He was so angry that he did not laugh when he heard his mother answer back, in those conclusive tones of hers that were wont to silence all argument: “It ain't anything. Don't be scared. I'm coming right back.” Mrs. Merriam scorned subterfuges. She took always a silent stand in a difficulty, and let people infer what they would. When Mary Ann Pease inquired if it was the cat that had made the noise, she asked if her mother had finished her blue and white counterpane.
The two girls waited a half-hour longer, then they went home. “What do you s'pose made that noise out in the kitchen?” asked Arabella Mann of Mary Ann Pease, the minute they were out-of-doors.
“I don't know,” replied Mary Ann Pease. She was a broad-backed young girl, and looked like a matron as she hurried along in the dusk.
“Well, I know what I think it was,” said Arabella Mann, moving ahead with sharp jerks of her little dark body.
“What?”
“It was him.”
“You don't mean—”
“I think it was Thomas Merriam, and he was tryin' to get up the back stairs unbeknownst to anybody, and he run into something.”
“What for?”
“Because he didn't want to see us.”