"I suppose I was silly to act so mad," she said to herself. "I know it plagued mother."
It was early in the spring; the trees were turning green in the rain. Over in the field she could see one peach-tree in blossom, showing pink through the mist. "I suppose Mr. Wiggins couldn't work out to-day, and that's how they happened to come. They could have the horse. But they ought to have come earlier," reflected Ruth. "There are a good many of 'em for Mrs. Wiggins to get ready," mused Ruth. "There's old Mrs. Wiggins and Johnny and Sammy and Mary and Mr. Wiggins."
By the time Ruth was seated at her table in the school-room, and the scholars were wriggling and twisting before her on their wooden benches, she saw the matter quite plainly from the Wiggins side. She made up her mind that she would behave just as well as she knew how to the Wigginses when she got home. She planned how she would swing little Mary out in the barn and play with the boys, and how she would help her mother get tea.
When school was done and Ruth started for home the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. The rain-pools in the road glittered, and she noticed a cherry-tree in blossom. When she reached home Serena met her at the door.
"Oh, Ruth Whitman!" she cried, "we have had such a time!"
Ruth stared. "What do you mean?" said she. "Where are the Wigginses?"
"They've gone. Mrs. Wiggins and old Mrs. Wiggins were dreadful mad. Oh, Ruth, you didn't do it on purpose, did you?"
"Do what on purpose?" said Ruth, pushing into the house, and looking around the empty kitchen in a bewildered way. "I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you know what you put into that parsnip stew?"
"No; I don't know of anything I put in but some salt, just before I went to school; mother told me to. Why?"