Miss Hopkins had stepped aside at the call of an agitated
lady who had lost one of her art treasures in carriage; for the moment,
there was no one near save a freckled boy in shabby overalls, who eyed
the toys wistfully from afar. He was the same little boy whom
Johnny-Ivan had bribed with a jack-knife to close the gate a few weeks
before; and he was in the Museum to help his mother, the scrub-woman of
the store.
Peggy grew more pleased with her play. The velocipede described wider
and wider gyrations with accelerating speed; its keen buzz swelled on
the air.
"It'll hit somepin!" warned Johnny-Ivan in an access of fear.
But Peggy's soul was dauntless to recklessness. "No, it won't," she
flung back. Her shining head was between Johnny and the whirling wheels.
He thought a most particularly beautiful little swinging gate in peril
and tried to swerve the flying thing; how it happened, neither of the
children knew; there was a smash, a crash, and gate and velocipede lay
in splinters under a bronze bust.
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