“A tom-boy?” Billy repeated. “Why, a tom-boy is a girl who acts like
a boy.”

“How can a girl be a boy?” Maida queried after a few moments of
thought. “Why don’t they call her a tom-girl?”

“Why, indeed?” Billy answered, taking up the dictionary.

Certainly Rosie Brine acted like a boy—Maida proved that to herself
in the next few days when she watched Rose-Red again and again. But
if she were a tom-boy, she was also, Maida decided, the most
beautiful and the most wonderful little girl in the world. And,
indeed, Rosie was so full of energy that it seemed to spurt out in
the continual sparkle of her face and the continual movement of her
body. She never walked. She always crossed the street in a series of
flying jumps. She never went through a gate if she could go over the
fence, never climbed the fence if she could vault it. The scarlet
cape was always flashing up trees, over sheds, sometimes to the very
roofs of the houses. Her principal diversion seemed to be climbing
lamp-posts. Maida watched this proceeding with envy. One athletic
leap and Rose-Red was clasping the iron column half-way up—a few
more and she was swinging from the bars under the lantern. But she
was accomplished in other ways. She could spin tops, play “cat” and
“shinney” as well as any of the boys. And as for jumping rope—if two
little girls would swing for her, Rosie could actually waltz in the
rope.

The strangest thing about Rosie was that she did not always go to
school like the other children. The incident of the dog happened on
Thursday. Friday morning, when the children filed into the