In the midst of it arrived the incorrigible Pecielena Pancake with a new errand. Preston was chagrined. Had he inspired her with no real awe after all?
“Have you got an ambril?”
An umbrella was useless now, for she was thoroughly soaked and dripping with rain.
“I want to take it to the paster,” said she, “so’s to keep the milk dry!”
“Go a-way!” exclaimed the campers in concert; and at a signal from Preston they all clapped hands, and pursued the astonished little vagrant to the door. Everybody but Mary. Somehow, as she looked at the poor, wild creature, with the bright, restless, unhappy eyes, a feeling of pity moved her.
“Be ye kindly affectioned one toward another.” Did that mean tramps, too? She had been thinking of it all day. She was not sure. Of course, nobody wanted gipsy children coming around to bother, especially after they had been forbidden the house; and Preston was a very, very good boy, every body said so, and not likely to do anything cruel. Still, it could not be denied that Pecy Pancake was a human being, and that it was raining. On the whole, Mary thought she had done well not to help “clap her out.”