"There isn't any need of that, Aunt Nancy"; and Jack began to look distressed. "Please put it out of your thoughts for a while, an' we'll go down on the beach."
"I can't, my child. You shall stroll around an hour, after which you must come back to the tent for dinner."
Jack hardly thought he ought to leave the little woman while she was feeling badly, but she insisted on his doing so, and he walked slowly away saying to himself,—
"I never knew religion hurt anybody; but I think Aunt Nancy has too much of it if she's goin' to fuss so over Farmer Pratt. It won't do to let her feel as she does, an' the whole amount of the story is I'll have to leave Louis here while I take the chances of gettin' into the poorhouse by explainin' things to him."
So deeply engrossed was he in his thoughts that no attention was paid to anything around until he was brought to a standstill by hearing a disagreeably familiar voice cry,—
"Hold on, Hunchie, we want to know where you left the old maid!"
Jack had halted involuntarily, and now would have moved on again in the hope of escaping from Master Dean and his friends, but they barred his way by closing in upon him.
There was a large crowd on the grounds surging to and fro, therefore the three boys had little difficulty in forcing Jack to move in this direction or that as they chose, by pretending the press was so great they could not prevent themselves from being pushed against him.
"We're goin' down for a swim," Bill Dean said as he linked his arm in the hunchback's, "an' it'll just about break our hearts if you can't come with us."
