Her list of woes was fast increasing, and the tears were very near the bubbling-over point, when she heard heavy steps on the stairs.
"Oh, my sakes! that's Dad. Wonder if he will lick me this time. I 'spect he will some day, and Tom says he licks awful hard. Wonder if he will use a whip like sneaky Sneed Pomeroy. Wisht I was as big as Tom; he don't get licked any more, he's too big. Dad told me to go to bed and I ain't undressed. Maybe it's just as well if he's going to lick me."
The steps had reached the upper floor now, and she cowered in a trembling heap in the middle of her bed waiting for the door to open and let her father enter. But they continued down the hall without so much as pausing before her door, and now as her heart began to beat normally again, she heard Aunt Maria's voice saying, "There's a dreadful clutter to move if we take everything. Some of those boxes we brought from Dover have never been opened though we've been here two years now. Doesn't seem as if we had to take all that truck with us wherever we go. There hasn't been a thing in the stuff that we've needed."
"Then don't take it," cut in the man's heavy voice. "Where is it?"
Cautiously creeping off the bed, Tabitha pressed her ear to the keyhole to catch the rest of this interesting conversation, but as she listened, her face paled and a rebellious look came into the expressive black eyes.
So they were going to move away! Where would they go this time? It seemed to her that moving was all they ever did. Not that she minded the moving part of it—that was fun—but—. Here the tears came in earnest. It was her dreadful name that she minded. It didn't make any difference where they went, everyone made fun of her name, and folks no sooner got used to seeing her odd little figure and hearing her still odder name than they moved to some other town, and the same thing had to be lived over. Oh, it was too bad!
All the hot afternoon father and aunt busied themselves in the adjoining rooms, tearing open boxes, sorting, re-packing, and bundling things around generally, until finally the noise became so great that only an occasional word of the conversation could be heard by the little listener at the keyhole. As the day waned, however, and the supper hour approached, both workers ceased their pounding and went downstairs, leaving Tabitha alone with her tearful reflections in the gathering dusk. Here Tom found her, still huddled in a heap beside the door.
"Oh, Tom," she greeted him, "I thought you would never come. What made you so late? Did you know Dad had come home again? Haven't you something in your pocket to eat? I'm hungry as a wolf."
"Hush!" he said, slipping inside the door and closing it softly behind him. "Dad would be awfully mad if he knew I was here. I just got home. Had an errand across the pond after the store was closed. Here's a biscuit and some cheese. Why aren't you in bed? Aunt Maria said Dad sent you there at noon." As he spoke, the boy lifted the little sister to her feet, brushed out her crumpled dress, smoothed back her tangled hair and slipped the biscuit saved from his own supper into her eager hands.
"I did go to bed," mumbled Tabitha, with her mouth full of bread.