"What have I done that's so bad?" inquired Andy indignantly. "What is the charge against me?"
"That's so, Miss Lavinia," observed the constable with a laugh. "There's got to be a specific charge, as I told you."
"Charge!" sniffed Miss Lavinia scornfully. "I'll make a dozen of them.
He's a bad, disobedient boy—"
"When did I ever disobey you?" interrupted Andy, calmly keeping his temper.
"Oh, you! He's got himself expelled from school."
"That's no crime, 'cordin' to the statoots," declared the constable.
"I don't care!" cried the angry spinster. "My duty is to keep this boy from going to ruin. You do yours. I explained it all to the judge. He said that if I, as his guardian, swore Andy was an incorrigible, unmanageable boy, he would send him to the parental school at Byron till he was reformed."
Andy grew white to the lips. He fixed such a glance on his aunt that she quailed.
"Shame on you!" he burst forth. "You my guardian! What did you ever guard for me, except too little clothes and victuals? I'm never out of the house after dark. I never refuse to do your hardest work. I even scrub for you. Well, I won't any longer. I have made up my mind to go away."
"You hear that? you hear that?" cried Miss Lavinia. "He's going to run away from home!"