"And
Emily Flagg said she would like to put him in a cage and poke sharp
things into him. And they all said things like that. But Mrs. Blythe"--
Bruce took a little square paw out of his pocket and put it earnestly on
Anne's knee--"I would like to turn the Kaiser into a good man--a very
good man--all at once if I could. That is what I would do. Don't you
think, Mrs. Blythe, that would be the very worstest punishment of all?"
"Bless the child," said Susan, "how do you make out that would be any
kind of a punishment for that wicked fiend?"
"Don't you see," said Bruce, looking levelly at Susan, out of his
blackly blue eyes, "if he was turned into a good man he would understand
how dreadful the things he has done are, and he would feel so terrible
about it that he would be more unhappy and miserable than he could ever
be in any other way. He would feel just awful--and he would go on
feeling like that forever. Yes"--Bruce clenched his hands and nodded
his head emphatically, "yes, I would make the Kaiser a good man--that
is what I would do--it would serve him 'zackly right."
CHAPTER XXVI
SUSAN HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
An aeroplane was flying over Glen St. Mary, like a great bird poised
against the western sky--a sky so clear and of such a pale, silvery
yellow, that it gave an impression of a vast, wind-freshened space of
freedom. The little group on the Ingleside lawn looked up at it with
fascinated eyes, although it was by no means an unusual thing to see an
occasional hovering plane that summer.
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