“I’m not the girl you took me for.”
“Do you want to break off with me entirely?” he exclaimed, with heat.
“Yes—come to that—I do!” cried Beetrus, flinging his letters at him, two fluttering uncertain, but one moulded by the grip of her hand and darting like a missile. “I believed in you, and see how you’ve treated me!”
“My darling girl!”
“Don’t you come around in my sight any more. And go marry somebody that won’t cause any dropping. I can stand it.”
“I believe you can,” he sneered.
“Yes, indeed; I can stand it. So good-by to you.”
Saying which, Beetrus turned and scudded off, through Spanish needles and boggy spots, until his first half-uttered remonstrance had been for some time changed into language of another sort.
It seemed long before Beetrus found a log on which she could draw herself, face downward, with her arms stretched beyond her head.
The White Dove moved off from Wabash Landing two hours behind her appointed time. She was a dirty little boat, carrying a miscellaneous freight, but among the barrels on the after-deck some hard-favored and much-whittled chairs had been placed for Beetrus and her mother.