“You don’t need to go and get mad! You told me to.”
“Yes, and I just now told you not to!”
“I guess you’d say King’s excuse every time if I’d let you. A lot of good it’s going to do, if you sneak out of it whenever you want to.”
“I don’t sneak out of it–this is the very first time, and you know it!”
“I don’t know any such thing, but I don’t think it’s very good manners to be telling your guests they’re saying something that isn’t so! The day before they’re going home, too!” Katy forgot the dignity of her fifteen years.
“Well, I think it’s quite as good manners as to tell your friends they’re sneaks!” Jane’s tone was icy.
Gertie came between the belligerents. “Please don’t quarrel, girls. It’d be dreadful the very last day, after we have had such a beautiful summer. I never did have such a good time in all my life. I most wish I could live on a ranch always.”
“I shouldn’t like to live on a ranch, but we have had a jolly time, Chicken Little,” Katy recovered herself enough to say graciously.
257Chicken Little was not to be outdone. “I suppose I was ugly, Katy. It always makes me cross to sew. I wish nobody had ever invented needles. O dear, I shall be as lonesome as pie when you are gone. It isn’t much fun being the only girl on the ranch, I tell you. Sometimes, I don’t even see another girl for weeks.”
“But your school begins soon, doesn’t it?”