"Ernie and Elschen are doing the dishes. When they finish they will be over."
"Will it take 'em long?" asked Roger. "I got all my chores done."
"They're nearly done. Here's Elschen ready to go now."
"It was my turn to wipe, so I got through quick. Ernie's awful mad," cried a small girl, scrambling hastily over the fence.
Elsa was six. She was short and plump, an almost perfect miniature of her pretty mother, who stood smiling in the doorway. Her hair was true gold. While it was not curly it was full of a vitality that gave it the look of finely spun wire as it stood out over her head in a bushy mass. She was red of cheek and blue of eye, a jolly, plucky little girl, much more enterprising and pugnacious than Ernie, who followed her shortly over the fence.
Ernest was Roger's age and he looked so much like Elsa that a stranger might have thought them to be twins.
He landed with a thud. "Where'd you get the teeter-tauter, Roger?" he cried.
"Don't you see, you old ninny? I heaved up the plank Papa put down for the walk to the clothes-reel, and the barrel, I sort-of--now I kind of borrowed that out of the Sauters' barn. I guess they wouldn't care. I left a penny on the barn floor to pay for it. It's the strongest barrel I most ever saw. You go on the other end and Charley and I'll stay here. Elschen, you can be candlestick."
"I ain't going to be candlestick very long, I ain't. Not for you old boys," said Elsa, climbing, however, to the place assigned her, where the board balanced on the barrel.
The children see-sawed amicably for perhaps five minutes when Roger roared-"Hey! All of you get off! I got to fix this better."
"I'm not agoing to move," replied Elsa.
"I ain't agoing to move," agreed Charley.
"Come on, you girls, get off," cried Ernie. "What you going to do, Roger?"
"I'll show you! If you girls don't get off, I'll dump you," suiting action to words, as he tilted the plank sidewise. Elsa got a real bump, from the barrel to the ground. Charley's end of the see-saw was on the ground so she scrambled up laughing. Not so Elschen. She was red with anger. She flew at Roger and slapped him in the face.
Roger turned white, and struck back, the blow catching Elsa in the stomach. She doubled up and roared. Roger's voice rose above hers.
"I'll kill you next time! I'll kill you, you low down old German pig, you."