“Get out, Aggie.”
Aggie crawled out, still holding the rug around where she had sat down in the creek.
“Now,” Tish said, addressing the stranger, “you back that car out and get it to the road. And close your mouth. Something is likely to fly into it.”
“I beg of you!” said the young man. “Of course I’ll do what I can, but—please don’t wave that gun around.”
“Just a moment,” said Tish. “That blackberry cordial was worth about a dollar. Just give a dollar to the lady near you. Aggie, take that dollar. Lizzie, come here and let me rest this gun on your shoulder.”
She did, keeping it pointed at the young man, and I could hear her behind me, breathing in short gasps of fury. Nothing could so have enraged Tish as the thing which had happened, and for a time I feared that she would actually do the young man some serious harm.
He sat there looking at us, and he saw, of course, that he had been mistaken. He grew very red, and said:
“I’ve been an idiot, of course. If you will allow me to apologize——”
“Don’t talk,” Tish snapped. “You have all you can do without any conversation. Did you ever drive a car before?”
“Not through a haystack,” he said in a sulky voice.