"Yep. Marm said I'd better answer it in person. Word o' mouth ain't so ha'sh as a letter, ye know. And I ain't no writer myself."
Had he said this to Ruth, for instance, she would doubtless have been interested enough to have asked some questions, and so discovered what trouble Dot's busy tongue had started. Agnes, however, only listened perfunctorily to the farmer's speech. Her mind was too perplexed about the letter which had reached Mr. Marks purporting to come from Mr. Buckham, in which he had complained of the girls stealing his berries. Mr. Buckham spoke as though he had no knowledge of the information lodged with the principal of the high school.
Now Tess and Dot saw "the eagle man" and they came clamoring about him. Ruth came, too; and Neale followed. The boy had had no opportunity of talking to the farmer alone the day of the chestnutting party. Now he invited Mr. Buckham to go home with him to Mr. Con Murphy's for dinner, and the old farmer accepted.
"That pretty, leetle gal's mighty bothered about her and her friends playin' hob in my berry patch last May," Mr. Bob Buckham said, as he and Neale crossed the Parade Ground. "How'd that school teacher l'arn of it? Too bad! I reckon the gals didn't mean no harm."
"Why," cried Neale, flushing, and looking at the old man curiously. "Somebody told on them."
"Told the teacher, you mean?"
"Yes. Wrote a letter to Mr. Marks giving all their names."
"Sho! ain't that a shame?" said Mr. Buckham, calm as a summer sea.
"Pretty mean I think myself, sir," Neale said warmly. "It stirred Mr. Marks all up. He says he thinks you may intend making the girls pay for the berries they took."
"What's that?" demanded the farmer, stopping stock still on the walk.