She stopped right there, much to the disappointment of the eagerly listening Camp Fire Girls, who fully expected her to open an avenue to the very evidence for which they were looking.
“Why!” she continued, with a desperate effort to control her temper. “I never knew him to act that way before. He’s usually such a—such a—sweet dispositioned little dear. I don’t know what to make of it. He took me completely by surprise. I don’t understand it—I don’t know what to make of it—I can’t understand the little—the little—d-dear.”
“It is strange, very strange,” Miss Ladd agreed, purposing, for policy’s sake, to help the girl out of her predicament.
“Come to sister, Glennie dear,” Addie continued, after she had succeeded in rearranging her hair and restoring her hat to its normal position on her head. “Don’t you know sister loves you just lots? Why did you run away? Come back home and sister will give you some candy, just lots of it. Come on, now, that’s a good little boy.”
“I don’t want your candy and you ain’t my sister, and I won’t go back. You’ll beat me, and mom’ll beat me and everybody else’ll beat me. Don’t let her take me back, please don’t,” Glen concluded, turning his face pleadingly toward Miss Ladd.
“Oh, you must go back, Glen,” the Guardian replied, reproachfully. “That’s your home, don’t you know? Where in the world will you go if you don’t go back home? Think of it—no place in the world to go, no place in the world.”
There was a tone of awe in the young woman’s voice that impressed the boy. He cooled down considerably and looked meditatively at his monitor.
“They’ll beat me,” he protested earnestly. “They’ll tie me to a bed post and strap me.”
“Why, how perfectly terrible!” Addie exclaimed. “I never heard of such a thing. I can’t understand such remarks.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Katherine suggested reassuringly. “We’ll all go back to the house with you and fix everything up nice. They won’t beat you, I’m sure. Come on, Miss Graham, we’ll help you, if you don’t think we’re intruding.”