"Billy goat, Billy goat, where have you been?" a low, ominous voice interrupted; and the two tormentors came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the floor, paralyzed at the unexpected appearance of the black-haired girl.
"A-chewing the whiskers, that grow under my chin," the voice calmly finished, and seizing the pan of dirty water from which Gloriana had just rescued the last potato, Tabitha dashed its contents over the astonished duet. Then realizing that once more she had let go of her fiery temper, she fled from the house up the trail to a great boulder on the summit of the mountain, and threw herself face down in an abandon of shame, remorse and despair.
"Oh, dear, why can't I be good?" she sobbed. "Just when I think I can hold onto myself and be ladylike no matter how mad I get, something comes up to show me that I'm mistaken. I'm just as hateful as Billiard! Oh, dear! And I thought he was being so good, and all the while he was doing mean things behind my back. I make a miserable fizzle of everything I undertake. What would Mrs. McKittrick say if she could have seen me a few minutes ago? Now I've lost all the hold I had on the boys. They can't respect anyone who doesn't control her temper any better than I.
"How I wish I had never offered to take care of the tribe of McKittrick! No, that isn't so, either, for then the mother couldn't have gone inside with Mr. McKittrick, and perhaps the operation would have killed him. I'm glad he had his chance, bad boys or no bad boys! But oh, I am so thankful that Miss Davis will soon be home. I will never play housekeeper again, never! But now,—how can I make it right with Billiard and Toady? What a world this is to live in! Always stepping on someone's toes and then having to beg pardon. The trouble of it is I—I don't believe I am very sorry that I doused the boys. I am sorry I got so mad and did such a hateful thing, of course, but they deserved more than they got. And yet they aren't to blame, either, after the bringing up they have had. I suppose—it's up to me—to do the apologizing act—myself—this trip."
Drying her eyes and taking a firm grip on herself, she descended from her refuge and sought out the boys in their room.
"Come in," Billiard called gruffly in response to her knock, though inwardly he was quaking with fear lest it might be the sheriff or Uncle Hogan, whose authority he had never but once dared to defy. So he was visibly relieved when he saw Tabitha standing alone on the threshold, but waited uncertainly for her to state her errand.
She was as anxious as they to have the ordeal over with, and plunged into the middle of her carefully framed speech, saying briefly, "I came to ask your pardon for my rudeness of a few minutes ago. I forgot myself. It was wrong of me to speak and act as I did, no matter how great the provocation."
Her wandering gaze suddenly fell upon Billiard's face, just in time to see him wink wickedly at Toady, and her good resolutions abruptly took wing. "But you deserved every bit you got," she finished fiercely, "and the next time I'll souse you in the rain barrel!"
Slamming the door in their surprised faces, she marched majestically away to the kitchen, and furiously began beating up a cake, so chagrined over this new defeat of her plans that she could not keep the tears from her eyes.
Suddenly a meek voice at her elbow spoke hesitatingly, "Say, Tabitha, we've apologized to Gory Anne—Gloriana, I mean. Will you—excuse—me for what we said about you, too?"