“An’ ’nen I saw the horse wiv a short tail come out, an’ I p’tended I was drivin’ an’ goin’ awful fast! But I couldn’t trot real fas’ because the m’lasses spilled. I had to stop an’ lick it off lots of times.”
“Why, Jimmy!” said the girl rebukingly.
“Wiv my fingers,” explained Jimmy mildly. “You know you have to do something when it comes out all bubbles ’round the edge; an’—an’ ’nen I——”
“You must have dropped the letter somewhere along the road,” interrupted his sister.
“Uh-huh! I guess I did,” assented the culprit. “But I didn’t mean to, Barb’ra. Truly I didn’t.”
His lip quivered as he looked up at her stormy face.
The girl controlled herself with an effort.
“Of course you didn’t mean to, darling,” she said, kissing the rosy mouth, which had begun to droop dolefully at the corners. “Perhaps it was just an advertisement, anyway, and not worth bothering over. I’ll walk along with you and see if we can find it.”
But the letter, snugly hidden under a clump of unfolding fern, gave no token of its presence as the two walked slowly past it, their eyes searching the road and the tangled growths on either side.
Barbara walked swiftly to the post-office, after she had left Jimmy at the schoolhouse. It had occurred to her that someone might have returned the missing letter to the office.