“That maybe,” Hazel admitted with much dignity, “but, Job Starlight, I never collared anybody, if you please.”
“Don't be touchy, Hazel. You know what I mean.”
All this while the children had stood in a little circle right in the middle of the road, and more than one passer-by had looked on with an amused smile, wondering what was the cause of so much evident excitement. The Marberrys had noticed this, and now that matters were cooling down a trifle, suggested that they should walk on, so as not to attract so much attention. So they walked on, but of course they talked on too, and although Hazel was fast relenting toward Flutters, she was not quite ready to cease hostilities. One or two matters still required explanation. “Look here, Flutters,” she said, “if you thought it was more respectful not to say anything, why didn't you keep quiet; and there's another thing I should like to have you tell me, and that is, how did you know it was the eighteenth?”
“Miss Hazel, when I saw you did not know what Sunday it was, I thought that as I happened to know, I ought to tell you.”
“Oh, that was it; but, Flutters, people don't just happen to know things. They generally know how they came to know them.”
Flutters looked troubled, and the Marberrys and Starlight felt very sorry for him, and wished Hazel would stop. But Hazel wouldn't. That's one of the troubles with strong and independent natures, no matter whether they belong to big or little people. They feel everything so deeply, and get so wrought up, that on they go in their impetuosity hurting people's feelings sometimes, and doing lots of mischief. To be strong and independent and to know where “to stop,” that is fine; but Hazel had not yet learned that happy combination. But Hazel's heart was all right; she wanted above everything else in the world to grow some day to be a truly noble woman, and there is not much need for worry when any little body really hopes and intends to be that sort of a big body. But you need not think that while I have been saying this little word behind Hazel's back (which, by the way, is not meant at all unkindly), that you have been missing any conversation on the part of our little church-goers. There hasn't been any conversation for ever so many seconds. Hazel is waiting for Flutters to speak, and Flutters is getting ready. At last he attacks the subject in hand, in short, quick little sentences, as if it was not easy to say what must be said.
“Miss Hazel, when I was at home I used often to go to church. I had a little Prayer-Book of my own. Somebody gave it to me; somebody that I loved. When I was in the circus I kept my Prayer-Book with me. Every Sunday I read it, from love of the somebody. Once in a great while when we would put up near a church I used to get leave to go to it. I went the very Sunday before I left the circus. I went to that very church where we have been to-day. I sat in the back seat, and I heard their father preach (indicating Milly and Tilly). It was a lovely sermon 'bout bearing things. That was five weeks ago, and that was the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, so I calculated up to to-day, and, Miss Hazel, when I ran away from the circus and dared not go back there were only two things I minded about—the Prayer-Book and old Bobbin. To run away from a dear little book that you loved, that's been a real comfort to you, when you hadn't scarce anybody to turn to—why, it seems just like running away from a dear old friend.”