“Joseph Stagg! I know you for what you are—other people don’t. If the neighbours heard you say that, they’d think you were a heathen. Your own sister’s child!
“Now, you send Tim, the hackman, up after me this afternoon. I’ve got to go shopping. The child hasn’t a thing to wear but that fancy little black frock, and she’ll ruin that playing around. She’s got to have frocks, and shoes, and another hat—all sorts of things. Seems a shame to dress a child like her in black—it’s punishment. Makes her affliction double, I do say.”
“Well, I suppose we’ve got to flatter Custom, or Custom will weep,” growled Mr. Stagg. “But where the money’s coming from——”
“Didn’t Car’lyn’s pa leave her none?” asked Aunty Rose promptly.
“Well—not what you’d call a fortune,” admitted Mr. Stagg slowly.
“Thanks be, you’ve got plenty, then. And if you haven’t, I have,” said the woman in a tone that quite closed the question of finances.
“Which shows me just where I get off at,” muttered Joseph Stagg as he started down the walk for the store. “I knew that young one would be a nuisance.”
CHAPTER VI—MR. JEDIDIAH PARLOW
Carolyn May, who was quite used to taking a nap on the days that she did not go to school, woke up, as bright as a newly minted dollar, very soon after her Uncle Joe left for the store.
“I’m awfully sorry I missed him,” she confided to Aunty Rose when she danced into the kitchen. “You see, I want to get acquainted with Uncle Joe just as fast as possible. And he’s at home so little, I guess that it’s going to be hard to do it.”