Jacqueline’s face flamed.
“Then the dishes will stay right there till Aunt Martha comes,” she said. “I won’t touch ’em.”
“Don’t!” mocked Neil, and settled himself more comfortably.
Well, Jacqueline didn’t touch those dishes! If you’ll believe it, she took her story papers and went out and read in the hammock for two mortal hours, while the dinner table stood just as the family had left it, and the stockings in Grandma’s basket cried: “Come darn me!” and patient little Nellie struggled all alone to keep two hot and fussy babies amused and quiet.
In the old papers Jacqueline found a continued story of the sort she liked, about a girl who went to a boarding school, where most of the teachers were mean and malicious and incredibly stupid; about the pranks that she and her friends played, and the mystery of a buried treasure that she solved. Jacqueline was so deep in the mystery that she scarcely heeded when Aunt Martha drove into the yard. She came out of the treasure vault with a jump, only when she heard her name called. Then she looked, and saw Aunt Martha standing in the kitchen doorway.
Full of the spirit of her heroine, who put tyrannical teachers in their place, Jacqueline rose and went into the kitchen. She was almost eager for “a scene.”
“Why aren’t those dishes done?” Aunt Martha asked directly. Her shrewd gray eyes went right through Jacqueline.
This was drama with a vengeance. Jacqueline’s heart began to beat fast.
“There were so many of ’em, and the day was so hot, and I had a headache, and Neil wouldn’t help,” she poured out all her reasons glibly.
“You leave Neil out. I’ll attend to him. It was your job to clear up the dining room, and wash those dishes. Go about it now.”