"I've cut, and I'll be eternally busted if I ever go back, so there! And I'm starved."
With the latter information Peggy could deal; the former was beyond her. She prepared a satisfying repast for her son; noting, as she hovered over him, the change that had come. He was no longer a child, therefore he was to be respected. An awe possessed Peggy. The awe of Man as she had ever known him. Her Billy was a man! Then she noticed how thin he was, and how his mouth drooped, and how black the circles were under his big eyes.
Had they been cruel to him in camp? They could be so cruel; but then, Billy was a favourite.
What had happened?
It was proof of Billy's spiritual and physical change that Peggy did not cuff him and demand an explanation.
CHAPTER XV
Billy ate long and uninterruptedly. Peggy supplied his demands before they were voiced, and Maggie, the small and unimpressed sister, eyed him from across the table with keen, unsympathetic stare. Occasionally she made known her opinions with a calm, sisterly detachment that roused no resentment in the new being who had hurled himself upon them.
"You eat like a real pig," Maggie remarked with a sniff. She was being trained for the bungalow fête, and she had suffered in the process.