"Gee, but I'm hungry!" he sighed. "I eat and eat, just like a horse eating hay, and I just can't fill up the hole in me."
"There, never mind, honey," Mrs. Kate interposed hastily, fearing worse. "Do you want more bread and butter?"
"Yes—you always use bread for stuffing, don't you? I want to be stuffed. All the way home my b—my stomerch was a-flopping against my backbone, just like Dick's. Only Dick said—"
"Never mind what Dick said." Mrs. Kate thrust the bread toward him, half buttered.
"Dick's mad, I guess. He's mad at Ford, too."
Buddy regarded his mother gravely over the slice of bread.
"First I've heard of it," Ford remarked lightly. "I think you must be mistaken, old-timer."
But Buddy never considered himself mistaken about anything, and he did not like being told that he was, even when the pill was sweetened with the term "old-timer." He rolled his eyes at Ford resentfully.
"Dick is mad! He got mad when you galloped over where Jo's red ribbon was hanging onto a bush. I saw him a-scowling when you rolled it up and put it in your shirt pocket. Dick wanted that ribbon for his bridle; and you better give it to him. Jo ain't your girl. She's Dick's girl. And you have to tie the ribbon of your bestest girl on your bridle. That's why," he added, with belated gallantry, "I tie my own mamma's ribbons on mine. And," he returned with terrible directness to the real issue, "Jo's Dick's girl, 'cause he said so. I heard him tell Jim Felton she's his steady, all right—and you are his girl, ain't you, Jo?"
His mother had tried at first to stop him, had given up in despair, and was now sitting in a rather tragic calm, waiting for what might come of his speech.