“No,” said Mrs. Blodgett, “but I expected you to stay, only the Deacon forgot to say so, when he told Ben to bring you along to look over those nails.”
“If Mamsie didn’t say we were to stay, we can’t,” said little David, feeling the expected bliss dropping away from him at each step. Joel, cantering over the crooked stairs, hadn’t heard, and he was singing at the top of his joy, and telling everybody within hearing that they were going to stay to dinner at Mrs. Blodgett’s, as he raced into the house.
Deacon Blodgett, wiping his face on the crash towel that hung by the sink-room door, heard him as he came rushing in.
“So you be, Joel, so you be,” he cried, almost as much pleased. “Well, now, Joe, come and wash up.” He set the tin basin he had hung up on its nail, down again in the sink and pumped up some fresh water into it, as Mrs. Blodgett, with little Davie, came in.
“Where’s Ben, Pa?” asked Mrs. Blodgett. “He wasn’t in the barn.”
“I sent him up to the wood-lot,” said the Deacon; “he’ll be along at the right time. Dinner ready, Ma?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Blodgett hurried into the kitchen, where Betsey was making a terrible clatter dishing up the hot things. At the good smells, Joel plunged his face down to the tin basin, and splashed the water all over his hot cheeks and into his eyes, then put out a hand blindly for the crash towel on its nail. “Hurry up, Dave!” he cried.
“We ought not to stay,” said little Davie, huddling up to his side, the Deacon having followed Mrs. Blodgett into the kitchen.
“Mrs. Blodgett said we must,” said Joel, mopping away like everything. “Oh, what do you s’pose they’re going to have for dinner?” wrinkling up his short nose in an effort to distinguish between the delightful smells.
Little Davie tried not to smell at all, even burying his nose in one hand, while he held to Joel’s jacket with the other. “Mamsie won’t like it,” he said, when the door opened, and there was Ben, his ruddy face now quite red. “Oh, boys! I ought to have told you to go home before,” he cried, catching his breath, for he had run from the wood-lot every step of the way.