This went on for the better part of the autumn. Finally Edith overdid it. One evening she accused Nathan of having let the horse out of the boxstall. She swore she saw him. She gave a convincing and vivid account as an eye-witness. Only it happened Nathan had been with his father down in the village all the afternoon, unknown to Edith.
Caught in a bald-faced lie, Edith snickered. Then she slapped her brother’s face as being somehow responsible.
Edith was not chastised for falsehood, but Nathan got his ears boxed soundly for “daring to lay a finger on his little sister” when he defended himself.
In fact, Mrs. Forge thought the escape of the horse and Edith’s discomfiture a rather good joke. If there was wrong in it, Edith would “grow out of it.” Of course! She was a girl!
That night Mrs. Forge read Nathan a homily on chivalry. There were many things boys could not do without punishment that were perfectly permissible for little girls.
III
Johnathan Forge “failed” at his store in the Center, as he appeared to fail at everything everywhere. He became convinced he “could do better in a larger place.” Thus came a certain day when Nathan raced up to my house bursting with excitement.
“We’re going to move to Paris! We’re going to move to Paris!” he cried. “Dad’s got a job in the newspaper office and we’re going as soon’s we can pack our things.”
Going to Paris, Vermont, at that age, was like going to Paris, France, in these later years. It was not something to be negotiated. It was something to be attained.
The day the family left town I hung about the Forge house all the forenoon, divided between doing the work of two men gratis, or getting in the way so skillfully that Johnathan Forge was moved to profanity. But the goods were loaded at last and after dinner Nat came over in his “best clothes” to bid me good-by.