," and all of it over and over and over again, John's eyes only ignored the little distressed face in the
cotton bonnet, or told her contemptuously that she was a "girl."

At eleven o'clock recess he was skirmishing with four smaller boys (using only one hand to their eight) and
Betty walked up and down under the gum trees arm in arm with two other girls in sun-bonnets.

At dinner-time John scampered home to roast fowl and bread sauce, and Betty and Cyril and Nancy carried
their lunch bag to a shady corner and ate bread and jam sandwiches with relish, finishing up with a banana
each.

Tt was not until afternoon school was well over that Betty found John in any way approachable. He was
skimming stones along the dusty road with practised skill, and Betty, alone and hurrying, caught him up.

She artfully admired a stone that sped for a couple of hundred yards an inch or so above the earth, without, to
all seeming, ever touching it. And John condescended to be pleased at her praise.

When she had at his command tried her hand at throwing and been condemned by him, she put her question
again.

"Why aren't you speaking to me, John? What have T done?"

"T'm speaking!" quoth John. "But T'm done with you."

"But what have T done?"

"Done! Only got me into a row with my grandfather. Only got me to bed at six o'clock without any tea for