As they crossed the street, Merle—at his brother's elbow—somewhat jauntily whistled, with fair accuracy, not the "Marseillaise," but an innocent popular ballad. Nor did he step aside for a torn strip of red cloth lying in their way.
CHAPTER XXI
The next morning Wilbur found the Penniman household in turmoil. The spirit of an outraged Judge Penniman pervaded it darkly, and his wife wept as she flurried noisily about the kitchen. Neither of them would regard him until he enforced their notice. The judge, indignantly fanning himself in the wicker porch chair, put him off with vague black mutters about Winona. The girl had gone from bad to worse. But his skirts were clean. The mother was the one to blame. He'd talked all he could.
Then Wilbur, in the disordered kitchen, put himself squarely in the way of the teary mother. He commanded details. The distraught woman, hair tumbling from beneath a cap set rakishly to one side, vigorously stirred yellow dough in an earthen mixing dish.
"Stop this nonsense!" he gruffly ordered.
Mrs. Penniman abandoned the long spoon and made a pitiful effort to dry her eyes with an insufficient apron.
"Winona!" she sobbed. "Telegram—coming home tomorrow—nothing cooked up—trying to make chocolate cake—"
"Why take it so hard? You knew the blow had to fall some time."