“Good!” cried Chap. “Just you tell mother that this garrison is greatly in need of pies, and one of those rolled-up blackberry puddings would make us hold out splendidly. Do you want me to go home with you?”
“No,” said Helen; “I’m going to take the straight path across the fields. Good-by!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
TOURON IN THE FIELD.
About ten o’clock the next morning a high, old-fashioned carriage, swung on straps like a stage-coach, and with a little seat near the roof for the driver, was being slowly drawn into Boontown. It had been originally intended for two horses, but on this day only one horse could be spared, and his driver, an elderly colored man, allowed him to jog along at a very easy gait. Inside the coach might be seen a very pretty but a very anxious face, and this belonged to Helen Webster.
The queer old vehicle was the Webster family carriage, and in it Helen was going to see Mr. Welford. She had talked to her mother about Phil’s troubles, and Mrs. Webster became so much interested in the subject, that if she had not had a great many things to attend to at home that she could not very well leave, she would have gone to town to see Mr. Welford herself.
It would have been of no use to speak to Mr. Webster about the matter, because he was a quiet and rather timorous man, who avoided all disputes and dissensions by never taking anybody’s part, and never quarrelling himself. Nothing annoyed him so much as being consulted in regard to trouble between neighbors, and so, in this case, he was not consulted.
After much talking, Mrs. Webster declared that she did not see why Helen could not go and talk to Mr. Welford, because she, her mother, could tell her exactly what she ought to say, and it would be the same thing as if she went there and said it herself.
Helen did not like this plan, for she was afraid of Mr. Welford, but she consented to go, for Phil must certainly be set right, and there seemed to be no one to do it but herself. So off she started this morning in the carriage, her mother having previously spent an hour in telling her exactly what she ought to say.
The nearer she came to town the slower she wished the horse would go. If Mr. Welford’s office had been five miles the other side of Boontown, she would have been very glad. She tried her best to put what her mother had told her in proper order in her mind, but, somehow, the various instructions became strangely jumbled up, the old coach jarred and jolted so much with only one person in it, that when she reached Mr. Welford’s office, she did not feel at all ready to lay her business before him.