“I’ve sometimes thought it was pretty mean for me to run off the way I did, Dolly. If it hadn’t been for Zara, I don’t believe I’d have done it.”
“It’s a good thing for Zara that you did. Poor Zara! They’d taken her father to jail, and she was going to have to stay with Farmer Weeks. She’d never have been able to get along without you, you know.”
“Well, that’s one thing that makes me feel that perhaps it was right for me to go, Dolly. That, and the way Miss Eleanor spoke of it. She seemed to think it was the right thing for me to do, and she knows better than I do, I’m sure.”
“Certainly she does. And look here, Bessie! It’s all coming out right, sometime, I know. I’m just sure of that! You’ll find out all about your father and mother, and you’ll see that there was some good reason for their not turning up before.”
“Oh, Dolly dear, I’m sure of that now! And it’s just that that makes me feel so bad, sometimes. If something dreadful hadn’t happened to them, they would have come for me long ago. At least they would have kept on sending the money for my board.”
“How do you know they didn’t, Bessie? Didn’t Maw Hoover get most of the letters on the farm?”
“Yes, she did, Dolly. Paw Hoover couldn’t read, so they all went to her, no matter to whom they were addressed.”
“Why, then,” said Dolly, triumphantly, “maybe your father and mother were writing and sending the money all the time!”
“But wouldn’t she have told me so, Dolly?”
“Suppose she just kept the money, and pretended she never got it at all, Bessie? I’ve heard of people doing even worse things than that when they wanted money. It’s possible, isn’t it, now? Come on, own up!”