Sallie was sitting, her handsome head bent over her sewing,--Frankie
gambolling about the floor.
"O sis, _don't_ you wish Jim would come home?" queried the youngster. "I
do,--I wish he'd come right straight away."
"Right straight away? What do _you_ want to see Jim for?"
"O, 'cause he's nice; and 'cause he'll take me to the Theayter; and
'cause he'll treat,--apples, and peanuts, and candy, you know,
and--and--ice-cream," wiping the beads from his little red face,--the
last desideratum evidently suggested by the fiery summer heat. "I say,
Sallie!"--a pause--"won't you get me some ice-cream this evening?"
"Yes, Bobbity, if you'll be a good boy."
Frankie looked dubious over that proposition. Jim never made any such
stipulations: so, after another pause, in which he was probably
considering the whole subject with due and becoming gravity,--evidently
desiring to hear his own wish propped up by somebody else's
seconding,--he broke out again, "Now, Sallie, don't you just wish Jim
would come home?"
"O Frankie, don't I?" cried the girl, dropping her work, and stretching
out her empty arms as though she would clasp some shape in the air.
Frankie, poor child! innocently imagining the proffered embrace was for
him, ran forward, for he was an affectionate little soul, to give Sallie
a good hug, but found himself literally left out in the cold; no arms to
meet, and no Sallie, indeed, to touch him.
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