"Well, this is only Friday noon and the performance doesn't come off till to-night. Who knows what may turn up before then?"
This might have had the intended effect were it not for that curl which in some way affected Lafe's nerves. It now gave a careless bob that exasperated him.
"'Something may turn up;'" he muttered, "an earthquake or Mat's motor-car, perhaps!"
He went away in disgust and Ivy turned to Laura with a sigh:
"Now, what did I say to make him flare up that way?"
"He thought you didn't care—"
"Well, I don't—I don't! Laura, if I were to go sympathizing with six brothers—and boys are always clamoring for attention—I'd end in a mad house!"
Laura could hardly repress a smile at the thought of Ivy's six sturdy brothers depending on her in their troubles, knowing as she did that stone bruises, torn garments and other calamities incident to boyhood were always carried to their mother, while, as Laura often said, Hugh made himself a regular oak-tree for Ivy to twine around.
No further remarks were made on the subject, however, and the two girls started side by side on their way to a shady spot near home, to spend a few hours of the hot afternoon.
The wind caught them rather sharply at a street corner and Ivy's endeavors to balance her crutches while holding her hat in place renewed her irritation.