"Well, something is the matter with Pick," confessed Ben unwillingly, "and I don't want to ask him."
"Something the matter with Pickering?" repeated Polly in dismay. "O,
Ben, is he sick?"
"No," said Ben bluntly, "but he's cross."
"O, Ben, then something very bad must have happened," said Polly, "for
Pickering is almost never cross."
"Well, I don't know what to make of him," said Ben; "he's been queer for a week now, more or less, and to-day he wouldn't speak to me; just shot off telling me to let him alone;" and Ben rapidly laid before Polly the little scene of the morning in the store.
"Now, Ben," said Polly, when it was all over, "I know really that something dreadful is the matter with Pickering, and I shall send him a note to come here to-night. He must tell us what it is. I'm going to write it now." And Polly sped off to her room, followed by Phronsie.
Ben went slowly down the hall to get ready for dinner. "I don't know how it is," he said, "but everything seems to be getting mixed up in this house, and all our good, quiet times gone. And now what can Charlotte have heard to make her want to go home?"
And all the time during dinner, Ben kept up a steady thinking, until
Polly, looking across the table, caught his eye.
"Don't worry," her smile said, "I've sent a note to Pickering, and we'll find out what the trouble is."
Ben sat straight in his chair, and nodded back at her. "I can't tell her now that Pick is not what I'm stewing over," he said to himself, "and I can't tell her any time, either, for Charlotte has heard something that makes her think Polly is bothered by her being here. I must just fuss at it myself till I straighten it out."