beam.

"I'm getting better at climbing over stiles, aren't I, Kezia?"

Lottie's was a very hopeful nature.

The pink and the blue sunbonnet followed Isabel's bright red sunbonnet up
that sliding, slipping hill. At the top they paused to decide where to go
and to have a good stare at who was there already. Seen from behind,
standing against the skyline, gesticulating largely with their spades, they
looked like minute puzzled explorers.

The whole family of Samuel Josephs was there already with their lady-help,
who sat on a camp-stool and kept order with a whistle that she wore tied
round her neck, and a small cane with which she directed operations. The
Samuel Josephs never played by themselves or managed their own game. If
they did, it ended in the boys pouring water down the girls' necks or the
girls trying to put little black crabs into the boys' pockets. So Mrs. S.
J. and the poor lady-help drew up what she called a "brogramme" every
morning to keep them "abused and out of bischief." It was all competitions
or races or round games. Everything began with a piercing blast of the
lady-help's whistle and ended with another. There were even prizes--large,
rather dirty paper parcels which the lady-help with a sour little smile
drew out of a bulging string kit. The Samuel Josephs fought fearfully for
the prizes and cheated and pinched one another's arms--they were all expert
pinchers. The only time the Burnell children ever played with them Kezia
had got a prize, and when she undid three bits of paper she found a very
small rusty button-hook. She couldn't understand why they made such a
fuss...