After the storm had cleared, he found himself, somewhat dishevelled, aboard the Robert O, entrusted to Captain Marsh, provided with three bread-and-butter sandwiches, and promised a hair-brush spanking for the morrow.
Mrs. Orde was not only mortified, but shocked to the very depths of her faith.
"I don't know how to explain it!" she said again and again. "Bobby is always so good about such things! I've brought him up—and deliberately. My dear Mrs. Owen, such a beautiful frosting, and to have it ruined like that!"
But Mrs. Fuller, fat, placid, perhaps slightly stupid, here rose to the heights of what her husband always admiringly called "horse sense."
"Now, Carroll," she said, "stop your worrying about it. You'll get yourself all worked up and spoil your lunch and ours, all for nothing. Children will be naughty sometimes. I was naughty myself. So were you, probably. That's human nature. Just don't worry about it and spoil the good time."
Mrs. Orde thereupon fell silent, for she was a sensible woman and could see the point as to lessening the other's enjoyment. Little by little she cooled off, until at last she was able to join in the fun; although always in the background of her mind persisted the necessity of knowing a reason for such an outbreak.
The flurry over, Welton insisted that they all admire the peaches.
"Best Michigan produces," he boasted. "Every one big as a coffee-cup; and perfect in shape, colour and flavour. Freestone, too. Nothing exceptional about them either. Millions more just like 'em. Can't match them anywhere in the world."
"Saw by the paper this spring that the peach crop was ruined by the frost," marvelled Carlin.
Taylor laughed.