“Softly Addie! Softly! Don’t let any of the gentry over there hear you. They’d think you were crazy. We’ll fix it between ourselves—we won’t be hard on them if they do have a big swarm. We’ll see that they don’t starve. Most assuredly we will.”
“They ought to have good big wages. They make the flowers grow so beautifully.”
“Yes Addie the flowers are all right; but where’s the lawn, the green velvet lawn that your mamma raves about so much. The grass can’t grow with so many little feet trotting over it.”
“But little feet are of more consequence than grass, you know they are, only you don’t stop to think. And little children are better than fireworks. I wish all the ugly old fireworks were at the bottom of the sea. You ought not to have let Mr. Bombs send off his piece over the gardener’s house.”
He had not told her about the fireworks that were at the bottom of the river and he hated the idea of doing so. He turned away and she went to the engine house. Bombs was there. She was going to blame him for what had happened—that is all that he deserved to be.
“Was your piece more dangerous than you thought, Mr. Bombs?”
“Well, rather, Miss Adelaide—that is I didn’t expect it was going to burst up—or down I should say.”
“But you knew it was dangerous enough to set things on fire if it did burst and strike them, Mr. Bombs.”
“Yes, Miss, I knew enough for that.”
“Then you are to blame for sending it off where you did, Mr. Bombs, and father is to blame for letting you do it. I have just told him so.”