“Then it's my turn now,” said Peter. And that was how the quarrel began.
“You're always being disagreeable about nothing,” said Peter, after some heated argument.
“I had the rake first,” said Bobbie, flushed and defiant, holding on to its handle.
“Don't--I tell you I said this morning I meant to have it. Didn't I, Phil?”
Phyllis said she didn't want to be mixed up in their rows. And instantly, of course, she was.
“Of course she doesn't remember--but she might say so.”
“I wish I'd had a brother instead of two whiny little kiddy sisters,” said Peter. This was always recognised as indicating the high-water mark of Peter's rage.
Bobbie made the reply she always made to it.
“I can't think why little boys were ever invented,” and just as she said it she looked up, and saw the three long windows of Mother's workshop flashing in the red rays of the sun. The sight brought back those words of praise:--
“OH!” cried Bobbie, just as if she had been hit, or had caught her finger in a door, or had felt the hideous sharp beginnings of toothache.
Bobbie wanted to say: “Don't let's quarrel. Mother hates it so,” but though she tried hard, she couldn't. Peter was looking too disagreeable and insulting.
“Take the horrid rake, then,” was the best she could manage. And she suddenly let go her hold on the handle. Peter had been holding on to it too firmly and pullingly, and now that the pull the other way was suddenly stopped, he staggered and fell over backward, the teeth of the rake between his feet.
“Serve you right,” said Bobbie, before she could stop herself.
Peter lay still for half a moment--long enough to frighten Bobbie a little. Then he frightened her a little more, for he sat up--screamed once--turned rather pale, and then lay back and began to shriek, faintly but steadily. It sounded exactly like a pig being killed a quarter of a mile off.
Mother put her head out of the window, and it wasn't half a minute after that she was in the garden kneeling by the side of Peter, who never for an instant ceased to squeal.
“It was the rake,” said Phyllis. “Peter was pulling at it, so was Bobbie, and she let go and he went over.”
“Stop that noise, Peter,” said Mother. “Come. Stop at once.”
Peter used up what breath he had left in a last squeal and stopped.