"You said," she snapped, "that Washington was neither truthful nor honest!"
"Oh, now, I couldn't have!" he protested. "I merely said, in regard to the cherry tree episode, his intention was not only to cut, but to run. You've heard the expression 'cut and run'? Well, we get it from George."
"Your surmises are intolerable!"
"Miss Liz, it isn't fair to condemn until you hear me!" It was the tone of a much misunderstood penitent, and she hesitated. "I'll leave it to the Colonel," he was continuing, but the old gentleman briskly interrupted:
"You'll do nothing of the kind, sir!"
"Then I'll leave it to Jane—she may have some remote idea of history—if I'm scandalizing your hero by saying he never set us the extraordinary example you think. He was just a normal boy, a considerate boy, and had no intention of worrying the family about that tree; but it so happened that before he had time to sweep up the chips—which shows he was a tidy boy!—his governor swooped right down on top of him, you might say, and the game was up. George had cut, you see, Miss Liz, but he couldn't run—and here's where he showed himself the genius which ultimately resulted in our independence. He knew in a flash that this was a tight place; it was an awful tight place; in fact, you might say it pretty nearly squeezed him all over. There was the prostrate tree, right before the old gentleman's eyes; and there was the old gentleman, mad as hops, with his cane trembling in the air. There wasn't another boy, or even another hatchet, in fifteen miles—and little George's mind analyzed the full significance of that fact. It didn't take him a second to see how the situation had to be handled; so, really, Miss Liz, I think our lesson should be drawn, not from his love of truth, but from his quick and accurate judgment. In all the English language there was just one thing for him to say, and he said it. That's genius, Miss Liz—but not always veracity."
"Some persons may think that way," she compressed her lips, taking care to give the proper emphasis to persons. "There is no accounting for the benighted mind. Thanks be to God that every man, woman and child of intelligence knows otherwise."
Delivering herself of this, she calmly folded her hands and smiled at Jane with an expression of triumph. Brent took a fleeting glance toward the juleps.
But something now smote the Colonel's conscience. She looked so thin and frail! He remembered, too, the suspicious watering of Zack's bad eye, and what his good eye had seen in the "long room." In a gentle voice he said:
"My dear, I hear that the sisters are asking where good cherries may be had. It seems the convent would put up a certain cordial; and, if you are passing there, would you inquire how many bushels they wish, and say you will send them over with your compliments?"