“I do not want to have anything to do with a miserable little sneak that worms himself into my confidence and then goes hot-foot to tell what he has found out. I have no use for two-faced people!”
“Neither have I in an ordinary way,” said Pam quietly. She had gently elbowed Galena from the stove, and was briskly stirring Nathan’s porridge herself. It was the first thing she saw that she could do, and her doing it left Galena’s hands free for something else. “But do you know why he did it? I mean, do you know why he went off to Ripple that day to warn Grandfather about the surprise party?”
“To earn a quarter, I suppose. It is just disgusting to see young children so set on getting money by fair means or foul. I have no patience with it.” Galena was quite splendid in her wrath, but Pam’s eyes were suddenly dim with tears.
“He did want money, I know,” she said quietly; “but he did not get it, for Grandfather set the dog at him in return for his kindness in having come to warn him.”
“Kindness!” snorted Galena, with her head in the air, and she set a dish on the table with so much emphasis that the contents were spilled on the table-cloth.
Pam wanted to laugh, but managed to keep a grave face. She knew that Galena hated to spill things, and this was only Tuesday, so she would have to look at that soiled table-cloth every day for the rest of the week, which would be punishment enough for her without anything else.
“I think it was kindness,” said Pam quietly. “It must be dreadful to have a set of people you do not care for coming to take forcible possession of your house sometime when you have gone, or are just going to bed, to have them go poking and prying through your private places, and seeing all the miserable little shifts that you have to make to present a decent front to the world. Oh, it must be hateful! You would not realize it yourself, because you have never been poor. I don’t mean that you have not had to want something you could not have, but you have never had to make all sorts of miserable little shifts to keep people from finding out how poor you were.”
“But you went to more than one surprise party yourself last winter, and you enjoyed it as much as anyone, or at least you appeared to!” burst out Galena, showing quick resentment, for she thought it was the idea that Pam was attacking.
“I know that I did,” answered Pam. “Indeed, I never enjoyed a frolic more in my life than the night we came here to surprise you and your brother. But then you had nothing to hide. You were friends with every one of us. There was food in your larder and firing in its proper place. You had table-cloths, and dishes, and everything else that was needed. But how would you have felt if you had gone to bed without any supper, or next to none, if there had been no firing in the house, and your only table-cloth was a torn old newspaper, not too clean, while all the house was in the state of the most abject poverty that you can imagine?”
“Your Grandfather’s house was not like that!” cried Galena in amazement and indignant astonishment. “Why, you were there and saw it yourself!”