“Oh, we’ll have heaps of practices,” said Miss Dewhurst brightly.

As he was going Bettine pressed a small apple into his hand.

“A present for you,” she murmured.  “I saved it from my dinner.”

He was touched.

“I’ll give you somethin’ to-morrow,” he said, adding hastily, “if I can find anythin’.”

They stood in silence till he had finished his apple.

“I’ve left a lot on the core,” he said in a tone of unusual politeness, handing it to her, “would you like to finish it?”

“No, thank you.  William, you’ll look so nice holding her train.”

“I don’t want to, an’ I bet I won’t!  You don’t know the things I can do,” he said darkly.

“Oh, William!” she gasped in awe and admiration.

“I’d hold your train if you was goin’ to be queen,” he volunteered.

“I wouldn’t want you to hold my train,” she said earnestly.  “I’d—­I’d—­I’d want you to be May King with me.”

“Yes.  Why don’t they have May Kings?” said William, stung by this insult to his sex.

“Why shouldn’t there be a May King?”

“I speck they do, really, only p’raps Miss Dewhurst doesn’t know abut it.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem sense not having May Kings, does it?  I wun’t mind bein’ May King if you was May Queen.”

* * * * *

The rehearsal was, on the whole, a failure.

“William Brown, don’t hold the train so high.  No, not quite so low.  Don’t stand so near the Queen, William Brown.  No, not so far away—­you’ll pull the train off.  Walk when the Queen walks, William Brown, don’t stand still.  Sing up, please, train bearer.  No, not quite so loud.  That’s deafening and not melodious.”

In the end he was degraded from the position of train-bearer to that of ordinary “swain.”  The “swains” were to be dressed in smocks and the “maidens” in print dresses, and the Maypole dance was to be performed round Evangeline Fish, who was to stand in queenly attire by the pole in the middle.  All the village was to be invited.

At the end of the rehearsal William came upon Bettine, once more gazing wistfully at Evangeline Fish, who was coquetting (with many tosses of the fair ringlets) before a crowd of admirers.

“Isn’t it lovely for her to be May Queen?” said Bettine.

“She’s a rotten one,” said William.  “I’m jolly glad I’ve not to hold up her rotten ole train an’ listen to her narsy squeaky voice singin’ close to, an’ I’ll give you a present to-morrow.”

He did.  He found a centipede in the garden and pressed it into her hand on the way to school.

“They’re jolly int’restin’,” he said.  “Put it in a match-box and make holes for its breath and it’ll live ever so long.  It won’t bite you if you hold it the right way.”

And because she loved William she took it without even a shudder.