“I am not going to be forced to make friends with any one,” she said, in a most forbidding voice.
She gave the school-door a terrific bang as she spoke, and darted off homeward.
But in that last rough action the final trace of the ill-will she bore Nelly disappeared forever.
The next morning, as the family were sitting at breakfast, there came a knock at the door. Comfort, hastily setting her dress to rights, went to answer it. There stood Melinda, her school-books in one hand, and in the other, two of the biggest and roundest and reddest apples she had been able to find in all her father’s bins.
“Give them to Nelly, if you please,” she said.
“And I declar’,” added Comfort, when she came in and told the family, “the minit she spoke that ar’ she ran off frightened like, and in a mos’ drefful hurry.”
From that day Melinda and Nelly were friends.
[CHAPTER V.]
CHICKENS AND “POETRY.”
Spring came again, and deepened slowly towards the summer. Leaves budded on the trees, herbs sprouted from the warm earth, and birds sang in all the hedges.