“Well, how does it go?” he asked, kneeling down to assist in the labor.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said, in a voice that sounded less indifferent than the words. “Poor folks have to work, I s’pose; but Saturday ought to be a holiday—oughtn’t it, Will?”
“Sure enough. Where do you want to go?”
“Mabel Allen’s got a new set of dishes for her birthday, and she said if I’d come over we’d have tea. And Annabel Williams told me to stop in and see Gladys’s doll’s new clothes.”
Will’s face hardened, and his whistle died away. He plucked at the weeds savagely for a time, and then said:
“Look here, Flo; you run on and have tea with Mabel. I’ll ’tend to the weedin’. But I wouldn’t go to the big house, if I were you.”
“Why not?” asked Flo, in surprise.
Will thought a minute—just long enough to restrain the angry words that rose to his lips. Then he said:
“We’re poor, Flo, and the Williams family is rich, and they give themselves airs. I don’t know as I blame ’em any for that; but the Cardens are as good as the Williamses, even if we haven’t money, and I don’t like to have them patronize us, that’s all.”
The girl looked puzzled.