John Tucker looked uncomfortable.
"Mis' Flanagan has four children of her own," he said, "and ten grandchildren. She'd oughter let them carry her baskets."
"Yes, but they weren't there, and I was. Try to have a little sense, John! as for the children on Saturday mornings—Yes! I saw you look at us, you snobbish John; you were coming out of Adams's: you gave us a Gorgon glare, and I was ashamed of you! As for the children, they are my joy and delight. I wouldn't miss the Saturday morning drive for anything, John Tucker. The lambs! didn't you see how they were enjoying it?"
"I saw they was awful dirty! Took me 'most an hour to get the wagon clean, all the mud they tracked in."
"They had been playing in the mud. What should they be doing on Saturday morning? I don't suppose you noticed," she added demurely, "that one of the boys was named Tucker, did you, John?"
"I did," said John Tucker grimly. "I told him I'd lick him out of his boots, if ever he took such a liberty again."
"Are you sure it was Jimmy who took the liberty, John?"
Kitty spoke very quietly, but there was a ring of steel in her voice. "There!" said John Tucker, describing the scene to Sarepta that night. "If it wasn't her Pa, lookin' straight at me, and lettin' me have it between the eyes, call me a juggins!"
"I will!" said Sarepta. "It's what you are! The idea!"
Kitty's vexation passed like summer lightning before John Tucker's abject penitence.