"They weren't rude to you?"
"Yes, they cert'nly were!"
"Well, then----"
"Mamma, can't you understand?" Florence turned from the window to beseech Mrs. Atwater's concentration upon the matter. "It isn't '_playing_'! I didn't want to 'play' being a reporter; they ain't 'playing'----"
"Aren't playing, Florence."
"Yes'm. They're not. Herbert's got a real printing-press; Uncle Joseph gave it to him. It's a real one, mamma, can't you understand?"
"I'll try," said Mrs. Atwater. "You mustn't get so excited about it, Florence."
"I'm not!" Florence returned vehemently. "I guess it'd take more than those two vile things and their old printing-press to get me excited! I don't care what they do; it's far less than nothing to me! All I wish is they'd fall off the fence and break their vile ole necks!"
With this manifestation of impersonal calmness, she turned again to the window; but her mother protested. "Do quit watching those foolish boys; you mustn't let them upset you so by their playing."
Florence moaned. "They don't 'upset' me, mamma! They have no effects on me by the slightest degree! And I _told_ you, mamma, they're not 'playing'."
"Then what are they doing?"
"Well, they're having a newspaper. They got the printing-press and an office in Herbert's stable, and everything. They got somebody to give 'em some ole banisters and a railing from a house that was torn down somewheres, and then they got it stuck up in the stable loft, so it runs across with a kind of a gate in the middle of these banisters, and on one side is the printing-press and a desk from that nasty little Henry Rooter's mother's attic; and a table and some chairs, and a map on the wall; and that's their newspaper office. They go out and look for what's the news, and write it down in lead pencil; and then they go up to their office and write it in ink; and then they print it for their newspaper."
"But what do they do on the fence?"
"That's where they go to watch what the news is," Florence explained morosely. "They think they're so grand, sittin' up there, pokin' around! They go other places, too; and they ask people. That's all they said _I_ could be!" Here the lady's bitterness became strongly intensified. "They said maybe I could be one o' the ones they asked if I knew anything, sometimes, if they happened to think of it! I just respectf'ly told 'em I'd decline to wipe my oldest shoes on 'em to save their lives!"