"How much time?" demanded Mabel, with sudden suspicion.
"Oh, about a thousand years," replied Marjory, skipping prudently behind tall Jean.
"Never mind, Mabel," said Bettie, who always sided with the oppressed, slipping a thin arm about Mabel's plump shoulders. "We like you pretty well, anyway, and you've certainly had an awful time."
"Do you think," asked Mabel, with sudden concern, "that Mr. Milligan could get us turned out of the cottage? You know he threatened to."
"No," said Bettie. "The cottage is church property and no one could do anything about it with Mr. Black away because he's the senior warden. Father said only this morning that there was all sorts of church business waiting for him."
"Well," said Mabel, with a sigh of relief, "Mr. Black wouldn't turn us out, so we're perfectly safe. Guess I'll go out on the porch and sing my Milligan song again."
"I guess you won't," said Jean. "There's a very good tub in the Bennett house and I'd advise you to go home and take a bath in it—you look as if you needed two baths and a shampoo. Besides, it's almost supper time."
Laura's version of the story, unfortunately, differed materially from the truth. There was no gainsaying the tomatoes—Mr. Milligan had seen those with his own eyes; but Laura claimed that she had been compelled to use those expensive vegetables as a means of self-defense. According to Laura, whose imagination was as well trained as her arm, she had been the innocent victim of all sorts of persecution at the hands of the four girls. They had called her a thief and had insulted not only her but all the other Milligans. Mabel, she declared, had opened hostilities that afternoon by throwing stones, and poor, abused Laura had only used the tomatoes as a last resort. The apple that struck Mr. Milligan was, she maintained, the very last of about four dozen.
Had the Milligans not been prejudiced, they might easily have learned how far from the truth this assertion was, for the porch of Dandelion Cottage was still bespattered with tomatoes, whereas in the Milligan yard there were no traces of the recent encounter. This, to be sure, was no particular credit to Mabel for there might have been had Mr. Milligan delayed his coming by a very few minutes, since Mabel's pan still contained seven hard little apples and Mabel still longed to use them.
The Milligans, however, were prejudiced. Although Laura was often rude and disagreeable at home, she was the only little girl the Milligans had; in any quarrel with outsiders they naturally sided with their own flesh and blood, and, in spite of the tomatoes, they did so now. In her mother Laura found a staunch champion.