"Do you think I'll let my mother carry on like that? Well, hardly!"
"Oh, so what I do isn't good enough for your mother!"
"I don't mean just that; but can't you see—Wait a minute—"
She slammed the gate on his outstretched fingers and he went home fondling his wound.
The next day he strolled by the parlor door at his own home, but Prue would not speak to him and his mother was too busy to invite him in. It amazed him to see how humble his haughty mother was before the hitherto neglected Prue.
Prue would have felt sorrier for him if she had not been so exalted over her earnings.
She had not let on at home about her class till she could lay the proof of her success on the supper-table. When she stacked up the entire two dollars that she had earned by only a few miles of trotting, it looked like the loot the mercenaries captured in that old Carthage which the new Carthage had never heard of.
The family was aghast. It was twice as much as Ollie had earned that day. Ollie's money "came reg'lar," of course, and would total up more in the long run.
But for Prue to earn anything was a miracle. And in Carthage two dollars is two dollars, at the very least.