“Well, what did he say to it?”
“I wish you’d seen him, uncle Ralph!” said Kip radiantly. “Not, as he said much either, only something ’bout he didn’t know how to thank you—”
“How to thank me?” repeated Mr. Mitchel in amazement. “Why should he? He isn’t so short of work as all that, is he?”
“Short of work, uncle Ralph!” It was Kip’s turn to open wide eyes of astonishment. “I should think not, with all his preachin’ and Sunday-school and poor folks! I don’t s’pose he thought he’d have time to sit in it much himself; but Mrs. Clay, she’s sick—”
“What have the Clays to do with it?” demanded Mr. Mitchel with clouding brow and a dawning suspicion of something wrong. “I told you to take it to Mr. Parsons—the cabinet-maker’s—to have that spring fixed.”
Kip saw it all then, but he wished the floor would quietly open and drop him into the cellar, or that he could fly through the roof. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and his face flushed and paled.
“I—thought—you said the parson’s,” he stammered. “I s’posed ’twas for the minister’s donation, and so—”
“You took it there?” Mr. Mitchel completed the sentence. “Now how in the world—”
But it was too much to be borne. Kip waited for nothing more, but rushed from the house, and if in the shadow of the friendly wood-pile he leaned his head against the rough sticks and cried, there was no one to see.
“They may fix it up any way they please,” he said. “I can’t do it! I can’t and I wont!”