"What's that, Luella? Who is talking out there? What's going on now behind my back?"
A petulant and gray-haired gentleman rushed out at them, very much like a wiry Scotch terrier, and glared fiercely at Caroline and Henry D. Thoreau.
"Nothin's goin' on behind your back that I know of, Mr. Wortley," Luella returned composedly. "This little girl comes up to see me every once 'n a while—I do washing for her mother at one of the cottages—and we were just talkin' back and forth, that's all."
"You fried that liver!" the gentleman burst forth abruptly, "you know you fried it, Luella! I might as well have eaten a shingle off the cottage—it's killing me! Ugh! As if I hadn't enough to bear without being murdered with fried liver!"
"I do' know what you've got to bear, Mr. Wortley," and Luella gathered her apron full of kindlings, "but you needn't add fried liver to it, 'cause it was broiled."
"Never!" exploded the fiery gentleman.
"I'd ought to know," said Luella firmly, "I had the grid-iron to wash."
"As for children," he veered off again, "you couldn't have poorer company. Think what they'll grow into—think!"
"Some don't turn out so bad," she reminded him, starting toward the house.
"Ah, but when are you going to decide that they have 'turned out'?" he demanded, trotting angrily beside her, "tell me that, will you? Perhaps you imagine that when they're of age, legally men and women, and you've managed to keep 'em out of the State Reform School up to then, you're justified in thinking they've 'turned out'? Hey?"