He answered with a frown of annoyance:
“You exceeded your authority, Katie.”
“But you will, won’t you?” she pleaded. “You’ve never refused me anything that I really wanted badly, and I’ve never asked much, have I?”
“No, girl, you haven’t,” he replied gently. “And there’s hardly anything you could ask, within reason, that wouldn’t be granted.”
“But they only need five hundred until he gets into something. You could let them have that, couldn’t you?”
His face and eyes hardened.
“I could, but I won’t,” he replied curtly.
When Prouty was in its infancy, certain citizens had been misled by Mormon Joe’s mild eyes, low voice and quiet manner. His easy-going exterior concealed an incredible hardness upon occasions, but this was Kate’s first knowledge of it. He never had displayed the slightest authority. In any difference, when he had not yielded to her good-naturedly, they had argued it out as though they were in reality partners. At another time she would have been wounded by his brusque refusal, but to-night it angered her. Because of her intense eagerness and confidence that she had only to ask him, it came as the keenest of disappointments. This together with her fatigue combined to produce a display of temper as unusual in her as Mormon Joe’s own attitude.
“But I promised!” she cried, impatiently. “And you’ve told me I must always keep my promise, 'if it takes the hide'!”
“You exceeded your authority,” he reiterated. “You’ve no right to promise what doesn’t belong to you.”