“Bring it here. Etta will go without her pencil for a day. You, Theresa, will remain after school for interfering with the pencil and for interrupting the class.
“Next girl! Julia Bowen! Rise!”
So Tess was not at home when Mabel Creamer slapped Dot and broke the truce that had endured for a long time between the Creamer cottage and the old Corner House.
Of course, Dot told her all about it. Tess was the gentlest child imaginable, but that Dot should have been struck, stirred the older sister “all up.”
“The awful thing!” she gasped. “Why—why didn’t you call Ruthie—or Aggie?”
“Why—ee!” said Dot, slowly. “What good would that do, Tessie? They couldn’t put the slap back. My face would have ached just the same.”
“Never mind, dear,” crooned Tess. “I’ll give you my best pencil. I don’t much care for pencils any more, anyway.”
Ruth had been to the bank again at noon. She showed the old banknote to the cashier, Mr. Crouch being out. The cashier said the bill was perfectly good.
“And that settles it,” she said, wearily, to Agnes, on their way home from school. “If one bill is good the others must be.”
“Oh! I can’t believe it!” murmured Agnes. “Fifty thousand dollars in cash!”