“But you guessed it long before that—when we were out at the slough?”
“I’d a notion.”
The girl glanced round. Ma’s face was still in a condition of florid perplexity. Rube was quietly whittling a match with his tobacco knife. Rosebud’s eyes were very soft as she looked from one to the other.
“And I’m to go away from—here?” she said at last, and her lips were trembling.
“Guess when a ’stray’ comes along we mostly git it back home.”
Seth found a lot to interest him in the blank wall of the barn outside the window. 183
“But it seems I’m a stray without a home. My father and mother must be dead.”
“Ther’s aunts an’ things—an’ the dollars.”
The girl also surveyed the wall of the barn.
“Yes, I forgot the—dollars.”