Impatient little Will! Emily kindly helped him to get through with the lagging time. At her suggestion, he played ball a while on the lawn, while from time to time she nodded encouragingly to him through the open window. By and by the ball bounded up into a spout, cuddling down among some soft old maple leaves, where Will could not see it. Thereupon Will came into the house in a great pet, storming about till he was persuaded to sit on the floor and paste pictures in his scrap-book.
This quiet occupation did not amuse him long. His fingers, his chin, his cheeks, his curls even soon became stiff with mucilage. Mucilage on his trouser knees, mucilage on his jacket elbows--in fact, mucilage everywhere on and around him.
Emily, after having, with great painstaking, washed her brother and all the surrounding furniture, proposed that he should study a Latin lesson. The book soon went down with a bang. "Because," as Will sulkily explained to his sighing sister, "it made his head buzz."
Emily gently suggested a French lesson as a corrective of this unpleasant "buzz." The remedy soon proved to be a failure. The French book came down more noisily than the Latin book.
Emily laid aside her drawing in despair. It was such a relief to hear Kathleen's heavy step in the entry, and to remember it was time now for Will to be dressed for dinner!
Poor Kathleen had a thankless task before her. Master Will required a great deal of preparation. His curls were gummed and tangled; his fingers were inky, and suspiciously pitchy.
"You've been climbin' unknownst up that pine tree again, an' you a told not to?" questioned Kathleen, examining the fingers keenly.
"Hush up, and go ahead!" was Will's rude answer.
"How _can_ you speak so?" reproved Emily, turning round upon Will, while she tied back her hair with a band of blue ribbon.
"Fie, fie, sir!" cried displeased Kathleen, "going ahead" with great energy, her mouth pursed up in disapproval of Master Will's manners, while she washed, and combed, and curled, and took off and put on his apparel.
"Where's your stockings, Master Will,--the blue stripes?"
Will sat in a low chair, his stubby bare feet stuck out before him, and his two hands actively employed as fly-catchers. Suddenly he remembered having amused himself the day before in oiling his sled runners, using the striped stockings for wipers; but he did not trouble Kathleen just then with the tidings. The blue-striped stockings were not found. Then came a difficulty with his new boots.