“It’s no sech a thing! An’ I’ll tell Luke Tewksbury so to his old face!” retorted Fritz, indignantly, and forgetting to cry. “He’s a mean boy. He hitched my mare up to the harvest-wagon and said she had got to draw a—’bout twenty tons of stuff. He did, so.”
Christina did not dispute the assertion, and the picture of the tiny pony hitched before a lumber wagon was one that elicited her keenest sympathy.
“Well, never mind, dear; he didn’t really do it, and you can ask Aunt Ruth to make Luke stop teasing you. I am glad she has come home, though it did seem so sort of upsetting at first. She’ll straighten out all the crooked things, I fancy, she’s a ‘powerful hand to manage,’ Rosetta says.”
Don’s bray coming to his ears at that moment diverted the thoughts of Fritz from anything unpleasant, and he rushed out of doors to try a bare-back ride. This was a feat he had never yet accomplished, but which he daily attempted with an enthusiasm and courage worthy of a better cause. “Fritzy, he never gins up licked,” was Abraham’s as daily comment; and this was uttered in an indescribable tone, which seemed to put the child to a greater determination than ever.
“Take care, Fritzy,” called Christina; “don’t go and hurt yourself just as Aunt Ruth has come home”; which suggested that it would not be so much of a matter if he did so at other times.
Paula and Content slipped arms about each other’s waists and wandered off between the box-bordered flower-beds in the old garden. Of late, they had found many things in common, of likes and dislikes; and it had grown to be “the girls,” whenever they were spoken of in the household. Slowly ripening friendships are safest; and that of the elder cousins had grown gradually enough; but now it promised to equal that of names famous in history.
“What can I have done to vex Aunt Ruth!” cried Paula, wistfully. “I never thought so much about doing just right in my life as I have done since grandmother went away; but the harder I try the worse things appear to go.”
“You have done right, dear Paula; and Aunt Ruth will be the first to see she was mistaken in laying any blame to you. She is so honest she will tell you so, or else I am very much mistaken. But what in the world Octave ever went away like that for, and why she went, is just as much a puzzle to me as ever. Aunt Ruth will get the truth out of her, though, if it is possible.”
“What do you mean? Octave would not tell a lie to save herself any amount of blame.”
“Of course, I know that; but what the ‘Mystery’ is, and why there should be any ‘Mystery,’ is more than I see. Aunt Ruth will find out what it is.”