He colored up. “I bought it to the greenhouse,” he says. “I’m a-goin’ to shovel paths till the first of March to pay for it. And they gimme one path ahead for postage.”
“Who you sending it to?” says Mis’ Holcomb, blunt—and I kind of wished she wouldn’t, because the folks right round us was beginning to listen.
“To mother,” says Stubby.
Mis’ Holcomb near dropped the box. “My land!” she said, “why didn’t you take it to her? You’re goin’ to-morrow to spend Christmas with her, ain’t you?”
Stubby shook his head and swallowed some.
“I ain’t going,” he told her.
“Ain’t going!” Mis’ Holcomb says. “Why ain’t you goin’, I’d like to know, when you was promised?”
“My brother wrote he can’t,” said Stubby. “He’s had some money to pay. He can’t send me. I——”
He stopped, and looked down on the floor as hard as ever he could, and swallowed like lightning.
“Well, but that’s how we got her to go there,” Mis’ Holcomb says. “We promised her you’d come.”