Fleda said she could not stay, and explained her business.
"So you ha'n't come to see me, after all? Well, now, take off your hat 'cause I wont have anything to say to you till you do. I'll give you supper right away."
"But I have left my aunt alone, Mrs. Douglass; and the afternoons are so short now, it would be dark before we could get home."
"Serve her right for not coming along! and you sha'n't walk home in the dark, for Earl will harness the team, and carry you home like a streak the horses have nothing to do. Come, you sha'n't go."
And as Mrs. Douglass laid violent hands on her bonnet, Fleda thought best to submit. She was presently rewarded with the promise of the very person she wanted a boy, or young man, then in Earl Douglass's employ; but his wife said, "she guessed he'd give him up to her;" and what his wife said, Fleda knew Earl Douglass was in the habit of making good.
"There aint enough to do to keep him busy," said Mrs. Douglass. "I told Earl he made me more work than he saved; but he's hung on till now."
"What sort of a boy is he, Mrs. Douglass."
"He aint a steel-trap, I tell you beforehand," said the lady, with one of her sharp intelligent glances; "he don't know which way to go till you show him; but he's a clever enough kind of a chap he don't mean no harm. I guess he'll do for what you want."
"Is he to be trusted?"
"Trust him with anything but a knife and fork," said she, with another look and shake of the head. "He has no idee but what everything on the supper-table is meant to be eaten straight off. I would keep two such men as my husband as soon as I would Philetus."