“Abner wants you to come right straight home!” was the form in which my message delivered itself when I had come close up to them.
They both shifted their gaze from the sluggish stream below to me upon the instant. Then Esther Hagadorn looked away, but Jeff—good, big, honest Jeff, who had been like a fond elder brother to me since I could remember—knitted his brows and regarded me with something like a scowl.
“Did pa send you to say that?” he demanded, holding my eye with a glance of such stern inquiry that I could only nod my head in confusion.
“An' he knew that you'd find me here, did he?”
“He said either at the school-house or around here somewhere,” I admitted, weakly.
“An' there ain't nothin' the matter at the farm? He don't want me for nothin' special?” pursued Jeff, still looking me through and through.
“He didn't say,” I made hesitating answer, but for the life of me, I could not keep from throwing a tell-tale look in the direction of his companion in the blue gingham dress.
A wink could not have told Jeff more. He gave a little bitter laugh, and stared above my head at the willow-plumes for a minute's meditation. Then he tossed his fish-pole over to me and laughed again.
“Keep that for yourself, if you want it,” he said, in a voice not quite his own, but robustly enough. “I sha'n't need it any more. Tell pa I ain't a-comin'!”