“Jackie, you don’t deserve any dinner,” Aunt Edie spoke emphatically, and this time Cousin Penelope shot her a glance of heartiest approval.
“I don’t want any dinner, thanks,” said Jacqueline with her chin up. “I had my supper at Aunt Martha’s, and it’s a very clean, nice place, and no typhus at all, and I hope you didn’t bring any germs and things back with you from your nasty old Alaska.”
“Now don’t get fresh,” warned Uncle Jimmie.
Everybody hated her—everybody in the world—it was worse than Institutions—and Aunt Martha was way off in the Meadows! Jacqueline felt the belittling hot tears well into her eyes.
“Then don’t you say things about the farm,” she flared, “nor about Aunt Martha—she’s a lovely aunt—and I never had a grandmother before—and oh, dear! Freddie cried when I left, and maybe he’s crying for me now.”
She felt her eyes brim over with tears, which she brushed angrily away. Aunt Edie made a little helpless movement, as if she might rise and go to her, but she met Uncle Jimmie’s eye and sat still. Aunt Eunice, however, wasn’t any relation to Uncle Jimmie by marriage or otherwise, and she didn’t care how he looked at her. She just put her arm round Jacqueline and drew her close.
“Come, come, dear,” she comforted. “Nobody meant to speak against Martha Conway. She’s the salt of the earth, and I don’t doubt but the summer with her has done you a lot of good.”
“I’ll say it has,” Jacqueline sniffled while she felt forlornly for a handkerchief. “I can make gingerbread—and apple-sauce—and cook eggs five different ways. It was a corking farm—and I’m going down there to-morrow. I told the boys I would. I didn’t say half the things I want to say to Carol. I’m going down there early and stay all day——”
“But there won’t be any time to-morrow,” Aunt Edie struck in. “Didn’t Uncle Jimmie tell you?”
“We’ve not indulged in much conversation,” Uncle Jimmie spoke dryly.