“You better shy around pa, Sis; and get t’ th’ house,” he cautioned.
“All right. He told me to harness Patsie, but she’s so lame I know she can’t work—what will I do?”
“If she can’t work, she can’t. How did it happen?”
“She strained herself just before I got to Mr. Chamberlain’s. I was passing a young man by the name of Hunter and she fell flat. Say, do you know anything about Mr. Hunter?”
“Yes, yes. Jimmie Crane says he’s a stuck-up, who’s goin’ t’ show us country jakes how t’ farm; but th’ best thing you can do is t’ get in an’ not let pa get any excuse for a row.”
Mr. Farnshaw had taken the milkpails to the house while they were talking and it was Elizabeth’s fate to encounter him on the doorstep as she ran up to the kitchen door.
“Where were you last night?”
“I’m awfully sorry about the horse, pa. I hurried this morning, but Patsie was so lame and I had to come all the way from the Chamberlain district. The Haddon school board didn’t meet this week and the director of number Twelve was away, and it was so late last night that I couldn’t get home.”
“Oh, you’ve always got a good excuse. I bet you didn’t get a school after all.”
Elizabeth had been edging toward the door as her father was speaking and now made her escape to the inside of the house as she replied over her shoulder in a perfectly respectful tone: