“Couldn’t think of letting you get drowned, you know,” remarked Mr. Robbins with ponderous humor. “A girl who can speechify the way you can, might get to be president some day, if the women’s rights folks should win out. I don’t say,” concluded Mr. Robbins, with the air of making a great concession, “that I mightn’t vote for you myself.”
Mr. Smart, too, dropped in to secure additional information for the write-up, which he informed Peggy would appear in the next issue of the Weekly Arena. “Though but a country editor,” said Mr. Smart feelingly, “I believe that the Press ought to be reliable, and I’m doing my part to make it so. No yellow journalism in the Arena.” And he showed a little natural disappointment on discovering that even this assurance did not reconcile Peggy to the prospect of figuring as a newspaper heroine.
One of the surprises of the day was Mrs. Snooks’ appearance. Never since her education had been taken in hand by the occupants of Dolittle Cottage, had she darkened its doors. But now she came smiling, and with an evident determination to regard bygones as bygones. For when she had expatiated at some length on the effect of Elisha’s harrowing news upon her nerves, and had repeated in great detail what she had said to Mr. Snooks, and what Mr. Snooks had said to her, she gave a crowning proof of magnanimity.
“Now, I’ve got to be getting back home. Mr. Snooks is a wonderful good-natured man, but he likes his victuals on time, same as most men-folks. I wonder if you could lend me a loaf of bread? I was just that worked up this morning that I didn’t get ’round to set sponge.”
The bread-box was well filled, thanks to Mrs. Cole, and Peggy insisted on accompanying Mrs. Snooks to the kitchen and picking out the largest loaf. She also suggested that Mrs. Snooks should take home a sample of the new breakfast food they all liked so much. As they parted on the doorstep Peggy was sure that the last shadow of their misunderstanding had lifted, for Mrs. Snooks turned to say, “I got a new cooky cutter from the tin peddler the other day–real pretty. And any time you’d like to use it, you’re perfectly welcome.”
Even then the surprises of the eventful day were not over. For late in the afternoon, when the kindly strangers occupying the porch chairs were just announcing that they guessed they’d have to move on, two figures came up the walk at a swinging pace. Ruth who was a little in the background was the first to notice them, and she was on her feet in a moment, with a glad cry. There was a general movement in the direction of the new arrivals, but Ruth was the first to reach them.
“Oh, Graham! Oh, Graham! You don’t know–”
“Yes, I’ve heard all about it,” Graham said in a voice not quite natural. The two boys on their way back to the city had stopped for dinner at the farmhouse where Peggy had taken breakfast, and had been favored with all the details of what Jack called the “near tragedy,” though his effort at facetiousness was far from expressing his real feelings.
It was distinctly disappointing to the girls to find that their visitors planned to continue their trip next morning. “My vacation’s up Saturday,” explained Jack Rynson. “And Graham thinks he’s loafed as long as he should.”
“And Elaine is going to-morrow,” sighed Peggy. “I almost wish–” She checked herself abruptly.