Finding out just what Mr. Ridlet accused father of, made the estrangement between Bub and me seem worse. Our going together would never be fixed up now. I had hoped our fathers would, some time, settle things. It was tough. I couldn’t put my mind to anything, mother noticed.
“What’s the matter, Seth?” she asked. “Aren’t you well?” she went on, seeing I didn’t answer. “You don’t eat much, and you are moping all the time. How would you like your Cousin Mel to visit you a while?”
I rushed off. Mel was a real softy, with shining shoes, slick hair, and all that. About as ready to go on a tramp as a girl. I couldn’t bear the thought of him.
I went under the grape vine that grows over the trellis between Mr. Ridlet’s garden and ours.
I threw myself down, looking up into the leaves, making a mat overhead, and counting the green bunches, as if that was great fun.
It was a hot day—such a day as one likes to creep along barefooted in the wet grass by the brooks, fishing-pole in hand.
I thought of Bub, and how, if things had been all right, we’d been ready to start off, and, well—
Then I heard some one pulling apart the vines against the fence, and the next minute I sprung up as if I was shot, for Bub’s voice, rather shaky, called:
“Seth!”
I turned my back on him.