As the last smock-clad farmer disappeared Dorothy dropped upon the floor and laughed.
“O Mrs. Bruce! Wasn’t that funny? Those great big men and I—a little girl! They mustn’t do it again. They shall not!”
“The best way to stop them is to do as you promised—step to the shore and see them there. Those potatoes were real nice. We might get some of them, but the chickens—it would take so many. Might get one for Mrs. Calvert’s breakfast—oatmeal will do for the rest of us.”
Dorothy sprang up and hurried with her friend off from the Lily. But she made a wry face at the mention of oatmeal-breakfasts and explained:
“Aunt Betty wouldn’t eat chicken if none of the others had it. And just oatmeal—I hate oatmeal! It hasn’t a bit of expression and I’m as hungry after it as before. Just do get enough of those ‘br’ilers’ for all. Please, Mrs. Bruce! There’s nobody in the world can broil a chicken as you do! I remember! I’ve eaten them at your house before I ever left Baltimore!”
Naturally, the matron was flattered. She wasn’t herself averse to fine, tasty poultry, and resolved to gratify the teasing girl that once. But she qualified her consent with the remark:
“It mustn’t be such luxury very often, child, if you’re to come out even with this trip and the money. My! What a great mule! What a curious man on it! Why does he sit sidewise and gloom at everybody, that way?”
Dorothy hadn’t yet spoken with Colonel Dillingham though the boys had given her a brief description of him and their attempted purchase. But she was unprepared to have him descend from his perch and approach her, saying:
“Your servant, Miss Calvert. You resemble your great-grandfather. He was a man. He—was a man! Ah! yes! he was a—man! I cayn’t be too thankful that you are you, and that it’s to a descendant of a true southern nobleman I now present—Billy. Billy, Miss Calvert. Miss Calvert, Billy!”
With a sigh that seemed to come from his very boots the gallant Colonel placed one of the mule’s reins in Dorothy’s astonished hand and bowed again; and as if fully appreciating the introduction old Billy bobbed his head up and down in the mournfulest manner and gravely brayed, while the observant bystanders burst into a loud guffaw.