It was agreed that Cousin Charley should tell the folks of the day's adventure. As they neared home their mirth diminished as their fears increased: how to run the gauntlet, as it were. So far they had avoided the highways, skulking through thicket and fields. As they neared the old Smouse place, now occupied by Mart Massie as a dairy farm, the milkman was hitching up preparatory to making his usual rounds.
Cousin Charley, perhaps feeling it would be a good rehearsal, recounted the story he had concocted to relate to Alfred's parents. The milkman was greatly interested in the thrilling narrative and consented to store the boys in the back end of the milk wagon, delivering them when he delivered the milk to their folks. The boys thought it a very long milk route. Alfred had Cousin Charley as nearly nervous as his nature would permit by more than once threatening to get out and walk home.
When they neared home, passing through Church Street, Alfred made a move to leave the wagon, crawling over the end gate backwards, his limbs dangling outside, his head and body hid by the closely drawn curtains. Cousin Charley, after struggling, pulled him into the wagon under cover.
"If Ye Ain't Lyin' About This and I'm Hopin' Ye Air"
Several women had caught sight of the limbs and the unmentionable garments. While the driver was entirely ignorant of the cause, he was forever disgraced on this part of his route. An old Scotch lady declared to several of her neighbors the "shameless hussy was bare to the kilt."
Arriving in front of Alfred's home, Cousin Charley hustled him into the house the front way as Lin came up the path from the back part of the house in answer to the bell of the milkman, who was of the gossiping kind, and managed to give Lin the outlines of Cousin Charley's story as he drew the milk and cream from his large cans.
Lin could scarcely wait until he poured the milk into her pitcher. Giving the milk vendor a withering look, she slammed the gate and hissed:
"I'll bet a fippennybit that's another of Charley's durn lies."
Hurrying into the kitchen she seized a rolling pin, her favorite weapon. Two stairs at a time she bounded, reaching the room where Cousin Charley had related about half of the harassing details of the rescue of Alfred. This was his story: