He found himself hoping that life might have much more sweetness in it for her than it had had for him. And he had named her Tabitha!
With wild rebellion in her heart and a keen sense of the injustice done her, Tabitha had rushed heedlessly up the hill and down through the pathless tangle of wet greasewood and sagebrush, splashing through mud and water with reckless abandon, and arriving home in a deplorably bespattered state, with feet wet and dress dripping. Aunt Maria saw her coming and met her at the door with an exclamation of horror: "Tabitha Catt! What do you think you are about? The very idea of running through puddles in that manner! Get off those wet shoes this minute and put your feet in the oven. If I just had some mullein leaves now to make compresses with! Look at your dress, and this is the second this week. Lucky this is Friday or you would have to wear a dirty gown to school tomorrow."
The door opened again and Mr. Catt came in just in time to hear the last words of the scolding. Laying the watermelon on the table, he turned to the child huddled in the corner close to the hot stove, and demanded, "How did you get so muddy?"
"Coming home from school."
"Say 'sir' when you address me. What were you doing to get so wet?"
"Running."
"What?"
"Running, sir."
"What were you running for?" He was trying to make her confess what had happened at the schoolhouse, but she had her own method of answering questions, and that was seldom very satisfactory to the questioner so far as the amount of information was concerned.
"For exercise," she snapped, forgetting her fear of him in her exasperation at these other unhappy events.