Easter looked down at her extremely short and faded navy-blue skirt, at her long legs stuck out in front of her, at her muddy boots, at the large hole in the knee of her stocking. Save for the said skirt she was dressed almost exactly like Chris, in muffin cap, reefer and brass buttons.
“Sometimes I do,” she maintained; “but anyway, Irene, Semolina, and Rosalind, and Majorca, and Minorca, and Vinolia, and Larola, and Salonica will all have lovely frocks, silk ninon, with sashes. Chris, they’ll be perfectly sweet, and we’ll make them walk two and two in front of us to church.”
“I tell you,” Chris declared, unmoved by this entrancing vision, “that I don’t want so many daughters. I don’t like them, I don’t want ’em and I won’t have ’em.”
“Then,” Easter ejaculated in breathless tones that should have warned him, “I shan’t marry you.”
“I don’t care,” the callous Chris announced. “The country wants men. I heard my daddy say so the last time he was home. There’s far too many women as it is. They can’t fight.”
“Can’t they?” the indignant Easter exclaimed ironically, and giving Chris a vigorous and wholly unexpected push, rolled him down the steep bank and into the ditch with a mighty splash; and then, adding insult to injury, she dug her heels into the wet grass, and taking off with skill and surety, jumped over his prostrate body on to the road, whereupon she ran away, laughing derisively.
Chris got most uncommonly wet, for the bottom of the ditch was slimy and soft. Even after he had struggled to his feet they slipped about and sank in far over the tops of his boots. And when he did manage to scramble up the bank to the road, he certainly looked a deplorable object, covered with mud and green slime and with water oozing from every bit of him. He stamped his feet and rubbed them on the wet grass that bordered the road without much visible betterment.
There was no going back through the village in such a plight, so he climbed the first five-barred gate he saw and started on a long cross-country journey that was to bring him home by unfrequented ways. He found the unfrequented ways, for he didn’t meet a soul, but he lost his bearings altogether. The wind got up and there followed cold, gusty showers of rain and hail. He felt chilled and miserable and dreadfully tired. Field after field he traversed and yet found no familiar landmarks, till, having toiled uphill over a heavy ploughed field, he reached a road that stood fairly high, and below him on the far horizon he recognized the square tower of his own church. He plodded on and on till at last he trotted wearily up his own drive, and there he saw that not only Miss Radley but the three maids were all gathered on the steps of the front door. The moment Miss Radley saw him she ran toward him, exclaiming:
“Oh, Chris! Where have you been? We were getting so anxious. Do you know it’s half-past five? My dear boy, how wet you are! Come in and get changed at once.”
The maids went back into the house when they saw Chris, and Miss Radley hurried him in and upstairs, not even waiting to make him wipe his feet.