“I know the way too,” declared Barby sturdily; and deserting the spatting of her mud-pie which she had been engaged in without the aid of a trowel, she stood straight, and thoughtfully rubbed her fingers on her brown linen pinafore.
“Huh—you’re too little to know the way,” laughed Elyot; “but then I’m here, I can take you down,” he added patronizingly.
“I don’t want to be tooken; I’m going myself,” said Barby decidedly; “this very one minute I’m going;” and she trudged off in the direction of the high road, not once looking back.
Elyot ran after her in alarm, and twitched her pinafore, “That isn’t the way; we’ve got to go down through the lane.”
“I’m going to see my own Mr. Beebe, and my very own Mrs. Beebe, all alone by myself,” declared Barby, keeping on. And presently, coming to a descent in the ground, she dropped flat, and rolled over and over, her usual method of going down hill; at the bottom picking herself up to resume her journey.
“I’ll scream right out, and then they’ll come after us, and we won’t either of us get there,” said Elyot, taking long steps down the bank after her.
Barby stopped at this, and waited for him to come up. “You may come too,” she said; and she put out her fat little hand to him.
Elyot took it contentedly. “You see, Barby,” he said, “you couldn’t get along without me. We must keep out of the road at first, because it would worry folks to see us going alone. But I know the way perfectly; and then how glad dear Mr. Beebe and dear Mrs. Beebe will be when they see us coming in.”
“Oh, so glad!” hummed Barby; “I guess they’ll be very glad, Elyot. And I shall just kiss dear Mr. Beebe, and say, ‘How do you do, dear Mr. Beebe, pretty well I thank you mostly.’”
“No, Barby, you don’t say the things together like that,” corrected Elyot; “that isn’t right.”