The warmth and color faded out of Tilly's face until it looked wan and pinched in the morning light.
"It's no matter about the chickens. You needn't even have given those back. Of course it's always terrible to—to take things, but if you'll only give back the spoons."
"The spoons?" echoed Tilly, and there seemed to be such genuine bewilderment in her tone that Patty felt inclined to believe Uncle Reuben's accusation that she was sly. "I don't know anything about any spoons."
"Tilly, your mitten caught on the basket and was ravelled, and—and I saw you knitting it up in the barn." Patty's tone was rather pitiful than accusing, but Tilly's face flamed angrily.
"I didn't s'pose you was one to go peeking round and spying on folks," she cried. "I guess I've got a right to do a little knitting anywheres that I'm a mind to, and—and you can't say 'twas a mitten."
"I saw it, Tilly, a red mitten. This is the yarn that was caught on the basket." Polly drew from her pocket the red ravelling, wound upon a bit of paper.
"Yarn!" echoed Tilly, contemptuously taking a bit between her thumb and finger. "I call that worsted!"
"And are your mittens yarn?" cried Tilly, eagerly. "Because that would prove—-"
"I never said they were," said Tilly, quickly, the color deepening in her cheeks, "I never said anything about them, and I sha'n't show them to anybody. And I never saw your old spoons in all my born days—so there!" Tilly would have shut the door, but Patty prevented her.