And when, in a few minutes, Mary Elizabeth and I were out on the street again, running silently, I remember feeling a great blind rage against the whole village and against the whole world that couldn’t seem to think what to do any more than Mary Elizabeth and I could think.
The man of the New Family was watering the lawn, which meant that supper was done. We slipped in our back gate,—the New Family had none,—climbed the fence by my play-house, dropped down into the New Family’s garden, and entered their woodshed. In my own mind I had settled that I was of small account if I could not give the New Lady such a picture of what had happened that Mary Elizabeth should not lose her place, and I should not lose her.
The kitchen door was ajar. The dish-pan was in the sink, the kettle was steaming on the stove. And from out the dining-room abruptly appeared Calista and Delia, bearing plates.
“Girls!” I cried, but Mary Elizabeth was dumb.
Delia carefully set down her plate in the dish-pan and addressed me:
“Well, you needn’t think you’re the only one that knows what’s proper, miss,” she said.
Calista was more simple.
“We wanted to get ’em all done before you got back,” she owned. “We would, if Margaret Amelia and Betty had of come. They wanted to, but they wouldn’t let ’em.”
Back of Delia and Calista appeared the mistress of the house. She had on her afternoon dress, and her curl papers were out, and she actually smiled at Mary Elizabeth and me.
“Now then!” she said to us.