“Pah!” sneered Philo Marsh. “She’s nawthin’ of the kind. And her brother-in-law is all crippled up and can’t git out yere. Anyway, no two ways about it, we’re goin’ to beat ’em. You better come in with us, pronto. You don’t have to do nawthin’ but keep your mouth shut. We want the water, and we’re goin’ to have it—that’s all.”
Before Philo Marsh had spoken a dozen words Dorothy had a change of heart! The scoundrel’s coarse remark about Aunt Winnie was sufficient to hold the girl at her post and fix her attention, and her anger and interest both grew exceedingly as the talk between the two men continued.
Just what Philo Marsh meant—why he should speak as he did—what advantage he proposed to take of her father and Aunt Winnie—Dorothy did not know. But she proposed to stay right there until she heard all that they said upon the subject, hoping that such eavesdropping would repay her—and believing that it was excusable in such a cause.
CHAPTER XVIII
OPHELIA COMES VISITING
“Will you please tell me, Doro Doodlekins, just why everything in my trunk is mismates? I believe I have half a pair of everything I own in the world with me, and the other half is at home!”
Dorothy giggled, deep in the mysteries of her own toilette.
“If I wore spectacles,” pursued the complaining Tavia. “I’d have only half a pair with me. And half a pair of scissors would be my fate if I owned scissors. If I wore false teeth, I’d be able to find only the upper set.”
“You packed the trunk yourself,” mumbled Dorothy, with pins in her mouth.
“I never!” denied Tavia. “I was so excited over the prospect of coming West that I just threw the first things that came handy into my trunk. When it was overflowing I jumped on the lid to make it lock, and—there you are! At least, it looks as though I did just that when it comes to finding things.”