She faced the child, her eyes clouded with despair and anger.
“No, I can’t read it!” she cried. “Oh! if you had only brought it to me!”
She turned swiftly and hurried toward the house, leaving the child lagging forlornly in the rear, his blue eyes brimmed with tears.
Peg Morrison, digging a patch of garden in the rear of the house, his battered straw hat drawn low over his eyes, his teeth firmly closed on a twig of apple-tree wood, became presently aware of a small dejected figure lurking in the shadow of the blossoming tree.
“Hello, Cap’n!” he called out cheerfully, relinquishing the twig in favor of a spent dandelion stalk. “Did ye find Barb’ry—heh? An’ did ye give her the letter?”
“I gave it to her; but she—can’t read it. An’—’n’ I’m ’fraid it was ’portant. She’s mad wiv me, Barb’ra is; ’n’ I haven’t had any dinner, either.”
The child manfully swallowed the sob that rose in his throat. Then he selected a tall dandelion with a plumy top which he put in his mouth in imitation of Peg, who watched him with a dubious smile.
“Wall, now, that’s too bad, Cap’n,” sympathized the old man. “But ef Barb’ry can’t read the letter it mus’ be ’cause ’tain’t best she should. Things don’t happen b’ chance, Cap’n. You want t’ remember that. There’s Somebody a-lookin’ out fer things as don’t make no mistakes.”
Jimmy pondered this dark saying while the dandelion stem slowly uncurled itself into a dangling spiral.