“Won’t you come in, Purt?” called Laura, as this youth reached the gate.
Prettyman Sweet hesitated just a moment. Indeed, his hand was really on the gate before he saw the two boys—his classmates—sitting beside the girls on the porch.
“Oh-oo, no! I am afraid I can’t this evening, Miss Laura,” he said, in a high, “lady-like” voice. “Thank you so much! Good-evening,” and he hurried away.
“See how he walks?” chuckled Darby.
“You needn’t have asked him in to sit down, Laura,” said her brother. “He can’t sit down.”
“Takes his meals off the mantelpiece, I understand,” pursued Lance.
“Hasn’t been to school this week. His mother sent a note to Dimple. Pretty is all broken up.”
“Do tell us all about it, boys!” urged Jess, laughing, too, now. “I heard that he had some unfortunate accident up at the railroad fill Saturday. What was it—really?”
The two boys exploded with laughter again, but finally Chet said:
“Some of us fellows were up there at the fill watching that big ‘sand-hog’ at work—the new steam shovel, you know; and Pretty Sweet was along. However he came to walk clear over there in those toothpick shoes of his, I don’t know. But he was there.