“They did not either,” defended another. “Some one took sick or somthin’.”
But Barbara had to be sure. She could not believe that those people were gone, without letting her know. But why should they have let her know?
She stumbled on farther, the children tagging along at her heels, saying all sorts of foolish things about Nicky’s family.
But she paid little attention to them, although her ears at least heard every word they said.
“Yep, they didn’t pay the milk-man either,” one saucy little fellow gaily announced. “An’ the old man’s in jail so they can’t do nawthin’ to him——”
“Shut up, you Tony, your folks ain’t such a much. Whata you knockin’ about?”
“Oh, run along about your business,” ordered Barbara sharply turning unexpectedly around and facing them. “You don’t have to come with me. I didn’t ask you to.”
“Beat it, fellers,” the big boy took up the cause. “She don’t want you. I’ll show her the house.”
“Maybe you think she wants you, Smarty Leganto,” came back a challenge for the chivalrous one. “She knows the place, don’t she? But they ain’t anybody in it. They’s moved, we told you.”
It was no use. She couldn’t get rid of them. So she hurried along and was now in front of that place likely called a house, by the man who owned it, but was merely a shack to all other eyes.