“Hullo, Kitty,” said father, looking round the table, which was garnished with a veal pie and some chicken salad, “where are the plums gone to?”
“There are none ripe, daddy,” faltered I.
“And couldn’t you find any substitute? You might have picked a dish of apricots, at any rate. It doesn’t seem natural to have tea on Sundays without fruit of some sort.”
“I don’t think there are any apricots left,” I suggested, beginning to be uncomfortably conscious that mother was regarding me gravely from the corner of her eye.
“None left?” father almost shouted. “Why, didn’t you see Sandy, only yesterday, carrying off a wheelbarrow load for the pigs?”
I hung my head, and mother came to the rescue. “The rain spoiled them,” she put in quietly. I was certain, from the tone of her voice, that she scented the truth, though, perhaps, afar off; and I quaked inwardly.
As soon as tea was over, I slipped out of the room and into my bedroom, whence I emerged from my private door into the garden, and ran away to the paddock. In about ten minutes I spied Tom poking about the shrubbery, looking for me; and I called “Cooee!” once or twice, softly, to bring him to my hiding-place.
“I wondered where in the world you were off to,” he said in some surprise.
“I’ll tell you why I ran away,” I eagerly responded. “I felt certain mother would ask me to sing, or to do something that would keep me indoors; and I could not bear to lose this one evening of our own.”
“No, indeed; that would have been hard lines, and no mistake! Ah, well, we’ll soon settle with them, and get our liberty honestly, please God.”